Distance Education Trends

Alpers, Jessica

IL-Information Literacy and 21st Century Skills

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance education, 27(2), 139-153.

Summary: The beginning of this article discusses technologies that are used in distance education, such a blogs and podcasts. Seven principles are given to describe how technology should be used in distance education. It should “encourage contact between students and faculty, develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, use active learning techniques, give prompt feedback, emphasize time on task, communicate high expectations, [and] respect diverse talents and ways of learning.” After discussing these seven principles, the article discusses how distance learning is changing.

Evaluation: I found this article very appropriate as we are all distance learners. We are very involved in technology as part of this class. The article was interesting to read to evaluate how this class and others use technology. For those who may run online classes as educators, this article would be a very valuable resource.