My Distance Learning Experience as an Educator

Distance learning or distance education is not new technology at all — it has been around for quite some time already. In fact, according to the article of Gu (2022), the first generation of distance education emerged in the mid-19th century, in which the main media was printed materials. It then developed throughout the decades, using the CD, radio, television, and eventually computers, which are still used until the present time. Distance education, according to Tomei (2007), consists of learning situations in which the students and teachers are located in different geographic areas at least for a portion of the class. Additionally, Sadeghi (2019) mentioned that distance education is a kind of education which students may not always be physically present at a school campus.

Distance education has its advantages and disadvantages. One advantage is that is can be practical for students who have different obligations, such as those with their own families and working students. In addition, They can be able to save files and readings sent by their instructors or professors. And students can attend classes at the comfort of their own homes.

Regarding the limitations of distance learning, it can have high chances of distraction for the students — the chances of losing track of deadlines and pending assignments is high. For some students, the technology of distance learning programs can be complicated, which can lead to some not grasping the technology well enough to catch up with his or her classes.

I find distance learning to be good and practical, but not too much of distance learning. Some classes can be online, but some have to be face-to-face in order to have that more personal interaction between the students and their teachers. As for its tools, in my personal experience, I used Google Classroom when I was a college instructor back in my home country, the Philippines for my classes during the COVID-19 pandemic.  I found it to be very user-friendly and I liked the fact that I could save PDF and PowerPoint files there for the students to peruse after my lectures. According to Pappas (2023), Google Applications for Education, which includes Google Classroom, is a powerful development tool for online education. Google Classroom has centralized storage data and it boosts the social learning aspect of online education; thus, this enables the students to benefit from the experience and skills of their classmates. One tool which I also found useful when I conducted my online learning classes was Khan Academy, wherein I utilized short videos to complement my lectures. I used videos sometimes so that the students will have a different form of learning, not just lectures from my PowerPoint slides. This way, they will further appreciate what I have been teaching them in my social science classes.

Currently, I am not teaching, as I am pursuing my PhD in Education and working in a different industry. However, my previous experience in teaching online classes during the pandemic from 2020 to 2023 taught me to appreciate distance learning more. It was practical at times (although it was sometimes stressful, especially during

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COVID-19!), and it challenged me to deliver my lectures in a more engaging manner in order to make my discussions lively for the students. Teaching online also challenged me to be creative in teaching my students. With the current tools available for distance learning, I can say

that learning and teaching online will be even more advanced in the near future, especially with more students having their own gadgets like laptops and tablets. While face-to-face lectures will always be available, it is a good option also for the students to have their choice in having distance learning classes.