The Future of Distance Education and Comparison with Face-to-Face Education

Abstract

Today, changes in technology and communication are evident in education as well as in every field. While countries change and transform their education systems, they have to take pandemics into consideration along with natural disasters. Distance education is an education system provided to students and adults regardless of time and place, thanks to developing technology and the internet. Thanks to distance education systems, learning environments are supported by multiple and mixed systems. Distance education, ogether with communication technologies, has contributed to traditional education systems in many ways and has brought lifelong learning into our lives. Learning includes a process that starts with life itself and ends with death. Thanks to communication technologies, learning environments have gone beyond the boundaries of traditional schools and provided opportunities for people to educate themselves. Although distance education is not as successful as face-to-face education, it is an invaluable method, especially for people who have not studied due to time, place, distance and economic reasons, or who want to improve and improve in their job. In this study, scientific articles were examined using the descriptive analysis method on the definition, history, advantages and disadvantages of distance education and its comparison with face-to-face education. The information obtained as a result of the analysis of the data was written in the findings section. According to the findings, in order to increase the quality of distance education, the technological infrastructure of learning environments should be developed, internet data speeds should be increased, students' tablet and computer needs should be met, course contents should be enriched with games, the curriculum should be simplified and teachers' technological literacy should be increased. At the same time, it will yield better results if countries cooperate with all their stakeholders to work on bringing distance education systems to face-to-face education standards, especially considering pandemics.