Hi!

I think the closeness of platforms is an inheritance from the classroom environment with its walls and closed doors and deceptive feeling of private space. But today the classroom is "leaking" information through walls all the time, and does not function as before. It will be almost impossible to keep information within closed spaces - we have so low informational friction already.

So I vote for "open" - but with the reservation that each indivdual must be able to own and control his or her own information as best as possible. In the information society - an aggression towards my information is an agression towards my identity. Complex issues.

Connectivist courses often try an open concept like this: all student registers one or two social networks which she/he will do contributions from, and mark these contributions with a course code/tag and then a tool called gRSShopper collects all individual contributions daily and presents them automatically in a newsletter to all. See more here: https://grsshopper.downes.ca/about.htm

Next thing - why call anything distance education in the first place in the future? The center-periphery idea will not survive the information society. Should not all education be as accessible as they possibly can? We never learn "at a distance" anyway. We learn where we happen to be when we learn - but our ability to do that depends on communication, social context, access to learning material and situations - which can be constructed in many other ways than being in classrooms.

I have taken many online classes in the past and they were mostly conducted through the Blackboard, and a few were also supported by the third party applications, such as Google Docs, Facebook Groups, and MindTap. Somehow it appealed to me more when the Blackboard was supported by the third parties.

We are living in real and virtual worlds and between them. We can learn from these worlds.

I do not really agree Zhaoyun Wang , although I respect your perspective. The virtual and real world are today for most humans, especially the younger, one integrated world. Once upon a time humans made also big difference between "the world of books" and "the real world" as well. Now that part of technology is no any danger for kinds any longer, and integrated into our lives. the same with ICTs. A vision of the world as dualistic in this respect is not sustainable, that is my meaning. Dualism often shows up when something mayor is still new and alien, not integrated in our lives. We do not let it in, really, we instead place it in another world with appropirate warning signs and later cautiously begin to traverse these worlds until they integrate.

I once overheard a woman on a bus say to another woman: "Now I make my diet online instead, and it works much better for me". How should we understand this? It opens many questions about world views about to crack. Confused by new ICTs.)

education must evolve. Z generation more to new technology. We not expected to be knowledge source (traditional approach), now everything online. iur role more to assist and help them to understand and select knowlge, verify each information and think to collaborate and integrate all into a meaningful infomation.

In my opinion, the content in closed platforms is majorly developed by subject experts. Most of the content will be accurate. On the other hand I personally feel the content should be more simplified.

But open platforms just like Facebook and other social media, anyone can post anything( right or wrong -opinion based)

I feel the future distance education should be more simplified and user friendly closed platform oriented and supplemented by open platforms. But not the reverse, which may waste time in finding the real subject.