Thoughts on Distance Education

I have been involved in Online Education for the last seven years. It has been an exhilerating experience as I have come in contact with people from a number of different places. Most of these have been in North America (ie. a number of Canadian provinces and a hand full of Amercian states).
The experience I have had has to do with learning related to work. A good number of students come from the the Construction and Energy fields. They are working on upgrading their skills relating directly to their line of work or they want to move into another field of endeavour and need different skills.
I have also taken courses from the University of Calgary as I was initially attracted to the idea of why people would take online courses. Once I got into it, I got pretty much hooked as I had the opportunity to interact with other people who were doing the same kind of things that I was doing. I met a good number of folks who came from a variety of employment backgrounds but with a similar interest in training. It was a fabulous experience to learn from others and to teach them skills that I had acquired.
Another reason to start taking online courses had to do with an excellent manager who I had at the time. Her idea was that if you were going to understand what made an online student tick, you had to take one or more online courses so you got an idea of what the students went through. A very wise lady. Doug