At the undergraduate level, the comparison can be glaring. With well over 300 students in brick and mortar school survey courses, the student is invisible. The faculty members are often graduate students that have no interest in teaching and/or researchers with similar levels of enthusiasm and skill.
Distance educational institutions are in their infancy and we participants are all learning how to optimize the experience, as it offers opportunities to many who might otherwise not be able to participate in the educational "dream". What we need from the professional communities, both academia and other circles, is productive feedback and collaborative growth.
-Abigail McNeely
Austin, TX
“connection, rigor, and the language of a discipline”
My comments are more in the form of questions on the thoughtful comments of Dr. M. Brown on this subject (see above). The comment was that, "On-line access has benefits, but it also has the potential to exclude the very people who want to be recognized as serious scholars."
It is very true that the "connection", the "rigor" and the "language of a discipline" are best learned in a social perhaps face to face setting. But, could we use other features of technology and the Internet to accomplish these goals?
I have found scholars through the Internet whose collaborations are priceless to my education.
-Simin Hall
Greensboro, NC© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
