An Exploration Of The Mode Of Modern Distance Education And The Existing Problems

Since the middle of 19th century, the mode of distance education has greatly changed with the development of communication technology. At present, based on the development and application of information technology, distance education experts divide the developing process of distance education into three phases: correspondence education from the middle of 19th century to the middle of 20th century, multimedia-aided distance education from the middle of 20th century to the end of 1980s and Web-based distance learning since 1990s.The change of teaching mode always brings a series of problems which we can not avoid. In the late of 1990s, two-way video conferencing system based on satellite and Internet technology were employed by Radio and Television Universities at all levels across China. Since 1998, more and more universities have started to offer distance education courses. And by the end of 2003, the number of universities which implement trial Web-based instruction has amounted to 68, including the Central Radio and Television University. However, the rapid expansion of scale and the lack of experiences have resulted in various problems, the reduction of teaching quality and social trust. The main problems are as follows: no complete quality gurantee system, no unified quality standards, no forceful supervision of the teaching process, low efficiency of net learning, the lack of systematic teaching support and service, the lack of practical technique training for farmers and the combination of school and enterprise.Faced with the current situation of modern distance education, educators should analyze these problems carefully, find out the causes and come up with reasonable suggestions so as to keep distance education growing steadily. The following thesis is an attempt to explore series of existing problems based on the research which has been done both at home and abroad with regard to the mode of distance education and the writer will, in terms of the social demand and the practical problems of Web–based instruction, raise some measures to be taken and suggestions to further perfect distance education.