Article Review: 'Conceptions of Learning in Adult Students Embarking on Distance Education'

Adam Savage once said “I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody 's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you 're here. And when you don 't, well, you suffer the consequences.” Now, what if we replaced “adulthood” with the term “higher education”, or more specifically, “distance education”? The words become almost synonymous when you define what it takes to succeed in either field. In the article, College Distance Education Courses: Evaluating Benefits and Costs from Institutional, Faculty and Students’ Perspectives written by Simon A. Lei and Rajeev K. Gupta, distance education is defined as “technology-based instruction in which students are at a location physically separated from their instructor during the entire course of study” (Lei and Gupta 616). In Lei and Gupta’s article, there are many drawbacks of distance education defined, but distance education remains an amazing opportunity because the benefits and the platform to develop useful life skills far outweigh said drawbacks.

“Can You Be Educated from a Distance,” an insightful essay by James Barszcz, brings to focus some of the benefits and disadvantages of Distance Learning education (DL). In it, Barszcz discusses the mechanics of DL courses available to students, the quality of education DL can offer, and some reasoning behind its rapidly growing popularity. “Can You Be Educated from a Distance” is an engaging article that students of all ages can benefit from.

In order to analyze student participation they "presented an 8 week course on web-based distance learning to Masters students on a computer-integrated education course at the University of Pretoria" (Nagel et. al., 2007, p.41). Matriculated in this course were students from a diverse background and different age groups ranging from 30 to 50 years old.

This report will be helpful for writing the research paper because it has statistics about the effectiveness of online learning.

Most individuals are finding the online world flexible and convenient, and accurately matching their objectives and busy kind of lives. Online learning capabilities have proliferated and have ensured vital knowledge and skills for the learners. Students can easily locate various learning programs online, and these are always accessible and convenient for any interested party in the online fraternity. However, there are few challenges that are associated with the online world, but the educators have provided succinct methods that can be used by learners to develop knowledge and skills that are associated with the learning platform.

Distance learning (education) has become an integral part of the education process over the past few decades and is growing in popularity as technology advances.(Willis 1992) describes distance education (as) "the organizational framework andprocess of providing instruction at a distance. Distance education takes place when ateacher and student(s) are physically separated, and technology…(is) used to bridge theinstruction gap." (Coutts 1996). Furthermore, "distance learning activities are designedto fit the specific context for learning, the nature of the subject matter; intended learningoutcomes, needs and goals of the learner, the learner's environment and the instructional echnologies and methods." (American

Learning is more than just receiving information. Traditionally learning was to be in campus, where students would interact with one a another, there were no other ways for learners to get educated beside going to the classroom and listening to the instructor. Nowadays the Internet has brought different ways for people to receive information, such as getting education and degrees online. A few years ago online education was never thinkable, and yet it has become to reality and it is widely expanding with popularity. Online education is a type of educational instruction that delivers learning to individuals to their own homes, and it is getting very popular among nontraditional student and others. Individuals prefer online education

Non-traditional students are finding it easier and easier to maintain a job, a family, and pursuing a college career at the same time. This is possible because more and more non-traditional students are receiving an education using distance learning, as opposed to traditional, in-the-classroom teaching. Distance learning is basically taking college level, credit-bearing courses via the Internet. One of the most obvious advantages of distance learning is that it puts the classroom in your home, office, or wherever you can find a computer and log on to the Internet. However, there is much controversy regarding the quality of the courses being offered on the Internet versus the quality of

Motivation is an inspiration technique to encourage to interestingly doing something. In distance learning, it means how to inspire the people to develop their academic career with the help of distance learning. People who are outside of formal education for various reasons, they may be motivated to get return into learning process without at cost of much sacrifice of their day to day activities. Now a day, Distance education plays an important role in expansion of higher education not only in India but also covering the world as a whole. If it can be popularized among the people with a positive way as per their requirement, then a large section of people will be academically developed. Some Distance Educational courses are started in University with its centre at various colleges in Assam besides IGNOU i.e. IDOL, KKHSOU, Dibrugarh University Distance Education etc. Due to the limited seat for students at regular courses offered at University and College level in Assam, a large section of students are failed to fulfilled their desire to attain higher

Education has undergone significant changes because of the development of information and communication technology over the 21st century (Lin & Jou, 2012:2). As a convenient and inexpensive way to gain knowledge while pursuing higher education, online learning, a form of training or teaching that takes place over the Internet, has been considered as an alternative to traditional classroom learning (Zhang et al, 2004). This essay will argue that even though online learning has benefit such as flexibility which could outweigh traditional learning, traditional classroom learning might still not be entirely replaced. This essay will discuss positive and negative aspects of online and traditional learning in terms of four criteria:

Education is an important part of people’s lives; it will either make them or break them in the future depending on the careers they choose. Education is greatly diverse today in comparison to the 1950s because of advancements in teaching and other great inventions that provide easier techniques of teaching. One major issue that has been raised is distant learning courses and online education.

Online distant learning programs help make the easy connection of students in a program connect to the more accessible home environment in a simple way. Students are now given the option of getting their education and making their own schedules, without going through a second person in an easy more efficient way. Consequently, to succeed in online courses and programs the student must have good time management, a computer or laptop, and internet connection. Also online distant learning programs are subjectively done through monologue, not our dialogue; having been previously filmed and then posted on the internet stating course information, not caring about the viewers, or if the

Higher education has been adapting distance education with the same enthusiasm as traditional education in today’s higher learning intuitions. Online education has its advantages and disadvantages. In this paper we are going to explore the advantages and disadvantages and explain ultimately what type of student is best for distant learning based on their own goals and study habits.

You can access the following site in order to encounter some e-learning courses regarding e-learning. http://demos.oxford-elearning.com/elearningcourse/

Ever since the computer evolution the way people learn has changed. Back in the day the major idea of learning was limited to a physical classroom environment, but since the advent of computers and the Internet that idea has since changed. Now it is possible to learn anywhere at anytime as long as one has a computing device and Internet access. There is usually confusion between Online Learning and E-learning, as people tend to use the two interchangeably in some cases.