Emerging Technologies as New Teaching Tool in Distance Education

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Emerging technologies as new teaching tool in distance education
Distance education is a way of imparting education where the learners need not to be
present physically in any institution. Technology has taken a vital role in distance learning in this
era not only as a medium of education but also as an accompanying teaching tool. This study has
focused on how technology has become a newly emerged teaching tool in distance learning in
today’s world. For this discussion, two relevant articles have been chosen that are connected to
each other in describing both the aspects of the above mentioned research question. The first
chosen article is Theories for learning with emerging technologies, written by Terry Anderson
and the second chosen article is Distance education and new teaching tools, written by A.D.H.
Khlebus and E. Vrasmas. In this study, arguments of these two articles have been discussed in
brief. Furthermore, a theoretical relation between them has been identified and illuminated here.
Moreover, the utility value of the above mentioned sources in supporting the issue of this study
has been elaborated in this study.
The first chosen theory namely Theories for learning with emerging technologies deals
with the role and scope of new technological advances in the realm of learning. The author
argues that technologies have an evidence impact in today’s world. It is also certain that that ICT
or information and communication technologies have an essential role in facilitating education
related activities in educational institutions (Anderson 36). On the other hand, the author states
that there is very few evidence on the use of appropriate technologies for being appropriate
learning interventions. Thus, the author thinks that the utility of technologies need to have
theoretical constructs behind them in order to be certain about their validity.

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Another reason behind this thinking lies on the fact that not all new technologies can
have a considerable impact on learning and not all of them can have equal amount of impact too
(Anderson 39). It has been mentioned that technologies play an integral role in supporting the
online learning settings. In addition, the author supports the fact that multimedia based teaching
tools can be beneficial in enhancing cognitive abilities of the learners. As per the article, the
active learning on the part of the learners is very important in constructing knowledge in the
mind of the learners. In this regard, technology plays a vital role in supporting the learners in
participating in the learning process actively. On the other hand, web based education is
generally affordable to many learners and this can be very helpful in strengthening the
communication between the learning content and the learners (Anderson 47). However, the
author concludes that only theories can guide educationists in their decision of whether to
acknowledge the role of emerging technologies in learning or to discard it in order to avoid
digital disruptions.
The second chosen article mainly talks about the benefits of distance learning and the role
of new technologies as a part of this new medium of education. New technological advances,
especially the internet based education have a range of opportunities to enhance learning of the
students. The authors think that the emergence of technologies has been helpful in the process of
evolution of the methods of imparting education (Khlebus and Vrasmas 26). On the other hand,
the authors believe that distance education can be proven to be highly effective in lowering the
expenses of both educational institutions and of the learners and yet can take an important role in
facilitating quality learning.
Both technologies and distance learning can positively replace traditional classrooms for
having multifaceted benefits attached to them (Khlebus and Vrasmas 29). However, there are