Week 8: Reflection on the Future of Distance Learning

Distance learning is the future of education at not only a higher education level, but at a K-12 level as well. In this day and age of advanced communications systems, global economies of scale, and multi-national corporations, the world as we know it gets smaller and smaller by the day. Corporate operations teams are spread across nations, but miss little in the way of communicability. Synchronous communications technologies are at levels previously unimagined, able to reach across vast distances with efficiency and practicality. Education is in a similar place with regard to delivery. No longer is education confined to ivy-covered buildings and hallowed halls, but is accessible to virtually anyone with an Internet connection. Flexibility, accessibility, and convenience are at an all-time high in education, with the only perceivable restrictions residing in the court of public opinion. Distance learning is on the rise, and has been proven to be as effective, if not more effective, than traditional education; but, opinion varies as greatly as the various forms distance learning can take. The future and potential of distance learning resides in this public opinion, and it will be the job of the instructional designer to design, develop, implement, and evaluate effective distance learning, thereby eliciting the buy-in of academia and helping to bring distance education to its full fruition.


Perceptions of distance learning in the near future will change dramatically, and this will be due to the graduation and employment of distance learners. The only way to truly prove that distance learning is just as good, if not better, than traditional education is to show what distance learning graduates can do in the workplace. I think that what society will find is a distance learner that is very well adjusted to operating within a technology-driven environment. Distance learners will be quite accustomed to communicating with coworkers and facilitators across vast differences, and this will prove valuable in wide-spread, multi-national business. Gone are the days of deals being consummated by way of a hand-shake. Corporate America must operate in virtual environments, and who better to do so than folks who have done their learning in these same environments. Once these distance learners have proven what they can do professionally, perceptions of distance learning as a whole will improve.

But what of distance education itself? How can the overall quality be maintained and improved in the short term to produce these new-age wunderkinds? This is the job, now and in the future, of the instructional designer. By adhering to sound instructional design practice, creating student-centered learning environments, and fostering collaborative and informative opportunities for not only students but instructors alike, the instructional designer will guarantee the successful and accepted future of distance learning. Instructional designers must work closely with SMEs, educational facilitators, and communications infrastructure professionals alike to ensure that the instructional message is applicable and practical to conventional professional practice, that facilitators and instructors understand the new role they play in distance learning, and that distance learning is supported by the strongest and most fail-safe systems. At the nexus of these players lies the future of distance education: A well conceived, practical, learner-focused environment that produces savvy, collaborative, and motivated professionals. An instructional designer does not have all the answers, but is well served to act as a project manager and facilitator in her own right of the multiple personalities and opinions in the instructional design process. A healthy, collaborative, and comfortable environment is not just important to learning environments, but in the design environments of these learning systems.

At the end of the day, the successful instructional designer will always first ask the question, “is a learning intervention necessary?” The second question, if the answer to the first question is yes, is “what does the environment that will best serve the learner look like?” If the situation is right for a distance learning initiative, then the instructional designer will further explore the climate and, keeping in mind the needs of the learner, create the best-fitting environment possible. Maybe that environment is asynchronous? If it is, the instructional designer must make sure to communicate the responsibilities of the learner and facilitator alike: That the learner must take responsibility for his own learning, and the facilitator must take a more active role in collaborations (Simonson et al., 2009). If a synchronous environment proves to be the best fit, then the instructional designer must make sure all technological ingredients are available, and if advanced technologies are at the disposal of the instructional designer, that her designs allow for the training of its users, if need be. As long as the end user is considered in all design decisions, then effective distance learning environments will be created. When effective distance learning environments are created, then those learning environments will produce well-trained and confident professionals. When these well-trained and confident professionals hit the workplace and show what they can do, then the perception of distance education will improve dramatically as a result. With this improvement in public perception in place, the sky is the limit for the continued future of distance education as a whole.



Reference:



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

Week 7: Converting to a Distance Learning Environment

The Application assignment for the week was an interesting one, and one I chose to create in a newsletter style.  I felt that short, succinct articles highlighting and describing to essential parts of the assignment would be beneficial to a facilitator looking to convert a face-to-face learning environment.  The articles describe best practices, and the newsletter is short, only three pages in length.  The size is intentional as to not overwhelm the facilitator and to make a handy guide that can be consulted at any time of the design, development, and/or implementation phase.  But, why explain when the document can explain itself?  Enjoy.

Week 5 - The Impact of Open Source

http://oyc.yale.edu/

The idea of free education provided by a prestigious institution like Yale University seems almost too good to be true. In an effort to “make an important contribution to expanding access to educational resources through the use of internet technology (http://oyc.yale.edu/about ),” Yale has made available course content and lectures from an array of undergraduate course offerings. While these materials are provided free of charge online, it is here that the similarities to true distance learning end. Instead of providing an online learning opportunity, Yale is simply distributing course materials for use in other, in-class, synchronous classrooms. Consumers of this material are given a syllabus, links to recorded lectures, and downloadable resources, much of which is incomplete due to licensing difficulties. Learners within Yale’s open course environment are essentially on their own if “auditing” an available class; a better format would be to implement the available syllabus and materials into a traditional classroom. This, however, has nothing to do with distance education; instead, Yale has dumped face-to-face course information online with no structure to learning, and certainly no pre-planning or intentional design for distance education.

Simonson et al. (2009) warn against this dumping practice. “The term shovelware has evolved to describe this practice: Shovel the course onto the Web and say you are teaching online, but don’t think about it much (pg. 248).” This really is precisely what has happened here; a bunch of learning material has been plopped onto an open source site and left to be used in whatever way seems good to an instructor. There is no structure to the learning events, other than a chronological order of topics as described in the syllabus; there is no grading criteria or point structure; nor are there any timeframes within which the course is to be completed in. Is it a semester-based course? A quarter-based course? Can the course be extended over multiple terms, or is it better served to be completed within one term? Suffice it to say that the open courses provided by Yale are not finished products; there is much work to be done once the decision to use the material has been made.

There is no online component to the courses at all. In order to construct distance learning opportunities around the provided materials, an instructor would have to work with an instructional designer extensively to build, from scratch, the entirety of the online learning environment. There are discussion topics described in the learning materials (for example: http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/introduction-to-ancient-greek-history/content/resources/02darkages ) but no platform upon which to conduct the discussions themselves. This requires the incorporation of a threaded discussion forum which will have to be contracted from another source, or built on-site for substantial cost. Regardless, this is a process in and of itself to be undertaken without any suggestions from Yale. Let’s take a look at a few recommendations from Simonson et al. (2009) regarding online learning to illustrate how far away the Yale open courses are from true distance education:

 “Students can work at their own pace.”

 “Online course materials, once developed, are easy to update, providing students access to current information.”

 “The Internet can provide a student-centered learning environment, if the materials and methods are designed to take advantage of the interactivity and resources the Internet provides.”

 The Internet promotes active learning and facilitates student’s intellectual involvement with the course content.”

 A well-conceived online course provides a variety of learning experiences and accommodates different learning styles.” (pg. 234-5)

The Yale open courses as they stand now offer none of these advantages typically afforded by effective online learning. The structure of the materials is ambiguous and mundane, as well as old-fashioned and teacher-centered. The courses do actually do a good job of offering access to materials anywhere, anytime by allowing for lectures to be downloaded via iTunes to mobile devices, but this is the only interaction the student has with the material; there is no inherent active learning opportunities for “small-group discussions, hands-on experiences with materials available in advance of the class period, or similar types of classroom strategies (Simonson et al., pg. 192, 2009).” While a great idea, the Yale open courses are quite obviously not designed for distance learning. To be transformed into a format viable for distance education, much work will need to be done by instructional designers and course instructors; so much so that a decision needs to be made whether or not to adopt the learning materials in the first place.


Reference:

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