Designed properly, distance education classes can be at least as effective and, in some ways, even more effective than face-to-face courses. The tools and technologies used for distance education courses facilitate learning opportunities not possible in the face-to-face classroom. Distance programs are accelerating changes that are challenging students, faculty, and the university, itself. Currently, most faculties are rewarded for the quality of instruction, as well as their external funding and their research. Often, university administrators focus more attention on the efficiency of teaching than on its effectiveness. In the future, as the quality of distance learning increases, the primary factor for success will be the faculty’s commitment to excellence in teaching.

The newest overhaul is distance learning, which began at the college level but is now a realtime factor from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Christa McAuliffe Academy, for example, is a virtual, accredited, private K-12 school headquartered in Yakima, Washington. Not only can you earn your high school diploma through the academy from wherever you live in the United States, but you also can be part of the Student Congress or go to the prom—which is during graduation week, so there’s only one trip to Yakima at the end of senior year.

More common are online classes that enable you to receive high school and/or college credit in one of several ways. Interactive telecourses use live video to broadcast the course to your school and perhaps other sites as well. The instructor is on a video screen; students are in classrooms at desks fitted with microphones so they can talk with the instructor and students at other locations.

In addition, the population of today’s learners can be described as being more than 25 years old, with a job and/or family responsibilities. The vast student body requires a flexible program that can accommodate job-related travel, need for a more mobile learning environment and a learning method which may be more entertaining and interactive than the traditional “stand and lecture” method. In the process of innovating with technology in the college curriculum, business schools are confronted with the issue of achieving a balance between the issues of “richness” and “reach.” While members of the faculty see an opportunity to enrich education, administrators see an opportunity to realize economies of scale. Results from this empirical study show that students perceive a face-to-face course supported by a web site to be useful in enhancing their academic performance. Almost all the students made use of the classroom lectures and web site resources and did not feel the need to stay away from lectures.

If you begin with www.google.com, type in distance learning classes for high school students. You’ll find offerings from high schools, colleges, and universities and for-profit companies. Don’t sign up for anything, though, until you ask your counselor about your school’s requirements and procedures to follow. Neither high school nor college credit is automatic, no matter what your final grade.

Distance courses can be as effective as face-to-face courses when using any of the traditional measures, such as exams and grades. However, these traditional measures may be inadequate to measure of many of the benefits observed in classes that utilize online-mediated communications technology for a number of reasons:

• Due to social pressures, students tend to be more concerned with how other students view their work quality than how the professor views it. They are significantly more motivated to participate in a meaningful way when their fellow students can view their contributions.

• When equality of communications is encouraged, students cannot get away with being passive or lazy. The transcript or electronic recording of the discussions shows who is and is not participating. It is visible to both the instructor and other students that someone is being lazy. (In fact, students seem to be more concerned with what the other students will think of their performance than what the professor will think.)

• The scope of what the outstanding students learn becomes even more noticeable.

• The performance of students at the lower end of the distribution is improved. The communications systems permit them to catch up, because they are able to obtain a better understanding of the material with which they are most uncomfortable or have the least background knowledge.

• The instructor can become more aware of his/her successes or failures with individual students because of the reflective nature of the student contributions to the discussion.

Interface and function of distance education that the student use

Asynchronous discussions: In the online environment, students can take as much time as they need to reflect on a discussion and polish their comments. This improves the quality of the discussion and changes the psychology and the sociology of communications.

Online conference and roles: With online course conferences (many per course), student can see  the membership of each, assign roles and enable to join private online conferences for team and collaborative work group assignments.

Question and answer communication: Students are able to ask questions during discussions.

Voting: Instant access to group and individual opinions on resolutions and issues are enabled by voting capabilities. This is useful for promoting discussion and the voting process is continuous so that changes of views can be tracked by everyone. Voting is not used to make decisions. Rather, its function is to explore and discover what are the current agreements and disagreements or uncertainties (polarized vs. flat voting distributions) so that the class can focus the continuing discussion on the latter. Students may change their votes at anytime during the discussion.

Notifications: Short alerts notify individuals when things occur that they need to know about. For instance, students can be notified that a new set of grades or vote distribution has been posted, eliminating the need for individuals to check for these postings. People can attach notifications to conference comments from a select list that provides alternatives like: I agree, I disagree, I applaud, Boo! Such appendages reduce significantly the need to provide paralinguistic cues of reinforcement as additional separate comments.

Calendars, agendas or schedules: Students have access to a space to track the individual and collaborative assignments and their due dates. These are listed in an organized manner that links detailed explanations for each assignment, as well as questions and answers related to the assignments.

The Pros of Distance Learning

- You may be able to graduate early.

- You can fit more classes into a semester.

- You can take classes not offered at your school.

- You’ll be able to do coursework when it’s convenient.

- The teacher, other students, and resources are only a click away.

- You’ll be able to interact with people throughout your state, country, or even the world.

- If you got a poor or failing grade in a class at school, you may retake it to improve your grade. You’ll still need to ask your counselor about what grade (or grades) will show up on your transcript, however.

The Cons of Distance Learning

- Distance learning tends not to work if you aren’t disciplined enough to work independently.

- You’ll be isolated physically, unless technology and class assignments encourage interaction.

- It can take longer for class rapport to build, since you, the teacher, and other students may have little background in common.

- If you aren’t comfortable with the technology, you may hesitate to participate in class discussion.

- The motivation that arises from contact with and competition with others in the classroom isn’t present.