再度审视美国远程教育发展现状*--AECT远程教育分会核心团队访谈反思

The Current State and Development Trends of Distance Education in the USA——A Reflection on the Interview with Leadership Members of AECT Distance Learning Division

随着全球经济危机的爆发,具有高入学率、高灵活性以及较为低廉价格的远程教育,由于日益提高的教学水平,越来越受到社会的广泛关注。尽管远程教育依托信息技术的进步实现了飞速发展,但也面临着重大的挑战与机遇。第一,远程教育面临专业人才匮乏的挑战。远程教育发展遭到的质疑,需要更多的专业人才用真实数据来为其正名。第二,远程教育存在社会认可度不高的问题。认为远程教育质量低的观点,实际是一个教育文化问题,而不是依据真实数据得出的结论。第三,远程教育受到来自教育法规和政策的限制。很多教育监管者和政府人员,并不真正理解和相信在线教育,因而在法规和政策的制定上给在线教育发展制造了很多障碍。第四,远程教育行业研究水平还需进一步发展,而开放和合作是最好的解决之道。第五,远程教育行业需要一个可持续的商业发展模式。幕课虽然受到了广泛的关注,但在推动高校在线课程可持续发展、促进校内教学方法变革方面,作用比较有限。未来十年,远程教育将会形成规模更为巨大、更方便、更易于创建和开发的态势,也将会有越来越多的人通过在线教育获得他们的专业学位。

In recent years,distance education,with its high enrollment rate,high flexibility and relatively lowertuitions,has attracted wider attention in educational arena.Distance education in the United States of America is facingmany challenges and opportunities for further development.The first notable challenge is the lack of distance educationprofessionals with special and unique expertise in this fast developing field.Second,distance education is not wellrecognized by the society when compared with other educational forms.This is more of a social and cultural issuebecause there is no data clearly indicating that distance education is inferior to other educational forms.Third,distanceeducation runs under heavy legal and regulatory restrictions which are additional burdens to distance education.Fourth,research in distance education also needs improvement.Focusing its effort on the openness,contextualizingresearch design and accomplishing systemic research through collaborations are suggested ways to improve research indistance education.Fifth,distance education requires a sustainable business model for its further development.In thenext ten years,distance education will further develop into a larger scale force featuring more convenience andflexibility in its products and services.A much larger population will take distance learning as their preferred learningform to earn various degrees online,which are well recognized by our society.