New Technologies
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Affordable New Technologies in Distance Education for Adult Learners in the
United States and the United Kingdom
John M. Preston
Eastern Michigan University
December, 1995
(Note: Significant parts of the text and about half of the references have been removed to shorten this paper for more convenient editing. Not all of the references cited are contained in the reference list.)
Distance education is directly affected by innovations in communication technology and rapidly changing prices. These innovations happen so quickly that a study of this field requires a mix of information resources that can vary in immediacy from the report of scholarly research that spans several years to the announcement of a recent development in the morning paper or even a message on a computer bulletin board. This review will explore the various technologies that are used for distance education of adult learners that are experiencing rapid change. The technologies are separated into those that are used for interactive dialog between the teacher and the learner and those that assist the learner in self-directed study. The paper will then focus on the costs of these new technologies and how lower costs are making dramatic differences in the technology available to the individual learner. The review is limited to developments in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Interactive Technologies
Two areas of interactive distance education that are changing rapidly are video conferencing and computer-based communications...