Using Technology to Increase Academic Success
How Using Technology Can Increase Academic Success
Distance education has become one of the more prominent forms of study due to the ever-changing technology offered to this modern era of students; Technology has thoroughly improved academic success. Distance education has a glorious history that can be traced back to its roots in the early 1840’s. “It was Sir Issac Pitman, the English inventor of shorthand, who in 1840 devised his concept to offer education courses by mail, who, in a historical sense, ushered in the first phase of distance education (Matthews, 1999).” Since scholars have been implementing this form of study it has gone by various monikers such as: postal correspondence courses, independent study, off campus study, outreach education, and mostly recently online education. The one concept that all of these various names have in common are that the student is able to conduct studies over a distance. The technology has come a long way to allow these various forms, from simply mailing books and coursework in its induction, to audio classes and instructional videos in the mid 1900’s, and finally to online coursework in the post millennium.
“Advantages of a distance education format included increased access to higher education, flexible scheduling of personal time, convenient location, individualized attention by the instructor, less travel, and increased time to think about and respond to questions posed by the instructor. (Matthews, 1999)”
The technological advances in education have boomed in the recent years. Looking back to the early 1990’s, just 20 years ago, computers were an uncommon sight outside of universities and did not become a staple in public classrooms, library’s, and the middle to lower income houses until almost the turn of the century. Looking back at the scholars of just 30 years ago, they were still doing research the old fashion way, in the library. “As of 2003; 93% of all public instructional classrooms reported having access
Distance education has become one of the more prominent forms of study due to the ever-changing technology offered to this modern era of students; Technology has thoroughly improved academic success. Distance education has a glorious history that can be traced back to its roots in the early 1840’s. “It was Sir Issac Pitman, the English inventor of shorthand, who in 1840 devised his concept to offer education courses by mail, who, in a historical sense, ushered in the first phase of distance education (Matthews, 1999).” Since scholars have been implementing this form of study it has gone by various monikers such as: postal correspondence courses, independent study, off campus study, outreach education, and mostly recently online education. The one concept that all of these various names have in common are that the student is able to conduct studies over a distance. The technology has come a long way to allow these various forms, from simply mailing books and coursework in its induction, to audio classes and instructional videos in the mid 1900’s, and finally to online coursework in the post millennium.
“Advantages of a distance education format included increased access to higher education, flexible scheduling of personal time, convenient location, individualized attention by the instructor, less travel, and increased time to think about and respond to questions posed by the instructor. (Matthews, 1999)”
The technological advances in education have boomed in the recent years. Looking back to the early 1990’s, just 20 years ago, computers were an uncommon sight outside of universities and did not become a staple in public classrooms, library’s, and the middle to lower income houses until almost the turn of the century. Looking back at the scholars of just 30 years ago, they were still doing research the old fashion way, in the library. “As of 2003; 93% of all public instructional classrooms reported having access
References: Allen, I. E. & Seaman, J. (2009). Learning on Demand. Online education in the United States 2009. The Sloan Consortium. Retrieved from http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/learningondemand.pdf American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). (2010). Retrieved from http://aacte.org/index.php Barnard-Brak, L., Lan, W. Y., & Paton, V. (2010). Profiles in Self-Regulated learning in the Online Learning Environment. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 11(1), 61-79. Bell, D Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology. (2005). Retrieved from http://caret.iste.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=topics Donlevy, J LaPrade, K., Marks, A., Gilpatrick, M., Smith, D., & Beazley, J. (2011). Walking Through Online Classrooms: A Study in Best Practices. Review of Higher Education & Self- Learning, 3(9), 24-30 Matthews, D National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). (2010). Assessment for Improvement: Tracking Student Engagement Over Time: 2009 Retrieved from http://nsse.iub.edu/_/?cid=41 Schulte, M U.S. Department of Education. The National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Vernon, R., Pittman-Munke, P., Vakalahi, H., Adkins, L., & Pierce, D. (2009). Distance Education Programs In Social Work: Current and Emerging Trends. Journal of Social Work Education, 45(2), 263-276.