Tuesday, February 19, 2008 . 3:49 AM

In the previous post I had talked about the general features of e-learning 2.0. In this post, I will narrow the subject down to distance education via eLearning tools.

Distance learning has evolved through four or five "generations" of technology in its history. The first form of distance learning was in 1728, and this was primarily through print and mail. Even now, some countries have radio broadcasts on academic disciplines. Nowadays, degrees are increasingly being conferred through the Internet.

We've seen examples of distance learning in our own course at UB. We use to Blackboard to access documents, and some of our subjects (like NTR, MGQ, and so on) were covered through online lectures from professors at UB itself.

Through these tools, our classroom is partially shifted to the Internet. But distance learning is also especially useful for older adult learners. As the article by Adobe, "Delivering on the Promise of E-learning" states, "eLearning has found a particularly loyal and growing audience among working adult learners". In today's highly mobile working world, distance education mostly benefits workers unable to spend their time at a learning institution. Ebooks, podcasts, VOD (video-on-demand) casts, and even certain games (remember SL?) help these students gain an education. The list of technologies that can be used is virtually endless.

The challenges eLearning and distance education in particular faces, are balancing fun and instruction and lack of individualised student attention. Also, students are prone to cheating on online quizzes and exams. I would venture to say that the success of distance education would primarily be the mindset of the student; how sincere the student is about getting their education, and how open and flexible the student is about getting this education through new technologies.