In a literal sense, the future of distance learning does not
exist. Distance learning drops the ‘distance’ part of its terminology and is
replaced with self. With the increased abilities and access of technology
worldwide, prior boundaries won’t exist. No longer is location, times, travel,
limited information or personnel an issue. Information can be gathered
instantly, from anywhere, at any time.
Self-learning through a web-based program, sometime in the
future, will replace school systems. The web-based programs will be able to
present certification of completion of requirements. Due to technology, the
true human social interaction that schools provide is becoming a ghost in
society, so why would brick-and-mortar schools need to exist? Currently, our
college’s largest group of enrollment, over half of all enrollees, are strictly
online students. I believe that even blended courses will begin to be phased
out with online only learning while using Google Hangouts or Skype for
instructor-student and student-student interaction.
I believe the future will involve more artificial
intelligence and virtual worlds. The videos mention a semantic web system where
computers think as if humans. With all of the advancements in the past, I
wouldn’t try to argue the point too much. While I don’t agree that computers
can think as if human, I’m convinced that research is and will be done to push
toward that outcome.
