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A Personal View on Future Online Education It is hard to predict the future of online education. In this article, however, I will try to envisage some of the developments towards 2010. My predictions are based on the history of online education and the trends that have been elucidated throughout this book.
Retrospective Observations During the 15-year period since the end of the 1980s we have seen the following developments in the Nordic countries: ■ The number of online students has increased by a magnitude of 1,000. ■ The number of online courses has increased by a magnitude of 1,000. ■ The bandwidth has increased by a magnitude of 1000, from 300 bits per second to 300,000 bits per second. ■ A large number of commercial and self-developed LMS systems have been developed. ■ Online information developed from black-and-white text-only to also including colors, graphics, and animations. Multimedia content has started to emerge. ■ Communication costs have gradually become less dependent on time, which has stimulated increased use of the Internet. ■ Online communication costs have basically become independent on distance. We do not pay more for global communication than we do for local communication. This phenomenon is pivotal for the globalization of online education. ■ Wireless local area networks and mobile communication have started to emerge. ■ Mobile computer equipment is becoming more widespread. All are evolutionary developments that were visible 15 years ago and not really hard to predict. The only really revolutionary development in online education during this period was the introduction of the Web. This technological development, which nobody foresaw, emerged as the development with the largest impact on online education. Learning from the past, we may see that the major development in future online education could come from a new, revolutionary innovation that none of us can foresee. Hence, I © NKI Forlaget 2003, Online Education and Learning Management Systems by Morten Flate Paulsen. www.studymentor.com
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