Interaction with discipline giants provides students with an otherwise unattainable resource since questions and discussions can persist for an entire semester. Moreover, electronic panel discussions can overlay the content of a course throughout the semester. Direct electronic contact with students has been seen to provide marvelous stimulation of thought and to induce interaction with the method, the guest lecturer, and the content. An excitement builds as each message evokes others. The multiplicative effect stimulates even the most reticent students.
Ideas expand, and the discussion goes off into many tangential issues.
Berge offers several pedagogical considerations when administering distance education that are helpful in improving the quality of the instruction. These recommendations, and others by Berge , that appear in subsequent sections of this paper, have been gathered from many sources and provide a good set of general guidelines educators should follow when designing and delivering distance education. Maintain as Much Flexibility as You Can Encourage Participation . Maintain a Non-authoritarian Style . Be Objective .