RESEARCH PAPER

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in EDLE & CUIN
EDUC 5324: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO EDUCATION
Name: Serdar Ozguven

Date: 10/23/2016

Topic Selected: Advantages and Disadvantages of Distance Education

1. LITERATURE REVIEW:

Brief Literature Review:

There is common fact that even though distance education is of lots of advantages, it may
also have many disadvantages when it is not planned appropriately (COAR, M. m.
2015). Distance education represents a tremendous change in how higher education
delivered (Fender, D. L. 1999). Online learning tools provide effective means to present
information to learners, without being in a classroom setting The tools provide
opportunities to heighten project based learning, as well as engage and motivate learners
(Stear, S. s., & Mensch, S. S. 2012). There are benefits and drawbacks to offering
distance education. Benefits to the student include:
Increased access to higher education (particularly for the nontraditional student),
Flexible scheduling of personal time,
Convenient location,
Individualized attention by the instructor,
Less travel, and
Increased time to think about, and respond to (via e-mail or discussion boards),
Questions posed by the instructor.
The institution also reaps benefits from offering distance education. It increases
enrollment, attracts new teaching staff (those interested in distance education), reduces
the need to build and maintain university campuses and buildings, offers a new level of
communication with students, requires the university to keep abreast of new technology,
and signals the public that the institution is forward thinking and technologically
advanced.
The disadvantages of distance education include:
Cost of entry and educational materials,
Labor intensity,
Need for staff training,
Cost of the student,
Inadequate infrastructure,
Maintaining sufficient student contact,
Inadequate reflection, conversation and intellectual dialogue
Possible fraud in authenticating submissions,
Legal issues of intellectual property rights,

 Inadequate financial aid policies (Matthews, D. 1999).

Distance Education as a Discursive Practice: Voice, Discourse, and Pedagogy moves us
into a more theoretical look at distance education. The authors discuss the effects that
technology use in teaching and learning have on relationships between teachers and
students and how the learning space and experiences are changed by technology. These
changes are difficult to quantify but play a role in student learning and, hence, are worthy
of future research (Maddux, C. 1., Ewing-Taylor, J., & Johnson, D. L. 2002).

2. REFLECTION:

What is your personal opinion on this issue? Do you agree with the
research? If you agree or disagree, please explain why?
Provide examples/experiences regarding this issue from school
perspective or If you are not working in a school, from your profession. Be
specific with your examples. You can mention software/hardware names,
specific methods that you plan to use, etc.
How would you implement this research in your career? (At least 1
paragraph)

Reflection:

There are a lot of advantages and disadvantages of distance education for students,
teachers, and institutions. I firmly believe that distance learning tools are providing more
opportunities, benefits and significant investments to the educators and schools. For
instance, the educator will have an opportunity to update or submit easily and quickly the
course materials or assignments for the students access. However, the distance education
tools have more disadvantages, problems, and issues for the students. The distance
learning does not provide some individual development skills to the students. Such as
lack of face to face interactions or less interaction than on-site courses.
The biggest impact of the distance education will be on students learning. As a teacher,
from my experience, the students will be able to learn and focus better when they interact
face to face with the teacher. I can see a lot of example of distance education in my
school. For example, the high school students can take online or onsite courses from a
community college in our school. And as a college counselor, I had been getting a lot of
negative feedbacks or problems from students for the online courses. And our most of the
students are taking on-site courses from CC (Community College).
For my career, I would like to use and implement more effective and up to date distance
educational tools for my courses. I firmly believe that todays worlds education is going
and improving more technological distance education ways. Every instructional leader
needs to be trained and understood an importance of distance education.

3. REFERENCES:

COAR, M. m. (2015). PERSPECTIVES OF FOREIGN STUDENTS TOWARDS

DISTANCE EDUCATION. International Journal On New Trends In Education & Their
Implications (IJONTE), 6(3), 186-193.
Fender, D. L. (1999). Distance Education. Professional Safety, 44(10), 26.
Stear, S. s., & Mensch, S. S. (2012). Online Learning Tools for Distant Education. Global
Education Journal, 2012(3), 57-64.
Matthews, D. (1999). The Origins of Distance Education and Its Use in the United
States. T.H.E. Journal, 27(2), 54,56,58,60,62,64,66-67.
Maddux, C. 1., Ewing-Taylor, J., & Johnson, D. L. (2002). The Light and Dark Sides of
Distance Education. Computers In The Schools, 19(3/4), 1-7