Question:
distance learning is rather new but I suppose with modern technology it will become an effective means for working adults to educate themselves to remain relevent in this rapidly changing world of ours.
Any comments
Answer:
actually the first recorded distance learning goes back some 2,000 years. The letters of Paul to his friends in various places are instructions and task orientation. DL degrees go back to the Pitman system in the UK about a hundred years ago--and if I'm not in error the Rapid Results College in London is over 100 years old. ACPDI started on a BBS with branches in Tahiland, Austria, Los Angeles and New York in 1979, and in 1982 was on Compuserve, joined on CIS in 83 I think by Steve Eskew's Electronic Univesity. CALC (Computer Assisted Learning Center) stared in NY on Quick-Link, a regional BBS in 82. In 84 at Cerritos College in Norwalk we were offering English One on a dedicated BBS, and in 83 the Los Angekes Schools had a homework helper BBS going. I am not sure of the exact year but I think U of Phoenix was on line on CIS in 85 or 86. From 83-89 I ran a BA/MBA degree program on CIS for Western International U, also in Phoenix, and now absorbed by U of P. So, actually, DL has been around for a long time with dedicated classroms, interactive conference and class sessions, and with international student body. I have often had students from Japan, Israel, Germany, South Africa, and of course the US on line in the same class.
You could say that Albert Einstein and Woodrow Wilson were both recipients of distance learning Ph.D.s, and according to Malcolm Knowles, in his A History of the Adult Education Movement in the United States, Goddard College had that type of program in the 1930s, and Brooklyn College and University of Oklahoma in the 1950s. I am sure there are many others. So it really is nothing new.
