Reflection on the Future of Distance Learning

Introduction
Distance learning has grown exponentially within the past ten years. The presence of a wide variety of online programs as well as the tremendous number of schools and organization that offer distance education has provided excellent educational opportunities to many students as well as working professionals to study further. These opportunities will open more chances for career changes and development as compared to past generations. This course has helped me have an insight into the perceptions of distance learning and developed my skills in course design and instructional delivery.

Perceptions of Distance Learning
The easy access, flexibility and diversity of distance learning will make it a more popular choice for people who are seeking a higher education. They will be able to meet their educational needs as well as learn anywhere, anytime and in a practical way with a lower cost. Currently, some people still have the perception that distance education is less rigorous, less demanding, with less value than traditional face-to-face education, and with less or no accreditation. I believe the future will see a change in these perceptions as distance learning will be more familiar and the society begins to realize the quality, value, and depth that many distance education courses and programs can provide. I also expect the future to see an end to many of the “degree mills” as a result of the wide spread of high quality, valuable, and accredited online education programs.

Instructional Designer Role
As distance education continues to evolve and starts to dominate, it will rely more and more on the content quality, higher levels of students’ interaction and the use of the latest technology to deliver the learning materials. It is the role of the instructional designer to make that happen. He should know how to use the rapidly evolving technology tools in order to effectively deliver the perfect message to the learners. Peters (2002) has suggested that “the swift, unforeseen, unexpected and unbelievable achievement of information and communication technologies will require the design of new formats of learning and teaching and will cause powerful and far-reaching structural changes of the learning-teaching process” (Simonson et al, 2009). Accordingly, I believe the instructional designers will be a major proponent for improving positive societal perceptions of distance learning if they managed to continuously use the learning theories, available experimental data, and latest suitable technology tools to design such new formats of meaningful, interactive and high quality learning programs.
To be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance learning, I will need, as an instructional designer, to continuously develop my knowledge, be creative, be innovative, use the latest technology tools to visualize and think of every possible way to make the subjects interesting to the learners.

References:

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.