I believe Otto Peters was very skeptical of Distance Education, like everyone else, in the 1960s. However, once he started a deeper research, he realized that DE is a totally new and unique form of teaching that requires a different approach and theories that cannot be comparable with face-to-face education. He figured out that it is not a "reduced" form of traditional pedagogy, but rather a phenomenal part of it. When they say that in DE students must be self-conscious and disciplined to acquire the knowledge, it is true, but it does not mean that they have to do all the work on their own. They still have professors and instructors to rely on. If before, with correspondence education, it was not possible to make the interaction between a teacher and a learner instant, nowadays technology allows it to be all types, and, as we progress, it can be DE education on-the-go, so to speak. Videos, different types of media, instant messaging, instant notifications - they all make DE more and more modernized every day. However, it does not mean that it does not require talented instructors. It is quite the opposite. Due to all those changes in the world of technology, professors and instructors of DE must be more adaptable, more proficient in all spheres of life, and more knowledgeable in their field of teaching. It is not enough for them to simply prepare for a class, they have to be able to answer their student's questions on the go. The deeper Otto Peters researched the phenomenon of DE, the more passionate he became about a pedagogical aspect of this particular field. It cannot have a traditional approach to teaching and learning. It has to be researched and continuously developed to progress with changes in technology and everyday life. I found it interesting that Otto Peters was a regular professor who taught in traditional, face to face schools. It requires a lot of research and understanding to develop a theory without a practical aspect of it. However, I agree that DE is a new, highly industrialized form of teaching that will continue to progress in time. References Peters, O. (2011, December 2). Industrialization theory and distance education, Parts 1-4. [Video interviews.] Haag, Germany. Available from: Part1:http://vimeo.com/33107755 (Transcript: http://www.box.com/s/76m3lv2baa3n63vm0bjn) Part 2: http://vimeo.com/33523216 (Transcript: http://www.box.com/s/q3f6nuh98mtdydti8b92) Part 3: http://vimeo.com/33525745 (Transcript: http://www.box.com/s/8jzx6qm65lgj8kt0aep7) Part 4: http://vimeo.com/33109477 (Transcript: http://www.box.com/s/cnl0nmio1je707iaekmx) Sui Generis I think it took Otto Peters some time to conclude Distance Education as being sui generis. Once he started researching it deeper, he discovered three revolutionary phases: The first phase was the era of correspondence education, when “education already caused a radical conceptual breach of traditional learning and teaching” (Peters, 2010, p. 45). Correspondence education of that time was not used to rearrange face-to-face methods of education but rather make sure that the ones who were incapable of obtaining traditional forms of education would still stay on track with the rest of the world. However, that was the first step towards extraordinary structural changes (Peters, 2010). The second phase was strongly influenced by the variety of new technical media. At the beginning, it was not a new form, different from face to face, of education but rather an extension to it. However, it caused a growth of commercial distance teaching institutions, which was an entirely new phenomenon. This is the era when dramatic changes to a traditional approach to teaching and learning happened and continued to happen throughout time (Peters, 2010). The third phase was profoundly influenced by digital information and communication technology. It was the time when the Internet and World Wide Web practically entirely transformed the way we learn and teach in DE. It opened not only new ways to transfer information but also allowed more room for new methods of information delivery (Peters, 2010). Although Otto Peters was used to traditional forms of education who decided to research DE education as a new and unique form of teaching, eventually he realized that there were no theories to this phenomenon. Most professors believed that it was a de-neutralized form of face-to-face teaching. Otto Peters proved the opposite by separating the two entirely different approaches. He put Distance Education into a new category of highly industrialized education that requires its unique approaches and methods separate from traditional methods of learning. References Peters, O. (2010). “The Revolutionary Impact of Distance Education”. In Distance Education in transition: Developments and issues (5th edition). (pp. 43-55). Oldenburg, Germany: BIS- Verlag der Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg.
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