Another excellent episode, gentlemen. Had a few thoughts to contribute. An interesting connection with distance learning is with home schooling. My "high school" was a school that was at once a boarding school, and at the same time fielded a correspondence program for home school families. This was an attempt to equip parents with a more robust curriculum and structured guidance, while still preserving the advantages of home schooling. I had to take standardized tests, received a diploma, etc. Its major disadvantage was also its major advantage, that being that an older high school student is simply not going to be taught by their parent who doesn't have more than a high school diploma either, and so I was largely self-taught, using the curriculum, through my high school years. This actually helped me in college, as I was far more self-motivated than many of my peers (for the first year, anyway!) Right now I work for a company that uses the same, rather innovative online format David described. The classrooms are virtual, where the students meet with the teacher at specific class times. The class size is limited to 20 students, and the teacher uses a number of visual elements to enhance learning, from power points *shudder* to virtual whiteboards that can actually be written on using a device that can be plugged into your computer. The best part is, they can pull from teachers all around the country, and so get their pick of the litter; some PhD's are even teaching our classes. This has the unfortunate side effect of making poor chaps like me, without professional teaching experience, undesirable, as I found out. At least they let me work in the office! This new technology is very innovative, and I think guards against some of what Michial fears. But, I am still not sold on the system of online education as an exclusive method. Personally I think embodiment is important. For one thing, if nonverbal communication is as important as many say, than why are we so keen to give it up? The brain in the jar argument is valid in this sense, to me. It also does kill smaller schools, as a parent can spend less at our school, and their kid doesn't have to leave the home, all while getting access to more expert teachers than the local school; while gives, it also takes away, so while I'm no Postmaniac, I do see it as a Faustian bargain of sorts. On another personal note, some of the best interactions I ever had in college were in taking full advantage of a certain professor's office hours, something which you can't much do in the online format. Some seminaries that provide distance and online options have a restriction on how many courses can be taken by that method. This seems like a positive use of the medium, to me; someone can free up their schedule considerably by not taking all courses on campus, it provides a balance to the educational experience, and it also allows the school to regulate which courses are taken in this medium, i.e. Intro to OT is fine to take online, but a course on spiritual formation or preaching is not such a great idea. I even took two science courses online in college, because the on site instructor was, shall we say, a less than stellar adjunct, and I didn't want to waste more time and money than was necessary.
