With the focus in distance education being steered towards pedagogy and the means more so than the end, it is important to steer thoughts on to what is truly critical for distance educators. The pedagogy is key but it is important to trim off the other unnecessary things as well. "...technology deployment is not a primary concern for distance education and should not be allowed to steer the learning processes." This quote out of Flexible Higher Education by Elizabeth J. Burge truly captures steering the point of direction for distance education. While I personally don't think that distance education is plagued by an over saturation of technology I do think the idea behind this quote still rings true. Things that are not essential for the current trends of distance education should not steer distance education. And students should not be viewed as numbers and statistics by those doing the reviews of distance education, the goals should be focusing on what the future of distance educations affects will be on the future. That is why we are seeing more things such as Khan academy and Coursera thriving and the idea that education should be free and almost a basic human right. There are many changes coming for education in general and I believe that distance education is at the forefront.
-Matt
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