Chapter 2 Definitions

• Distance Education as institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors.
• Telecommunications is defined as “communicating at a distance.”
• Open Learning is a new way of looking at education in a quickly changing and diverse world. He indicates that distance education and open learning are two distinct approaches to education.
• Virtual is defined as something quasi, or pseudo. Virtual is often a potential state that at some time might become “actual.”
• Virtual School tends to be used most often in K–12 education.
• Marco Factors in this area of education there was a need to describe and define the field, to discriminate between the various components of the field, and to identify the critical elements of the various forms of learning and teaching.
• Theory is taken to mean a set of hypotheses logically related to one another in explaining and predicting occurrences.
• The Foundations of Distance Education, Keegan (1996) classified theories of distance education into three groups:
  1. Theories of independence and autonomy
  2. Theories of industrialization of teaching
  3. Theories of interaction and communication
• Independent Study distance education at the college or university level. Charles Wedemeyer believed that outdated concepts of learning and teaching were being employed, and that they failed to utilize modern technologies in ways that could alter the institution.
• Guided Didactic Conversation falls into the general category of communication theory. Holmberg (1985) noted that his theory had explanatory value in relating teaching effectiveness to the impact of feelings of belonging and cooperation as well as to the actual exchange of questions, answers, and arguments in mediated communication.