subject: Rationalizing Distance Learning: A Student's Perspective [print this page] Rationalizing Distance Learning: A Student's Perspective
Many articles praise distance learning and outline its benefits and advantages. Other articles list the differences between traditional education and distance learning. Nevertheless, it can be stated that most articles avoid answering a simple question, which is why a student would consider enrolling in distance education. The latter implies choosing such education not because of a comparative analysis, but rather due to distance learning's individual characteristics. Thus, the present article will try to explain the rationale of students enrolling in distance learning. Classroom The reliance on information technology in every aspect of our life can be seen as one of the factors for students to consider distance learning. The latter can be explained by the fact that sitting in front of a personal computer became a common practice for most of the processes performed in people's life. People sit in front of computers at work, at home, during leisure time, at school, etc. Enrolling in traditional education implies changing the usual setting of the student as well as many other processes that should be performed in order to start learning, i.e. travelling, living in a campus, lecture attendance, etc. In distance learning, on the other hand, all the activities can be summarized in a single action, which is either accessing a webpage or launching a particular application or interface. Information Technology With rare exceptions, it can be stated that most people are familiar with working with information technologies, including various applications, internet and multimedia. Accordingly, for disciplines related to information technology, the computer setting is the common one to learn such aspects. Thus, students not only will be studying in the natural environment of the discipline, they will be also developing information technology skills in general. These skills will be useful even if the studied disciplines are not related to information technology or computer sciences.
