week 7 review of http://www1.worldbank.org/disted/Technology/technology.html

A wide range of technologies are now available for students to use in distance learning and these combine traditional technologies such as radio and television and newer ones such as online learning. The cost factor is noted in the use of modern technology as compared to traditional formats, but when considering effectiveness no one technology can singularly provide the best results in order to have the best results a combination of technologies has to be employed, however this is not guaranteed to provide the ultimate result. This ‘ultimate’ result is still dependant on the structure of the course; technology alone cannot educate distance learners.

I will look at two technologies used in distance learning, radio and television. Radio is one of the cheapest forms of distance learning and has been used literary since it was invented for educational purposes. Universities internationally use it as a learning tool because the radio format is readily available to most students. However with the development of new technologies radio is now considered to be an entertainment format and not as an educational one, Mp3s and podcasts are now proving to be the new media forms that students use for audio learning in the developed countries of the world however cassette recordings are still proving to be popular in less developed countries.

Television is an effective way of learning but it is quite costly to produce, a higher quality is needed as compared to radio because unlike the invisible medium, in television visual appearance in programs matters. The advantage that television has over radio is that scientific experiments can be shown, as well as case studies and this will “help (the students) to visualize dynamic processes and sequences of events.” However like radio, television is associated with being an entertainment medium, thus educational programs can loose their seriousness and be viewed passively by those cultures that view it as a recreational medium.