AUTONOMY IN DISTANCE LEARNING: Reflections over the learner’s role

Distance Learning (DL) relates to every teaching-learning process in which the actual presence of students and teachers is replaced by technological mediation. This study traces a brief history of DL worldwide and in Brazil, as it’s essential to refer to such history in order to understand this educational genre which complies each day more with students’ demand for a new way of learning, making it possible to analyze the main pragmatic changes considered by researchers as fundamental. Particular emphasis is given to both teachers’ and students’ roles so that DL may truly accomplish its aim: providing full and continuous experiences of collaborative knowledge production. We believe that simply establishing new plans concerning the school syllabus, developing new and creative learning environments or “re-inventing” the teacher are not enough to reach the desired results. It’s high time to “re-invent” the students, the central agent of the whole process, whose change in attitude concerning the learning process is essential so that real transformations may effectively take place.