The quality of distance education and distance learning at Egilsstaðir Upper Secondary School

• Published in: Netla
• Main Author: Sverrisdóttir, Marta Kristín
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2022
• Subjects: Distance education; quality; teacher preparation; interaction; Egilsstaðir Upper Secondary School; fjarnám; gæði; tæknilegur undirbúningur kennara; samskipti; Menntaskólinn á Egilsstöðum; Egilsstaðir; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/netla/article/view/3536; https://doi.org/10.24270/netla.2022.5

In recent years distance education in Icelandic upper secondary schools has been growing in popularity and about half of the upper secondary schools in the country now offer some type of distance learning. That includes Egilsstaðir Upper Secondary School where the distance mode has grown steadily and students have expressed their satisfaction with teacher interaction, course organization and the school’s LMS (learning management system), among other things. Over the years Egilsstaðir Upper Secondary School has become one of the largest providers of distance education in Iceland, despite being located in rural East-Iceland. Their unique semester system has also become an attraction; usually schools in Iceland divide their academic year into two semesters (autumn and spring), whereas in Egilsstaðir Upper Secondary School, each semester is split into two shorter terms. That means students can complete a course in just about 8 weeks.Despite the growth and increased popularity of distance education, it has proved difficult to assess the quality of distance learning globally. Various standards have been developed, but with a difference in emphasis. An ICDE report has shown lack of harmonized standards for organizations to compare with others, which creates a certain ambiguity around assessment and expectations of quality in distance education.Despite this lack, common themes can be found regarding the skills and mentality desirable for teachers to have in order to succeed in online teaching. With those themes in mind, the aim of this article is to shed light on factors contributing to increased quality of distance education. Those factors involve interaction, organization and teacher preparation. Research has shown the importance of interaction in education, which can be categorized in three types of interactions. Those types involve studentteacher interaction, student-student interaction and student-content interaction. The article focuses on student-teacher interaction and student-student interaction, as well as ...