The idea that learning can be embedded in many contexts, setting and experiences is among the most powerful ideas related to new media and education. Cope and Kalantzis in their chapter on an agenda for educational transformation, suggest that educational transformation needs to blur the boundaries between institutions, space and time in an effort to create learning opportunities that are embedded in many other parts of life.
At one level this seems exactly right. I don't want to have to attend a class every time I have a question or want to learn something. There are a lot of advantages to me learning it at the moment, in the setting I happen to be in. However, as we unpack learning from classrooms, curricula and face-to-face teaching, how to be retain the "structure" of instruction and guidance that were woven into these learning experiences? We still need structures and scaffolding for learning experiences in many cases. Each learner should not have to find their own path through the thicket of fragmented bits of of "ubiquitous" learning. Likewise, teachers (both formal and informal) should all have to build their own learning platforms in order to teach.
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There are advantages and disadvantages with distance learning. If one has been already used to the typical set up of attending the class, listening to a teacher while taking down notes, then one would still need to adjust to online education. With distance learning, it really requires for one to do independent study. Although one advantage of distance education is the convenience of studying anywhere and anytime.
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