The most comprehensive and authoritative text on the subject, DISTANCE EDUCATION, SECOND EDITION retains its emphasis on a systems approach in the organization and selection of material. The authors apply their long and broad experience to the task of selecting from, and clarifying, information on the theory, research, and practice of distance education, including how to design and teach courses, the technologies employed, characteristics of learners, organizational structures, and policy perspectives.
I read the most recent 2012 edition of this book as part of the course Introduction to Distance Education at Penn State World Campus. This book is meant to be experienced as part of the structured, community learning and was expertly facilitated by Kay Shattuck, who also was a previous student in the course. The book offers a wealth of real world examples for each area of distance education identified by the systems appraoch. While I may slightly diverge from Michael Moore's emphasis on the need for large scale, Open University approach to distance education, this book (as part of the course at large) advances distance education as a viable and independent academic area of study. The systems view offers an easy framework to address the critical elements of the field, and establishes distance education as something conceptually and historically broader than online education which has recently disrupted the entire education industry. Those who aim to provide education at a distance owe it to themselves and their learners to at least skim this book if not engage in the entire course to understand the historical, theoretical, and practical foundation that has been built over the past 150 years of distance education.
I'm taking a Masters level course and this is one of the required texts for the class. I find it very to be well structured so that it facilitates use but also encourages interest in the subject matter.
The book clearly takes the ready on a seamless journey between the past, present, and future of distance education.
This thing sounds like something written in a post-Fahrenheit-451-based reality. Teaching should be relegated to an assembly line status, any human interaction is unnecessary, and colleges and universities are doomed? Uh, no thanks.