The Chronicle of Higher Education has an opinion piece about the myths that are still around about distance/online learning. It is perplexing to those of us who work in the field that we can still be having these sorts of conversations. The first distance education courses were offered, what, 150 years ago? Granted, they were not online, but the world has a sufficiently long history of offering education where the teacher and the students are not in the same place.
Librarian and online instructor Todd Gilman offers the following:
I enjoy the work and feel confident that I have helped students become better readers, writers, future librarians, curators, and researchers. Yet every time I speak with faculty colleagues who have only taught what distance educators call “face to face” or “on ground” courses, I get the same bewildered responses: “I’ve never understood this whole online teaching thing” or “So do you teach via e-mail?” or “Is that like a correspondence course?”
Hidden beneath the surface of such seemingly innocuous comments and questions is a little jab, which, if put into words, would go something like this: “You’re not a real college teacher, are you? If you were, you’d be interacting with students in a bricks-and-mortar classroom like I do.”
I am still amazed that we are still having these sorts of discussions whether it is at the college or the K-12 level. One of the statistics that I share with administrators, teachers, and the general public is that the first online high school courses were offered in 1994.
Isn’t it time we get over the newness?
Tags: distance education, myths, online learning
