Abstract:

Over the decades, distance learning has undergone tremendous innovations. Through dissemination of education from snail mail to Zoom classrooms, educators have tried to meet and/or anticipate the needs of learners. As Malcolm Gladwell has espoused in his book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, sociological changes have brought distance education to a boiling point. Currently, educators are using patches in an attempt to sew together a flawed pandemic-induced quilt of learning platforms, applications, strategies and experiments to meet the student, faculty and even institute needs. Everett Rogers, in The Diffusion of Innovations, demonstrated a clear approach to supporting the successful diffusion of innovations, which can and should be applied to distance learning. This paper examines our current state and tools, and proposes a re-examination of distance learning as a means of designing the user’s experience without compromising academic intent and integrity.

We now face hard choices in terms of technology in education: learning platforms, software, mobile applications and technological ubiquity in the lives of most people. We are educators who scramble to stay current in our field. While Socrates, Dickens, Vygotsky, Piaget, Skinner, Bruner, Gardner and Bloom are all still cornerstones, educators are now posing questions on learning styles for a distance environment, and the learning curve for those who want to make distance learning accessible, affordable and accountable is high. Not only do educators have to contend with the new and shiny technologies, they also have to assess the technologies before and during implementation to determine however they define success. As well, educators need to consider how the technology supports or compromises the end goal of conferring a degree on a student who demonstrates the skillsets necessary to enter the world as a productive, qualified member of the workplace.

Keywords:

Distance learning, accessibility, ethics.