Introduction
Traditional learning and teaching usually consist of a physical classroom setup, where teachers can interact face to face with a group of learners. In this setting, teachers must be present, either to teach or facilitate discussions and interactions among the learners. Nevertheless, modern technology, heralded by the ICT revolution, has brought about a paradigm shift in the way teaching and learning activities are conducted.
Distance or online learning has revolutionized the education sector, which is becoming more versatile and accessible, even where there is limited access to traditional learning facilities. In distant learning, the teacher and learners do not have to be physically present in a class but instead use technology devices that can be connected to the internet to share information.
Both systems have the capacity to offer quality-learning programs, but given the flexibility and convenience of distance learning in the prevailing wave of globalization, this paper contends that it is the more adaptable and future-oriented system.
Comparing and Contrasting
The environments in traditional learning situations are tightly controlled and offer face-to-face contact with other students and the teacher. In addition, the curriculum taught in the traditional classroom offers teacher immediacy, which can be described as actions that facilitate physical and emotional proximity between the learners and teachers. In this context, students and teacher interactions are characterized by verbal behaviors like the teacher praising students, calling them by their names, and using visual aids.
Students come together at a pre-arranged venue and times to take part in lectures, discussion groups, laboratory activities, and sit exams. On the other hand, in online learning, the students partake learning individually, and in some cases, students doing the same course in the same college do not even get to know each other. There are no defined physical learning environments, although there are some instances where lectures are streamed live, and students and teachers have some real-time interaction, just like in “regular” learning.
Despite the seemingly individualized nature of online learning, it can, however, also be done in groups, where learners interact through video conferences using an application such as Skype and others that are custom made for education. Therefore, despite claims by critics that it is not friendly to group learning, there has been no concrete research data affirming this supposition. In fact, contemporary trends in communication might actually support more interactive learning through the online platform.
Most teenagers and young adults today with access to smartphones or computers regularly interact through various social media. Therefore, it is natural for them to engage each other in discussions remotely in the same way they chat and network.
The content of the curriculum is similar in both distance learning and traditional learning since some universities and colleges even offer their learners the option of pursuing a given course on a regular or distant basis. The quality remains the same in most cases, especially if the teachers are consistent, and the program has been professionally structured to factor in all the variables arising from using the non-physical platform.
The materials used in a traditional classroom are quite different from those that are used in online learning since the former student and teachers use physical equipment like books, pens, rulers, and markers, among others. In distant learning, the learner and the instructors use virtual platforms like emails, student portals, or academic websites. Assignments are submitted through Blackboard and dropbox and other such applications, and most of the notes are taken on PCs and read via E-readers.
One of the advantages of online learning has over the conventional techniques is that there is a wider scope of technological solutions that can be implemented that would not be possible in the “chalk and board” class.
There are analysts who believe that online and distant education can even be more convenient and effective than the regular system. These arguments are justified by claims that technologies such as bulletin boards, interactive presentation technology such as Prezi, as well as hypertext, enliven the learning process more than the traditional techniques.
Another advantage of distance learning is that, in most cases, it allows considerable learner autonomy since they get to choose from a wide variety of contextual and technical options. In distant learning, the learner is at liberty to attend to other things as they learn, for example, if they can have a job or wish to study more than one course at a time, perhaps even from different institutions.
They can also learn at their own pace, which allows them the freedom to determine the duration of the course, and this puts them at an advantage over the ones in traditional learning systems.
Conversely, in traditional learning, the student must finish the stipulated time of a course, and they do not have the option of working harder to reduce the time spent. Nonetheless, proponents of traditional learning had advocated for it based on the close interaction it facilitates between learns and teacher as well as the undeniable advantage or live and personal class situations.
Admittedly, in the same way, online education has facilities that cannot be matched in the classroom, the traditional system also has several unique and critical advantages, such as the earlier mentioned teacher immediacy. However, it is worth noting that despite the disparities, both of these systems have numerous similarities and derive a lot from each other.
The context for online and distance education is based on the class models, while even in traditional classes, the tools used in distance learning can also apply. However, taking the rate at which technology is developing as well as the reality of globalization, traditional classrooms may be in the near future faced with the same fate that paper books are currently grappling with.
The world is becoming smaller with every new technological education tool, and there is every chance that someday, people may attend most of their higher education remotely. Nevertheless, impossible to envision an exclusively online system since a degree of physical interaction must be present, especially in courses that require psychomotor skills such as surgery and physical education.
Conclusion
Ultimately, it is self-evident that distant education is at present the more progressive method or teaching and learning in view of the potential it has and the fact that it appears to be more adapted to contemporary impersonal networking tendencies.
Distance, learning system provides more opportunities for learners by allowing them access to a wide range of resource irrespective of geopolitical separation. Consequently, although it needs to be supplemented with elements of traditional learning in some areas, it is the most suited for modern times, as it has a better chance of addressing contemporary educational needs.