Well, some new stuff has been added to the mix now, but I seem to be coping well. My internet is not working in my apartment so my plan as of this week, until I get my own internet connection, is to read the posts at work, since my morning job is “slow”, and take notes so that I can write my ideas in Word and save them so I can publish them in my blog the next day at work, then repeat the process.  

I am also helping out with the bowling team here at Morehead but it seems that we may not have a girls team this year. If that happens then this will be the first time that has happened in the history of Morehead bowling, especially since the women tend to bring in more money then the guys .

Education is everywhere. You just have to pay attention to it. One can learn anything that they put their minds to. After reading the passages on distance education, I realized that it might be better for some students to get their high school diploma through an online education system. But it depends on the type of student. Some students may have a troubled home life and need to stay home and help take care of parents while others need to go to school because both parents work and there is no one home to take care of them. Then there are some students who do have jobs and they spend their time working and going to school that they have no time to reflect on what they have learned at school, so I think that online education would be better for them. I think that it would be a good idea to have high school students take at least one online class or a class that prepares them for online education at the college level.

Since it seems that our world will be turning into a land of technology and all jobs will then become technology based, I think that distance education will create a path to the future. Students will be able to learn from anywhere, anytime. If there is a problem in Texas and the person that can fix the problem is on a business trip in Alaska then there is that technology that we can send messages, pictures, and even talk through the computer when the telephone is not an option.

On a final note though, I believe that anyone can get an education anywhere. Education is not just what a student learns in the school or online. It is also what they learn outside of it. Spending time with friends, exploring the world, having a job, and talking with elder relatives, these are all great learning experiences that will help us in the future, and to grow in our knowledge.

I think that there are a lot of advantages to Distance Education. Students will learn new ways to learn a new skill and a way to communicate what they have learned. Having students use the computer, calculator, hand-helds, ipods, and even cell phones now are good ways to get them to understand how to use different programs to learn skills that they may need in their future. Most likely students are comfortable with these types of technology and wouldn’t mind using them in education matters. I think that having online courses is also an advantage, especially for those who are raising a family and work all at the same time. They can get an education and still manage their lives. If a course is all online then it depends on the class as to whether there are disadvantages to it. But I think that also depends on how the class is taught as to how many disadvantages there are. For instance, I think that some science and math courses could be taught online but once we get in to some of the upper levels then it wouldn’t be such a good idea to use anything online, unless it is a video or something that may give a guide to what is being done by the students. A lot of the science courses need to be hands on with an instructor present, especially if that person is training to be a doctor or nurse. I wouldn’t want someone to operate on me that hasn’t had the experience and learned everything online.

I teach math at the Sylvan Learning Center in Richmond and I don’t think that distance education would fit in to that atmosphere. But there are some centers that do have tutoring programs online. If I were in the classroom then I would definitely use some form of distance education, whether it be a blog about what they learned in math, software that they can use for discovery methods, or manipulatives that will help them understand.