Week 3: Distance learning technologies

The Scenario:
 A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?

 The 21st-century learner requires educational opportunities not bound by time or place, yet allow interaction with the instructor and peers. Voice and videoconferencing, whiteboards, live presentation tools, application sharing, chats, and emails are just a few of the many tools available for interaction and collaboration (Beldarrain p.150). This lends perfectly to the use of Skype technology for a virtual tour of the museum in New York. Skype offers many free features including: voice calls, video calls, messaging and file sharing. The distance learning technology that would make a live tour of the museum possible would be the video calling with Skype. http://www.skype.com/en/features/ All that is needed is a webcam, internet and laptop or any mobile technology that has a microphone and speakers (iPhone, iPad or virtually any smartphone). The webcam, microphone and speakers are standard in most devices today. Skype would be a way to have a synchronous learning experience between the students and curators at the museum. For students working at a distance, membership in a learning group offers a sense of belonging and adds relevance to the instructional experience (Simonson p. 276).

Blogs would be a good way to share the two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the art.  Each student could display their own images on their own blog or a class blog. Photos can be added within a blog post or if the student would prefer take a video of their art work Blogger (one of many free blog websites available on the web) supports videos. http://www.blogger.com/features Regardless if the student chooses to display a photo image or a video of their art there is space for typing a description of the work.  Within each blog entry there is a comment section. This section would be the place for the critique to be composed and submitted by their classmates.  A blog can be used much like a discussion board, with students responding to prompts, posing their own questions, and summarizing assignments (Simonson p. 274).  The asynchronous availability of a blog is helpful for students to work at their own pace.  Also, they can take their time evaluating the artwork and come back to it need be, as it is continuously available on the Web.

Emerging technologies not only enable customization of content, but also customization of the level of interaction by allowing the learner to choose when and how to interact (Beldarrain p147).

KWK

References:

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139–153.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Week 1 blog assignment

WK1AssignKirbyK
Distance education: the definition has been morphed for me in the past week.  Starting this course when I thought of distance education I envisioned an asynchronous online learning environment. Online or distance education was a way for many to further their education without having to quit a job or move to a college town to attend traditional face-to-face courses.  Distance learning is rapidly becoming a popular choice for continuing professional education, mid-career degree programs, and lifelong learning of all kinds. (Moller, 2008).  This statement affirmed how I understood distance education as this is how it applies to my life.
Simonson however had a more thorough definition: distance education is: institution-based, formal education where the learning group is separated, and where interactive telecommunication systems are used to connect learner, resource, and instructors. (2012 p.32).  Reading about these four components helped me focus on what needs to be occurring in my distance education courses.
Concerns regarding the rapid increase in online/distance education programs are legitimate.  Many educators and trainers are advocating the accreditation of institutions that offer distance education to add credibility, improve quality, and eliminate diploma mills (Simonson, 2012).  If we do not take care of the quality of distance education being produced and sold to learners there is the potential of creating general disillusionment with e-learning (Moller, 2008).  It is easy to see how this could occur.  If there is pressure from institutions to get moving on distance education tracks without proper training or resources for educators who only know traditional teaching, there will be missteps. The potential lack of time to produce good quality online instruction and resources on how to create will be a major pitfall.
In my discussion this week I disclosed that my first edition of online courses was created (unknowingly) in the craft approach.  Moller restates the definition as an individual teacher fully designs and develops the course and the related materials based on what has worked in the traditional classroom and puts it on the web (Moore & Kearsley, 1996)   Several semesters later after reading literature on distance education practices and physically taking distance education courses I have improved my courses to make them more interactive in a way to better connect the learners.  Simonson said; resources should be subjected to instructional design procedures that organized them into learning experiences that promote learning, including resources that came be observed, felt, heard, or completed (2012, p. 34).
As web technology becomes ever more predominant in our society I feel like distance education will continue to boom. Dr. Simonson made a great point in this weeks’ vodcast, the idea of distance education has been for the most part accepted and is becoming respected by our society.  To become and remain respected the nurturing process needs to happen so the exponential growth of distance education can in turn occur.  This nurturing is the part that excites me and the main reason I wanted to purse a Master’s in Instructional Design and Technology.  I know the majority of my future teaching will be in the online environment.  Learning how to best serve and educate the online/distance learner in this time of rapid growth and popularity of distance education is extremely exciting.

References:
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th 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 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66-70.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2013). Distance Education: The Next Generation [Video webcast]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_2818555_1%26url%3D

Welcome!

Welcome to Decoding Distance Education!
My name is Kelley and this blog has been created as part of distance ed course I am taking through Walden University.  www.waldenu.edu
I will be posting assignments to this blog as a way to share information with my group members.
KWK