The Future of Distance Learning

People have grown to appreciate distance learning over the past two years due to a pandemic. Educators, students, and parents were forced to transition from face-to-face education and training to online education and training. Before the pandemic, distance learning was an alternative to conventional learning methods and the students were primarily adults.

Generally, distance learning has two parts- distance and technology.

First is the physical separation of the teacher from the learner: the communication between the teacher and the learner becomes indirect, which helps students learn at their own speed, in any place, and at any time that suits their circumstances and needs. Second is the role of effective modern media and communication tools in transferring learning to students using multiple educational media, whether through printed, electronic, recorded, or visual materials. (Hamaidi, 2021)

In the future distance learning will be an intricate part of a student's educational and work career. I think in the next 5-10 years distance learning will be a significant part of elementary age students, but more significant with secondary and post-secondary age students. Academic experience and years of studies are known to “exert an influence on students' attitudes and degree of satisfaction from distance learning” (Baruth, 2021).

As an instructional designer, I can be a visible proponent for improving societal perceptions of distance learning by creating and designing successful learning experiences. By applying the knowledge and skills I acquired in my training as an instructional designer, I will create successful learning experiences. As we witnessed throughout the past two years, distance learning is a vital component of our educational and training needs. As we improve our distance learning experiences, we will see tremendous growth and acceptance of distance learning.

So as those communication technologies improve in quality, we're going to start to see the educational model around it also ramp up significantly. So distance education then becomes more distributed than it's ever been. Greater contribution from experts around the world, increased use of multimedia, games, simulations-- for example, video work within courses. (Siemens, n.d.)

If I encounter an opponent of distance or online learning, I will simply ask them- “Based on recent events, can you imagine a world without distance learning or instructional designers?” 

I cannot.

References

Baruth, O. 2021. Distance learning perceptions during the coronavirus outbreak: Freshmen versus more advanced students. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. Volume 37, Issue 6 p. 1666-1681

Hamaidi, D. 2021. Parents’ Perceptions of Their Children’s Experiences with Distance Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(2), 224–241.

Siemens, G. n.d. Walden University, LLC. (Producer). The future of distance education         [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu