At the Brink of Discovery - Models and the quest to create and define the discipline

I find it fascinating that this field is in its infancy... reading about how the researchers in the field are developing models to explain distance learning, understand the components and how they work together since the 1980s shows how young the field is. When studying education in general, we can go back to studies and writings from long ago. But, in online learning, we only go back a couple of decades. It is a younger field than most of us.

Reading some of the first articles makes me feel like we are close to the "big bang" of beginnings and watching it unfurl. We could actually be in the midst of those defining the field-- or, we could be one of those that define and refine.