Distance Learning (Reflection)

How is distance education reshaping education?
It is kind of making a lot of people rethink what education is in general. For example, do you need to be in a classroom with other students in order to have a meaningful education? The answer is still on the fence, but I think a lot more people are starting to say no. The article states that we may really start to see a change in the packaging of education and I think that we already are. Many schools are beginning to offer both face-to-face and online classes. It can really prove to make education more suited to individual needs. If an individual has the option to take either face-to-face or online class, this can help education cater to specific learning styles and schedules. I think that it will make education more widely spread and may help more students to successfully make it through the education system. I personally have already taken a lot of my credits online, but I have taken many face-to-face as well. I feel like both have been satisfying in different ways and I personally like to have an option.

How might distance education shape education of the future?
I feel like it might become more individual. I hope that physical schools never disappear, but I foresee the rise of many digital schools. I think that many students will have the option to take either face-to-face or online for nearly any class. That is how I personally envision things changing at any rate. I also feel that students could be able to be enrolled in both a face-to-face public school for some classes and perhaps an elite online school based in another country or someplace else far away for others. The article says that schools are going to start to see an influx of students that could not previously be reached when they start pulling in distance education. This is probably true, but I think the interest would be large enough in the online classes that whole online-only schools may form to accommodate them.