While distance learning is not for everyone, the flexible education alternative provides teachers and students with many advantages.

A colleague once asked me why I teach online. After several seconds of thought, I realized how that answer has changed over the last 10 years. I first began teaching online because it allowed the students to use the current technology to their advantage and have a little flexibility in their schedule. In 1991 that flexibility was limited, and compared to now, the technology was even more limited.

My first class had four students, and we meet in class once a week and online three times a week. I needed information online to help the students understand the assignments, so I taped my class lectures and reduced them to the primary points. Then I wrote those points into ASCII text files, which I set into a scrolling file that the students could read from their computer screens. Of course, the students could only go forward - no jumping around or going backward. As the semester progressed, we learned ways to perfect the information and add some uniqueness to the class presentation. By the end of the third semester of offering online classes, I had found ways for my students to communicate with each other and with me through a discussion board within the bulletin board. I also discovered hypertext that allowed the students to move around in the assignments area with a greater amount of ease. Links could be made between subjects, and concepts could be associated with a variety of topics. The power of technology began to become more apparent to me as I played with ways for the students to learn what they did not know and bypass that information which they did not need to learn.

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By: William Wade

Article source: T. H. E. Journal