A Worldwide Journey through Distance Education—From the Post Office to Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Realities, and Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Agnieszka Pregowska,Karol Masztalerz,Magdalena Garlińska,Magdalena Osial

doi:10.3390/educsci11030118

Abstract

Surprisingly, distance education is quite an old concept. Its origins date back to the first correspondence-based course, which took place via the postal service in Boston, USA, in the 18th century. Rapid technological developments, especially in video and audio streaming, have increased the availability of such courses and moved learning into the virtual world. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing an accelerated revolution in the learning process, as nearly all forms of education have been shifted online. Will this have a destructive effect on the human psyche? Is humanity sufficiently aware and ready for such a dramatic change? Will we return to physical in-classroom studies, or is remote distance education set to become the new norm? In particular, in medicine, computer science, fine arts, or architectural design, such a rapid change in the way students learn can be quite challenging. In this paper, we provide an overview of the history of distance learning, taking into account teachers’ and students’ points of view in both secondary and higher education.

Highlights

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
Asynchronous distance learning is older than its synchronous counterpart, as the latter was only made possible by new developments in communication technologies [4]
We considered over 100 publications published from 1926 to 2021, from databases like IEEE Xplore (The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), Google Scholar, Elsevier, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), European Open Science Infrastructure (OpenAIRE), WorldCat, and other available data sources such as websites and selected government and European Union documents

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Asynchronous distance learning is older than its synchronous counterpart, as the latter was only made possible by new developments in communication technologies [4] Both methods have become popular, and the selection of appropriate teaching methods depends on the knowledge that the learner wants to gain. Depending on the country and the institution that organizes the online education, there are many techniques employed, such as social learning (learning through social interactions between peers) [8], gamification (incorporation of games into education, e.g., through learning platforms or video games) [9,10], and personalization (customized learning with an individual approach to students’ strengths and weaknesses) [11,12] All of these methods are utilized to ensure a high retention of knowledge and good absorption of the content by the course attendees. This makes the use of distance education more and more viable and accessible in many cases

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