Distance education

What is distance education? *

At the moment distance education is one of the progressive learning forms, which is chosen by working, busy people. When choosing distance education an adult should be psychologically ready for a thorough course mastering. An adult should realize his/her previous knowledge, skills, interests, desires and needs, it means that a student must be ready for a self-study process. An adult engaged in the process of distance education can be called an autonomous learner, who takes an active part in the process of learning, understands the fact that learning is cooperation with the surrounding world. An autonomous learner clearly gets his/her style of learning, he/she has an active approach to learning tasks, he/she is able to risk in order to achieve his/her goals in terms of learning, he/she can substantiate his/her decisions and conclusions.

In Latvia distance education had become of current importance in the 90-ies of the 20-th century. Traditionally distance education has been regarded as the form of education, the basis of which is a self-study without any direct and continuous contact with the teaching personnel. In accordance with Education Law of Latvia distance education is defined as a subtype of education by correspondence.

In distance education there is a possibility to apply different models to ensure the learning process:
1. The Correspondence model, where written communication (letters, writing materials) dominates and, which is widely used in Hagen University of Distance Education.

2. The Teacher model. The main role in it is given to the teaching personnel, whose knowledge and experience is passed over to adults mainly with the help of writing materials. The task of the teaching personnel is to stimulate and motivate adults, to help them define the aim of their studies, its contents and type, to accomplish reverse communication in order to define the quality of learning. In fact this model reduces the level of responsibility of students regarding their results, and it is a bit outdated.

3. The Tutor model, where a tutor is not considered to be the person responsible for studies, but the person who supports, advises, helps to get integrated and adapted to the learning process. He/she acts like “a senior colleague”.

4. The Technological-extension model, which is in fact the application of various kinds of technologies in the process of studies (widely used in Great Britain Open University, in Canada, Finland, and other states).

5. Transactional distance, which in fact partly joins all the above-mentioned models. In the beginning of 90-ies of the 20-th century it was defined by Michael Moor. He included self-study, information technologies and writing materials in it. And exactly this model is applied in College of Business Administration.*

P.S. Distance education started to develop at the end of the 19-th century, although people were spending their spare time on getting additional knowledge earlier as well. It is thought that distance education appeared first in 1728. The proof of that is the material published in the newspaper “Boston Gazette” on the 20-th of March, 1728: “The teacher Caleb Philip offers the opportunity to get knowledge, learning materials regularly (once a week) by post.” This process was called a New Method of Short Hand. After a hundred years (1833) similar advertisements appeared also in the Swedish newspaper “Lunds Nekoblad”. In 1840 distance education was started being used in England. The major merit here belongs to Isaak Pitman: his students were translating the fragments of the Bible and sending them for corrections by post. This method was combined with the internal studies of Holy Writ; later special tasks had been made. A new form of learning had become the basis and the beginning for the establishment of Isaak Pitman’s Correspondence College.

Germans borrowed the traditions of distance education from English: in 1856 a Frenchman, Charles Toussaint, and a German, Gustav Langenscheidt, founded a correspondence school in Berlin, where one could acquire languages.
In America the founder of the system of distance education was Anna Eliot Ticknor, who established and from 1873 till 1897 was the head of the so-called “home learning school” Boston-based Society to Encourage Study at Home. The basis of studies was the exchange of letters among students and a teacher as well as specially made tests.
Approximately at the same time (1882) distance learning was also being created in Japan.

The model, applied in the process of distance education at College of Business Administration, is scientifically grounded, and its benefit and current importance are proven in the doctoral dissertation of the college headmistress Ineta Kristovska “The Management of the System of Distance Education in the Process of Improving the Competence of Adults”.