That should not be surprising in light of the fact that many are surprised to hear of the extent to which people relied on so-called "snail mail" even for correspondence in decades past; let alone the concept of taking advanced education courses through traditional mail service. Pittman seems to make a point that relates to the proposed area of hypothetical research (above) in that he criticizes the adherence to the mode of lesson presentation, irrespective of whether the medium involved is face-to-face instruction or computerized lesson module. According to Pittman, expansion of educational efforts to include novel and newer media is a necessary but largely insufficient first step. In many respects, the principal flaws inherent in the traditional concept of education transcends the shift to even the most advanced computer presentation. Specifically, lecture-based lesson presentation is not conducive to the highest retention of student interest, and the limits of passive learning are not substantially improved merely by a shift from paper and pencils to microprocessors and LCD screens. In that respect, Pittman's views are very similar to this writer's in that they both believe that the most fundamental flaws in the traditional educational approach likely can be rectified more directly,...

Conversely, lectures delivered through the lecture method are not necessarily more effective than live lectures. For that reason, it is not unlikely that the proposed hypothetical research into adult learning would reveal that many of those who chose to terminate their education earlier in life did so substantially because they found the lecture method ineffective for them. If many of them acknowledged that they experienced greater success learning from practical experience or from absorbing information from educational programming, for example, that would support Pittman's apparent view that both traditional education and even the most modern distant learning programs still fail to understand the importance of reducing reliance on passive, lecture- based education.
Chances are, many of those who quickly tired of traditional presentations of American History lessons learned more from episodes of the History Channel that covered some of the same topics in a more engaging fashion. Therefore, distance learning program designers would do well to consider the distinction between modes of subject matter presentation at least as much as that between different available media alone.