Political Education

What role, if any, will distance education have in the future of American political education? Distance learning, in its best form, should be learner-centered and learner-focused.

The tool of social networking technology shapes education towards this contention for a variety of domains, but it even more relevant to political education

Referring to social networking technology, Ewan McIntosh, National Adviser on Learning and Technology Futures for Learning and Teaching, Scotland states, "It's more about helping learners become more world-aware, more communicative, learning from each other and understanding first-hand what makes the world go round." (Economist debate series, 2008)

One of the greatest strengths of online education is its ability to facilitate discussion. Building of community through discussions occurs by presenting learners with the opportunity to explore diverse perspectives and build tolerance for ambiguity and complex ideas. This is reflective of what we are seeing occur in online social networking and is highly applicable to political education where the open-minded pursuit of truth is enhanced by engaging students with different ideas in active discussion.

Online social networks can indeed make an impact on political education by bringing a balance of power and by encouraging vigorous debate. Brookfield (2005) disagrees with this idea stating, "Before students can engage critically with ideas and actions they may need a period of assimilation and grounding in a subject area or skill set. Lecturing may be a very effective way of ensuring this." Certainly, as Brookfield suggests, students need a foundation to argue their positions effectively and to understand the validity of others' arguments. However, Brookfield fails to understand that distance learning is capable of facilitating this groundwork plus adding a transformative social network layer for more meaningful exploratory dialogue than may be available in some traditional classrooms.

Bibliography

Brookfield, S. (2005, May 1). The getting of wisdom: What critically reflective teaching is and why it's important. Retrieved from National St. Louis University: http://www.nl.edu/academics/cas/ace/facultypapers/StephenBrookfield_Wisdom.cfm

Economist debate series. (2008). Retrieved from Economist.com: http://www.economist.com/debate/index.cfm?action=email&eid=1&debate_id=3