Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Elements of Distance Education

 Global diversity is emerging in the genre of distance education.  In predicting the new innovations and determining what will be common trends, there are elements, factors, and social acceptance to analyze before a product can be known as a common trend.  Dr. Siemen’s webcast explains the different aspects of global diversity in the educational and corporate genres.   He continues by explaining how distance education provides the Earth with an opportunity to reach unknown locations and connect nationally and internationally.  This increases e-learning possibilities.  Therefore, global diversity, communication, and collaboration interactions have provided a platform for distance education to cultivate and become mature.  Gros and Adrian (2005) state that this type of environment will provide distance education students an alternative environment for constructing knowledge and encourage instructors to use multiple technologies that utilize different educational techniques. Hence, distance education instructors may implement webcasts, skype, facebook, wikispaces, blogs, and/or any other asynchronous or synchronous web 2.0 tools into their lessons or curriculums.

          So, do I agree or disagree with Dr. Siemen’s notions and ideologies? Well yes, I agree with Dr. Siemen concepts based on my own personal research on distance education and its possibilities.



Gros, B., & Adrian, M. (2005).  The use of virtual forums to provide collaborative learning in higher education.  Educational Technology, 45(5), 17-20.

Laureate Education Inc. (2008).  Principles of Distance Education.  Baltimore:  Author.