Reflecting On EDUC 6135

Simonson defines online learning institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunications systems are used to connect learners, resources, and instructors (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009).  This definition allows for a wide variety of experiences to be included in the family of online learning environments.  Distance learning has evolved as the quality of technology, growth in innovation, and increase in access have developed and broadened.  Historically distance learning can be viewed as a long existing method of education.  A familiar form is the correspondence high school diploma that was earned by those isolated in rural America, children of Peace Corp members abroad, or students expelled from the public education system.  Of course there are the long existing vocational programs that bestowed certificates and degrees of completion ranging from locksmith to dress maker.  There seemed to be a perception that these forms of education were in existence for the student that found themselves in a bad place, older with desires to secure better blue-collar work, or the individual with enough time and money that enjoyed learning new things.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the average person today will have seven to ten jobs in their lifetime (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010).  Sometimes attributed to the U.S. Department of Labor is the notion that within those job changes the average worker changes occupations three to seven times (McKay 2006).  Personal anecdotal knowledge has seen this take place through the common cycle of lay-offs, re-training, and career shift that has taken place over several times in my adult life. 

It is this historical evolution of work that will have the biggest impact on the perception of distance education.  We have moved into a work-style on a time schedule that requires learners to be educated or trained in differing geographical areas, with course time at non-traditional hours and periods, and in congruence with existing subsistence employment to assure economic survival until better training yields better employment.  These catalytic conditions require more and more people to view online learning or distance learning in a new and expanded way.  Furthermore, the integration of the computer, internet access, and innovative applications contribute to a sense of integrity that has moved the distance learning encounter into academia and raised its level of acceptance in many individual’s perceptions.  Distance learning’s perception is based, as are most perceptions, on need and the level of use.  Today, as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, a growing number of school districts fall under the umbrella of Program Improvement (Edsource website).  This forces school districts to supply, at their cost, third-party interventions for failing subgroups.  These requirements are creating a market of extended learning experiences such as tutors.  Additionally, online programs for the K-12 aged child are beginning to develop.  The online learning environment can be a solution for districts in budget crisis. Distance learning will continue to become an essential source of education with a growing demand from society. 

These demands will require the designer to maintain a professional approach to many areas of the course development process to assure improved societal perceptions of the instructional design discipline.  Gambescia and Paolucci addressed academic fidelity and integrity as elements that would have bearing on the quality of the online courses to be developed (Gambescia & Paolucci, 2009).  Many of the same concerns must be given to the distance learning components of institutions as the traditional settings.  This would include governance structures of all role players.  Qualifications must be upheld in the online education program as in the traditional for administrators and faculty.  This practice of equanimity should also apply to the area of curriculum (Gambescia & Paolucci, 2009).   Here the designer is a chief player in the establishment of high standard and quality content that will make up the education experience.  It is important that the designer does not simply move traditional learning environments into online learning settings without thorough analysis of the unique needs to the online course.  The designer will need to assure the high level of student involvement required for success (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009).  The instructional designer will have the distinctive task of creating the effective ways to use the communication tools available to ensure that students participate and maintain a high-level of motivation.  In the media presentation Facilitating Online Learning Dr. Piskurich makes the important point that it is vital to keep the online student from leaving the course because they become unmotivated or disengaged by course curriculum that lacks interaction (Piskurisch, 2010).  Ultimately the ID must examine the assets of the course and then select and build those components and approaches which fit together to create the quality learning product society is coming to expect from distance learning experiences.  

In the role of instructional designer I will focus on providing access to educational experiences that are effective and deliver needed learning with quality content.  I have a goal to use online learning to adapt status quo learning practices for school-aged children into educational occurrences that are more learner-centered and yield academic excellence.  With the tools of technology and the methods of distance learning applications I will give students the opportunities to transfer knowledge, demonstrate mastery, and innovate for problem solving.  I see the need to create learning environments that nurture the natural state of life-long learning and address the deficits of the modern educational setting for the young child.  I value the ability to use distance learning constructs to furnish an educational experience to a contemporary student population that identifies with technology and electronic media more than any previous generation.  These students must be given quality curricular interactions based on high standards that reflect the child’s developmental approach to skill acquisition and yet generate the achievement of self-motivation and an internal locus of control.  It is my belief that through a process of building and delivering sound programs based on these ideas that a positive regard will be created for online learning as the method of education used to convey this scholarship.

Reference

Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010). Employee Tenure Summary. Retrieved from website at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/tenure.nr0.htm.

McKay, D. (2006). Dawn’s Career Planning Blog. About.com website. http://careerplanning.about.com/b/2006/07/28/how-often-do-people-change-careers.htm.

Edsource website. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.edsource.org/data_resourcecards07_PI.html.

Piskurich, G. (2010) Facilitating Online Learning. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4603379&Survey=1&47=6262944&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1.

Gambescia, S., & Paolucci, R. (2009). Academic fidelity and integrity as attributes of university online degree program offerings. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 12(1). Retrieved from http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring121/gambescia121.html

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Face 2 Face Moves to Hybrid

     Many times institutions, instructors, or businesses see the advantage to convert established courses from the traditional face to face structure to total distance learning or into a mixed method.  The mixed, or hybrid, method of instruction can offer many advantages.  This approach can increase student interaction through better design of content delivery.  The hybrid or distance component of most courses add a higher level of technology which can be structured to add a lot of engagement activities and interest by the students.  The use of the hybrid method also allows the flexibility in our busy lives for students to meet increasing time demands and geographic distance can be lessened by fewer face to face meetings.

     I have put together a preliminary guide to assist the instructor of a previously traditional class to initialize the process of reorganizing a course for a hybrid delivery.  This guide moves the instructor through the process of re-examining existing goals and objectives to use tables to visualize and create a balance in expectations for the course.  It will be important with the mixing of methods to decide what will be delivered face to face and what will be delivered in a distance environment.  This process helps the teacher make those decisions. 

     The guide also goes in closer to help assign activities for the objectives established.  Because an increased focus on the student and their level of engagement is beneficial in the online setting, an attempt to balance the modes of the learning activities is employed. 

     Last, vital elements of the course syllabus or presented in checklist form to assist the process of building a complete document for the hybrid course.  Because the syllabus is a very important document these components are critical to the success of the student. 

     Select the Guide link to view the PDF document.


Course Conversion Guide

An Examination of Open Source Classes as a Supply for Distance Learning Opportunities

           One great benefit of the open source class is that it is free.  It allows the learner to have access to many classes that would often cost a great deal.  Major institutions have begun to provide access to their courses online with open entry to all that have internet service to their computer.  What a great source for the committed life-long learner to have the ability to see and learn what some of our better learning institutions are offering their students.  This opportunity gives the average person the capability to see coursework in subjects that are their recreational passion in addition to their vocational passion.

            I took the opportunity to indulge in the recreational passion of art history at the Open Yale courses site (http://oyc.yale.edu/). Examining this course, as well as skimming others too, I found that the primary practice for these courses from established face-to-face institutions was to simply place a visually recorded lecture of the traditional course on the internet as a link.  Further, the availability of text transcripts of the lectures was available.  I found that the opportunity to use and view these courses at the different sites was a major positive resource for many individuals.  The amount of valuable, well organized, and trusted content that these courses make accessible is a rich source. 

            If I look at these courses through the lens of an Instructional Designer that is deliberately building a course for the sole purpose of online delivery, then I see areas that require improvement, additions, and different approaches.  For this discussion I will use the example of the art history course posted at the Open Yale Courses site.  The class that I used to investigate was a class on Roman Architecture.  I purposely chose an art history class because I felt that the art history classroom would demand greater focus on the visual aspect of learning.  Therefore, I wanted to see if adaptations were made from the standard lecture film that I had seen in many of the other courses distributed in open source.  Surprisingly there were no changes made.  Slides of artifacts that were projected on the lecture hall screen were no more prominent than the lecturer.  An easy adaptation here could have been to zoom-in the camera to the artifact as the lecturer talked.  This would have assisted in providing an increase in interesting visual interaction within the course (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek, 2009)  Also the format and link structure for the course was very simple and essentially provided for a link to the transcript files and the video at differing speed options.  I found this to be true of other open source courses as well.  The Open Source course does not attempt to embrace the viewer as a student enrolled in the class.  In the text Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundation of distance education it is an important condition of online learning that the instructor must have knowledge of their students to be able to monitor more effectively over distance the learner’s motivation and understanding in the online learning environment (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek, 2009)   In this way there is not the consideration for activities that allow an instructor to get to know the student and then monitor or manage motivation through the course.  The course makes no effort to assess what the viewer learns by using the course.  This is the experience of most of the open course classes that I investigated.

            There is no doubt in my mind that open source learning opportunities are of a huge value.  They truly embrace the core of self-learning and provide the engine for many life-long learning experiences.  Those learners with strong motivation and individualized goals will be able to utilize the information in open source classes to further advance their personal pleasure.  Yet the open source class does not begin to replace the well-designed online classroom that encompasses instruction, dissemination of information, furnishing of learning activities, and the assessing and evaluating for complete understanding by the student of the topic covered.

References

Open Yale courses, http://oyc.yale.edu/.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Selecting Distance Learning Technologies

     This blog examines the possible Distance Learning Technologies that might be used in a particular scenario. The scenario I have chosen was an asynchronous training on safety when operating heavy machinery for a biodiesel manufacturing plant. The trainings needed to be stand-alone modules, accommodate all shifts, and allow employees to demonstrate their learning from the modules.

     I start with the assumption of the use of a CMS as a main framework of the modules. This of course, provides for many of the needs the module has in managing student use, presenting content, and organizing access to resources. However there are other components that I believe are needed to make the modules comprehensive to the average worker that is learning safety regarding heavy machinery.

     Because the act or using heavy machinery in a volatile environment such as fuels is primarily a physical and tactile experience I would utilize video to represent the real-world setting that the employee must practice safety in. YouTube is one of many Web 2.0 applications that include collaboration qualities, high participation, ease of use and placement within other web based environments (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). You tube is widely used as a teaching tool. A simple search of YouTube videos will produce many results of instruction from How to Use a Ruler (Malik, 2009) which teaches the basics of using a ruler for making straight lines to use for measurement; in addition the searcher will find YouTube videos providing information with visual assistance in understanding of complex ideas such as quantum physics as in the video Double Slit Experiment - The Strangeness Of Quantum Mechanics (Best of Science, 2009)which uses the motion picture and computer animation to illustrate a highly abstract concept.

     One of the important requirements for the module in this scenario is the ability to assess the understanding and knowledge of the information provided in the module. This task can be accomplished by several choices in the online learning world today. Perception, which is from Questionmark (Questionmark, www.questionmark.com) provides a program that the designer can use to author testing, deliver to a variety of sources to be used by the student, build assessments that give instant feedback to participants. This product incorporates survey, formative assessment, summative assessment, and diagnostic assessment. This tool is used by educational facilities, business companies, government entities, and public agencies. Prominent users include BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit authority), University of Houston, and Popeye’s Chicken Biscuits.

     There are many tools that can be utilized in the online learning environment today. Many that fit in the Web 2.0 family of tools include high level of participation and engagement, with varying levels of interactivity, and collaboration. Yet there are many tools such as email, blogging, forums that have been around for many years, but are vital assets to distance learning.

References

YouTube. Located at http://www.youtube.com/.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Malik, S., 2009. How to Use a Ruler. YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFoXIsky2cY&feature=related.

Best of Science. (2009) Double Slit Experiment - The Strangeness Of Quantum Mechanics. YouTube. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMqtiFX_IQQ.

Questionmark. Questionmark Perception. Retrieved from http://www.questionmark.com/us/index.aspx.

Definition Mindmap

Mindmap

Week 1 Application: Defining Distance Learning and Thoughts Related

Some of the theories of distance learning, to me, seem to attempt to construct a more separated realm of learning than I think is needed.  An example is the Industrialization of Teaching theory of Otto Peters (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009) where the view of distance learning is seen as an industrialized form of learning that exists to some extent due to guidelines such as conservation of resources and mechanization.  This example leaves out any possible contemporary considerations linking quantum theory as it relates to human nature and existence.  Yes there are many ideas in this theory that are true, but are they true because they a have been practiced over and over (observation) or are they true because they are unique to the operation of distance learning?  I can see Holmberg’s theory of Interaction and Communication as encompassing more of the qualities of contact within distance learning, particularly his seven background assumptions (Simonson, et al. 2009). 

            I do not necessarily see distance education as primarily a form of education of technological machines requiring a host of new forms of structured communication and interaction.  Distance education is a form of education that is untethered as self-contained classrooms have been, stretched out over our space-time continuum for convenience and allowing wider participation possibilities.  The actual methods, tools, toys, and organization should be chosen based on what is needed to provide the learning.  New technologies are better to illustrate concepts than what was used before, some faster, some more intuitional. Use what works because the learning’s the thing and the content is the importance.   It is nice to have thoughts about what distance learning is because new ideas get sparked.  Additionally, an individual like me whom is just learning to formulate technological learning experiences need the ideas and what has worked best before are benefitted by these theories or what I would term frameworks.

            In the text Teaching and Learning at a Distance (Simonson, et al. 2009) distance learning is defined by four elements 1)institution-based, 2) formal education, 3)separated learning group, and 4)telecommunications systems are used.  Before this course I did not pinpoint details that were required to make a learning experience distance education, but merely that it did not take place in a traditional classroom.  I had had friends that had completed their high school by correspondence courses because they lived overseas with parents in the Peace Corp.  I would have included that in distance education.  I wouldn’t have thought of it including telecommunications system, but it did.  It required both the postal system and the use Ham radio for exams.  Then I mostly used the term of online learning or online classes as most distance experiences utilized computer, first e-mail, then internet.  Now in some ways I see distance learning, or what I hope to use as online learning as just another form of learning that spreads a wider lifeline to learners. 

            Therefore, I would accept the four components that are mentioned above provided they are not too limiting in delivery.  I think that how each of the details is defined has huge implications about this definitions workability.  For example, I intend to use online learning to make early literacy instruction and intervention available, how institution is defined may make or break whether I am supplying a distance learning experience or not.  What is formal education?  Does this require that groups of students are moving through curriculum together at the same pace or can learners move through programs starting at different times?  However, with this said and the consideration for the definition as a general identifier, I would say  that distance education is a learning experience that involves separation of the group of learners and instructors where alternative methods of communication from face-to-face are utilized and there is a framework of organization that facilitates learning.

            Distance learning has and will continue to open new frontiers in education and learning.  In the book Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides one of the main characters, an immigrant called Lefty, gets a job with Henry Ford’s plant during its early years.  The employees are required to attend and pass the Ford English class, circa 1914) given by the company (Eugenides, 2002).   While not distance learning, it is an example of the role industry created to educate the workforce.  Distance learning provides a great tool for business today.  Distance education can and does play an extensive role in training and development providing companies ways to disseminate training, improve performance, and institute new procedures (Moller, Foshay, Huett, 2008).  With technology more prevalent in business facilities distance learning models provide cost effective and time efficient ways of training staff.  Higher education has seen the biggest opportunities with distance education from expanding access to overcrowded classrooms to tapping into working students that require alternative class times.  Also distance education has triggered the existence of online only institutions that derive all there economic sources from distance learning classes (Moller, Foshay, Huett, 2008). 

            For myself in the K-12 world, distance learning will expand as budgets and resources contract and social expectations of the school alter.  I see distance education in this realm of learning as an opportunity for wildly different approaches to education that do not need to be tied by misguide policies that do not fit children developmentally or intellectually.  Initially it will be beneficial to level the learning field for many communities that are fiscally isolated and disadvantaged of a curricular nature.

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70.

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67.