Introducing the Systems View
Read Distance Education: A Systems View, pages 8-19. This section of Chapter One not only makes up the bulk of the chapter, but it
also provides a conceptual framework for the remainder of the course. By reading
this, you get an overview of the course and of the field. The idea of distance
education as a field of study, as you will read later in this book, originated
in the early 1970's and the pioneer thinkers about this shared a view of the
value of using a systems approach. Today a growing number of educators
recognize the necessity to understand that distance education is a system with
several key sub-systems, and that it is essential to study all of these, including
making an attempt to understand their inter-relationship. (This may appear fairly
obvious to you. Nowadays most texts about distance education are organized into
sections dealing with theory, history, learning, teaching, policy and administration
as well as technology; they have accepted and copied the systems view that was
explained with regard to distance education in the First Edition of this
textbook.)
Read Distance Education: A Systems View, pages 19-22, "Distance
Education is about to change." The
closing section of this chapter draws your attention to something that by now
should have become apparent to you. What you are studying here is far more than
simply delivering educational programs by means of technology, or even a different
way of organizing educational institutions to deliver educational programs in
addition to those they traditionally offer. Distance education is a movement
towards a new culture of learning and teaching, with fundamentally different
distribution of human and other resources that adds up to "a Copernican revolution."
And at the center of this system is ..... ? Yes of course, the student. A change
as fundamental as this is not going to come about in a day. There is a lot of
tacit opposition from many vested interests. Think about it.
Carefully
reflect on Sally Johnstone's viewpoint about the future of distance education
in Moore-Kearsley, page 22 and her comments in the audio clip below. Make reference to her comments in discussions and assignments where appropriate.
The full implications of what she is saying won't come fully into focus at this early stage of your study, but you can almost certainly recognize that some very significant developments are going on under that apparently simple guise of "distance education." I hope you will keep your senses alert, to pick up signs and evidence of these changes, as well as the actions of counter-revolutionary forces that are resisting change. The picture will become more clear as we go forward to explore the evolution of the field, which is the subject of our Unit 2.
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