The one constant concerning Distance Education and its definition is that it is a competitive and contested discourse.
To ascribe a definition is to ignore this. All previous models, theories and definitions are products of the context of their time. As technology changed thus providing changes in methods, so too have the theories, models and definitions. We see changing realities within formal, informal and lifelong learning/education; changes in student isolation, time, space and place, changes in autonomy, community and responsibility for learning; changes in non-contiguous, synchronous and asynchronous interaction brought about by technology.
Does this dictate that Distance Education is redundant or needs to be discontinued as a descriptive term? Given the predominance of its use globally in the titles of Distance Education associations and major organisation such as ICDE, UNESCO and COL who use it in their title or feature it highly in their documentation, the weight of usage identifies it as a relevant term, even with its contested description.
The ongoing debate about distance education
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May 25, 2011 at 8:23 pm |
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