Week 13: Distance Education and Virtual Schooling

During week 13 in EME2040, we discussed Distance Education and Virtual Schooling. Distance education is a field of education thats key focus is on the pedagogy and andragogy, as well as technology to deliver education to students who are not actually on site. The University of London was the first university to offer distance education. In 2006, Sloan Consortium reported that 96% of the largest colleges in the United States offered online courses. Some advantages of distance learning are: flexibility, work at your own pace, and further adult education; some disadvantages are: costly, rapid change, must be highly motivated, and the lack of personal impact instructors can make. Virtual schooling is an online based public distance school that links administrators, teachers, and students. There is up to 200 students per class. Students and their teachers communicate over the phone through a monthly required parent phone call. There are many of the same advantages and disadvantages for virtual school as there is for distance education. Overall, the online education system works well for some and not so well for others.

Distance education and virtual schooling relate directly to my chosen career field, education. These are both great opportunities not only for the students, but for teaching as well. Many teachers go from physically being in the classroom to teaching a virtual school course. This allows for teachers to do things through the internet which allows them to work at home. This could be beneficial when having children. It is also a great opportunity to extend advancement to students who are seeking more than what their high schools offer.

This article was taken from www.eschoolnews.com. It is an article on "Why some students prefer virtual schooling." I chose this because I think that virtual schooling receives a lot of negative feedback from both sides, but this article explains students point of view on specific online education courses.