If bird flu actually does become wide spread I believe that it will change the world. People will become afraid to touch door knobs and public telephone handles. Distance education will become normal education for those who wish to avoid exposure to germs.
Let's see...Despite millions of infected birds worldwide only 184 humans were infected - of those 103 died after close contact with birds. As far as scientists know, human to human transmission is not possible at this stage. But I agree with your post. Most people just seem to forget that going to a B&M school full-time as well as keeping a FT job and having a family is not done easily, if at all possible for most of us. I work FT, and a dad and take FT courses, if I had to go to a Campus I'd have to travel, spend x hours in classes - I simply would not be able to do it... 100% DL eduation is the best thing since <insert your fav thing here>
Hi Laser, I agree entirely with what you've said. In fact you could say it has already happened. The SARS outbreak in Hong Kong and Singapore a couple of years ago created around 12,000 distance learners overnight when the Hong Kong Ministry of Education switched students from 40 Hong Kong secondary schools on to the Herriot-Watt SCHOLAR distance learning programme, when they had to close the schools. See this link for the Herriot-Watt press release. BTW: if anyone wants to learn about the Epidemiology of Animal Disease and the interactions with Public Health by distance learning then they should check out this programme in Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health from the Royal Veterinary College offered as part of the University of London External Programme. All the best, Brendan