My library school experience: distance education
I have been struggling for a couple of months to actually write this point about distance education, trying to figure out what about my recent school experience has left me unsatisfied. It finally dawned on me that the distance program that I just completed had no soul, no personality and no heart - absolutely nothing to set it apart from any generic online classroom experience. I would like to believe that institutions of higher learning are not implementing distance programs solely as a means to increase revenue. However, it is awfully difficult to avoid this conclusion when faced with accounts of bad experiencesin the online arena.
To me, an education is so much more than just textbooks, reading the literature, writing papers and attending lectures. One can’t in any way discount the important of the academic piece, but neither should anyone rely upon it as the sole component. After much internal debate, I think this is where I see the biggest weakness of distance education programs. They tend to offer little to students outside of the curriculum. Somebody needs to understand that distance students have the same needs and expectations as traditional students, but that those needs have to be filled in different ways.
When one chooses a degree program, they look at many things besides academics. People look for opportunities outside of the classroom, opportunities to develop relationships with faculty and mentors, availability of career counselling, availability to help with academics and research, opportunities to interact with peer and other opportunities that augment and enhance the classroom experiences. These are the types of things that help keep students challenged and engaged. I am certainly not naive enough to expect that a distance education program can fulfill these things in the same manner than a traditional one can. …