Fall 2014; Foundations of Distance Education and e-Learning
September 23, 2014
I feel that I have fallen behind the times, technologically. Even creating this e-portfolio platform is taking longer than I imagine it should or that it takes other students in the MDE program. Last semester I tried to create a website for showcasing my coursework by using Google Sites, and it was a disaster. Other students praised Weebly.com as being simple and straight-forward. I was hoping that meant it would be easier for me.
September 30, 2014
I have learned so much in three weeks about distance education and where it came from. Now it is time for me to learn about current technology and figure out how to upload documents to this website.
October 1, 2014
Success! This feels really good, considering my experience with the frustrations of technology applications!
From the OMDE 601 class discussion board, my original definition of distance education is:
"According to my experience, Distance Education is the process of teaching and learning, with some physical or temporal distance between the instructor and the student. I would expect this term to encompass each and all of the terms listed above, as it is more general than any of the rest."
The terms referenced as "listed above" came from this portion of the assignment:
"The term DE is often used synonymously with many other terms such as: web-based learning, computer-mediated instruction, virtual classrooms, on-line education, e-learning, e-education, computer-driven interactive communication, open and distance learning, I-Campus, borderless education, cyberspace learning environments, distributed learning, flexible learning, blended learning, and mobile-learning but DE is a more comprehensive term than most of these, incorporating a number of elements that address both conceptualization and practice."
October 2, 2014
My understanding of DE has changed drastically after the first three weeks of class. Initially, I was mostly familiar with the current wave of DE, that of online education, though I knew of the correspondence courses, telecourses, and CD-ROMS as well. I actually participated in a form of correspondence course before, and I supervised my home schooled son in a pre-school telecourse (Bill Cosby's Picture Pages featured on NickJr. television), CD-ROMS that got him from Kindergarten through 5th grade, and online courses with Connections Academy in middle school. Notwithstanding all of that exposure, I never thought about the structure or teaching side of distance education. Just trying to sort out the definition with its various facets has consumed my mind during these weeks. Then to add Peters' description of DE as its own being, separate from the traditional education, made me realize that all of my teaching experience was not going to amount to much in the future of teaching! Very overwhelming!
This actually was a repeat of how I felt at the end of last semester. I was taking a class entitled, "Technology in the STEM classroom." I have included here the last paragraph of my last paper in that class:
"I have realized that I need to change more than just incorporating technology in my teaching. Listening to Dr. Mishra in his keynote address on TPACK in this class helped me reach this vision. I need to change the content that I am teaching and the pedagogical techniques as well. Basically, the advent of abundant electronic technology has changed how we teach, what we teach, and the tools we use to teach our students. Just incorporating technology, as I was envisioning at the beginning of this class, is not enough. In my distress at realizing just how much I would have to change to be an effective teacher to the new generations, I found a Master of Education in Instructional Technology degree offered at UMUC. Basically, it takes the concepts presented in this class and teaches those more fully over 39 credits. This is a path I am interested in researching. It will take a great deal of effort for me, since I am so far behind the times as far as even being aware of what is out there to use as resources, but it is possible for me to catch up through a great deal of studying if this is what I choose to do. I will have to research, weigh my strengths and weaknesses, and make a decision whether the effort is worth it or not."
October 5, 2014
My view of myself as a learner is multi-faceted. For one thing, I consider myself to be a motivated, independent learner. I am very interested in education itself, both teaching and learning, and I have waited a long time to be able to go back to school for myself. On the other hand, I am extremely busy. I am taking 15 graduate credits this semester while keeping track of an active family of 10. Therefore, my learning has to be in short bursts and taking place all throughout my days and nights, 7 days a week. The assessment I took in UCSP 615 labeled me as full of self-confidence but weak in critical analysis. I "don't often draw connections between two or more seemingly unrelated things." I see myself as the ideal online learner. I have the motivation to remember to attend class often, though my schedule could never permit me to attend 15 credits traditionally. I am comfortable enough with the computer and the internet to learn how to navigate a learning management system, but I don't engage in the regular digital distractions like social media or games. On the DEARS assessment, the conclusion was: "You should have no difficulty with distance education courses. You have a pronounced sense of autonomy and self-direction."
As far as my view of the MDE, I am not sure that it changed all that much. I didn't have much of a view to work from in the first place except that it was a graduate degree that involved technology in education, but now I have a clearer vision of what can be done with this graduate degree of technology in education. I have been inspired to be one of the students who contributes toward the growth of the concept and application of DE.
For my first assignment, I explored and used the OMDE 601 Library Guide. I was able to quickly and easily find scholarly articles pertaining to my topic of The Definition of Distance Education. I looked up several articles to find out what definitions were "out there" besides the most commonly used one by Moore & Kearsley (2012). I tried to use the Greenwood Dictionary of Definitions, as suggested by the librarian on call, but it was in use with 2 people in line for it. As an alternative, the librarian helped me learn how to search for articles using strong keywords. In the future, I foresee using the databases extensively, as well as the librarian help. I am sure that I will acquire new library skills as I go, and I will do my best to implement them into every new project I come across.
October 7, 2014
Self-assessment of my group contribution to OMDE 601 skillbuilder 5, DE wave grid, Wave 1
In assessing my contribution to Group 2 during our work on Wave 1 of DE, I went to our study group discussion board to check the posts. I was the first group member to post a hello, on Sept 24. It was then that I alerted the other group members to my plans to travel during the work week. When I gained internet access a few days later, I posted that I was back in class with a limited amount of computer time each day. At that point, I joined the discussion on using Google Docs as the platform for our collaborative grid. I also brought out the fact that Brenda's discussion post had suggested that we divide the discussion board into several threads to better keep track of threads belonging to certain topics. I actually made the threads that Brenda suggested after one group member confirmed my offer, though those threads didn't seem to work out so well for our group.
Due to lack of internet, I was absent a few days and missed the chat meeting, though I read the posts and the meeting transcript when I returned. I made an effort to reply to everyone's posts in order to clarify what had been said. I replied especially quickly (within minutes) to the two group members who were confused and asking for help. My replies were on the class discussion board and on the comment section of the grid document itself. I joined in on the discussions on Friday when the first set of workers were posting their work. Though I offered to be the group's editor, I signed up for and worked on a column when I noticed that we were still missing voices from several members. I worked diligently to post my chosen column (Institutional and organizational development) a few hours later, by the deadline that had been set by the members who attended the chat meeting. Then on Sunday evening I initiated discussion both on the grid and on the discussion board when the second set of workers were completing their work. To reiterate, I replied to every post at this time in order to alleviate confusion and to help the members who were asking questions. In between discussion questions, I edited the grid once the Tii report was shared, to make it more compliant with the instructions.
Overall, I would rate my contributions toward Group 2's assignment to be essential, timely, and of a high quality.
https://docs.google.com/a/connections.mcdaniel.edu/document/d/1GTJ-rQJCbBqDqTXrfvaRxDLoFt9s6A13f-6ini6s1pQ/edit
October 10, 2014
Today I found a couple of noteworthy issues with communication in DE. The option of continuous enrollment, though convenient for students who just figured out that they want to take a class, makes communication difficult because the various students in the course are not focusing on the same topic at the same time. I had read that synchronous communication was difficult because the students were not on the same topic as one unit, but I never understood why. All of my online classes had the content set up with deadlines each week, except one which was self-paced. Now I more fully understand why the instructor of this class said our small groups might add a member because registration was open until Oct 30 for this course.
Also, Peters sees media as an opportunity for the prescriptive style of DE to be changed into the constructive style, which is supposedly better (Haughey, 2010). As I said before, I prefer a set prescription for coursework, but I can see the benefits of constructing what I need to know as I learn more about a subject. It is just a lot more work for my learning style, and a little emotionally tiring for my personality.
In addition, I have been exploring Skype as a distance educational communication resource over the past few weeks, and I discovered Google Hangouts today in another UMUC class, which seems to have much the same capabilities.
References
Haughey, M. (2010). Organization and technology of distance education. In M. F. Cleveland-Innes & D. R. Garrison (Eds.), An
introduction to distance education: Understanding teaching and learning in a new era (pp. 26-45). New York, NY: Routledge.
October 15, 2014
According to my experience, Distance Education is the process of teaching and learning, with some physical or temporal distance between the instructor and the student. I am constantly commenting to people around me how interesting it is to me to be practicing/experiencing DE while studying it at the same time! It is fascinating and keeps my mind busy trying to wrap around that dichotomy! While my experience and certification is in secondary education, I am attracted to the concepts concerning distance higher education. It has recently become a possibility in my mind that I might change from teaching at a grade school to teaching at a university, perhaps through DE because I find this fascinating. The possibilities for the technology of the future are endless. Here is a very short video with amazing educational technology in it!
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four
Duration: (4:48)
User: bbc - Added: 11/26/10
YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
I feel that I have fallen behind the times, technologically. Even creating this e-portfolio platform is taking longer than I imagine it should or that it takes other students in the MDE program. Last semester I tried to create a website for showcasing my coursework by using Google Sites, and it was a disaster. Other students praised Weebly.com as being simple and straight-forward. I was hoping that meant it would be easier for me.
September 30, 2014
I have learned so much in three weeks about distance education and where it came from. Now it is time for me to learn about current technology and figure out how to upload documents to this website.
October 1, 2014
Success! This feels really good, considering my experience with the frustrations of technology applications!
From the OMDE 601 class discussion board, my original definition of distance education is:
"According to my experience, Distance Education is the process of teaching and learning, with some physical or temporal distance between the instructor and the student. I would expect this term to encompass each and all of the terms listed above, as it is more general than any of the rest."
The terms referenced as "listed above" came from this portion of the assignment:
"The term DE is often used synonymously with many other terms such as: web-based learning, computer-mediated instruction, virtual classrooms, on-line education, e-learning, e-education, computer-driven interactive communication, open and distance learning, I-Campus, borderless education, cyberspace learning environments, distributed learning, flexible learning, blended learning, and mobile-learning but DE is a more comprehensive term than most of these, incorporating a number of elements that address both conceptualization and practice."
October 2, 2014
My understanding of DE has changed drastically after the first three weeks of class. Initially, I was mostly familiar with the current wave of DE, that of online education, though I knew of the correspondence courses, telecourses, and CD-ROMS as well. I actually participated in a form of correspondence course before, and I supervised my home schooled son in a pre-school telecourse (Bill Cosby's Picture Pages featured on NickJr. television), CD-ROMS that got him from Kindergarten through 5th grade, and online courses with Connections Academy in middle school. Notwithstanding all of that exposure, I never thought about the structure or teaching side of distance education. Just trying to sort out the definition with its various facets has consumed my mind during these weeks. Then to add Peters' description of DE as its own being, separate from the traditional education, made me realize that all of my teaching experience was not going to amount to much in the future of teaching! Very overwhelming!
This actually was a repeat of how I felt at the end of last semester. I was taking a class entitled, "Technology in the STEM classroom." I have included here the last paragraph of my last paper in that class:
"I have realized that I need to change more than just incorporating technology in my teaching. Listening to Dr. Mishra in his keynote address on TPACK in this class helped me reach this vision. I need to change the content that I am teaching and the pedagogical techniques as well. Basically, the advent of abundant electronic technology has changed how we teach, what we teach, and the tools we use to teach our students. Just incorporating technology, as I was envisioning at the beginning of this class, is not enough. In my distress at realizing just how much I would have to change to be an effective teacher to the new generations, I found a Master of Education in Instructional Technology degree offered at UMUC. Basically, it takes the concepts presented in this class and teaches those more fully over 39 credits. This is a path I am interested in researching. It will take a great deal of effort for me, since I am so far behind the times as far as even being aware of what is out there to use as resources, but it is possible for me to catch up through a great deal of studying if this is what I choose to do. I will have to research, weigh my strengths and weaknesses, and make a decision whether the effort is worth it or not."
October 5, 2014
My view of myself as a learner is multi-faceted. For one thing, I consider myself to be a motivated, independent learner. I am very interested in education itself, both teaching and learning, and I have waited a long time to be able to go back to school for myself. On the other hand, I am extremely busy. I am taking 15 graduate credits this semester while keeping track of an active family of 10. Therefore, my learning has to be in short bursts and taking place all throughout my days and nights, 7 days a week. The assessment I took in UCSP 615 labeled me as full of self-confidence but weak in critical analysis. I "don't often draw connections between two or more seemingly unrelated things." I see myself as the ideal online learner. I have the motivation to remember to attend class often, though my schedule could never permit me to attend 15 credits traditionally. I am comfortable enough with the computer and the internet to learn how to navigate a learning management system, but I don't engage in the regular digital distractions like social media or games. On the DEARS assessment, the conclusion was: "You should have no difficulty with distance education courses. You have a pronounced sense of autonomy and self-direction."
As far as my view of the MDE, I am not sure that it changed all that much. I didn't have much of a view to work from in the first place except that it was a graduate degree that involved technology in education, but now I have a clearer vision of what can be done with this graduate degree of technology in education. I have been inspired to be one of the students who contributes toward the growth of the concept and application of DE.
For my first assignment, I explored and used the OMDE 601 Library Guide. I was able to quickly and easily find scholarly articles pertaining to my topic of The Definition of Distance Education. I looked up several articles to find out what definitions were "out there" besides the most commonly used one by Moore & Kearsley (2012). I tried to use the Greenwood Dictionary of Definitions, as suggested by the librarian on call, but it was in use with 2 people in line for it. As an alternative, the librarian helped me learn how to search for articles using strong keywords. In the future, I foresee using the databases extensively, as well as the librarian help. I am sure that I will acquire new library skills as I go, and I will do my best to implement them into every new project I come across.
October 7, 2014
Self-assessment of my group contribution to OMDE 601 skillbuilder 5, DE wave grid, Wave 1
In assessing my contribution to Group 2 during our work on Wave 1 of DE, I went to our study group discussion board to check the posts. I was the first group member to post a hello, on Sept 24. It was then that I alerted the other group members to my plans to travel during the work week. When I gained internet access a few days later, I posted that I was back in class with a limited amount of computer time each day. At that point, I joined the discussion on using Google Docs as the platform for our collaborative grid. I also brought out the fact that Brenda's discussion post had suggested that we divide the discussion board into several threads to better keep track of threads belonging to certain topics. I actually made the threads that Brenda suggested after one group member confirmed my offer, though those threads didn't seem to work out so well for our group.
Due to lack of internet, I was absent a few days and missed the chat meeting, though I read the posts and the meeting transcript when I returned. I made an effort to reply to everyone's posts in order to clarify what had been said. I replied especially quickly (within minutes) to the two group members who were confused and asking for help. My replies were on the class discussion board and on the comment section of the grid document itself. I joined in on the discussions on Friday when the first set of workers were posting their work. Though I offered to be the group's editor, I signed up for and worked on a column when I noticed that we were still missing voices from several members. I worked diligently to post my chosen column (Institutional and organizational development) a few hours later, by the deadline that had been set by the members who attended the chat meeting. Then on Sunday evening I initiated discussion both on the grid and on the discussion board when the second set of workers were completing their work. To reiterate, I replied to every post at this time in order to alleviate confusion and to help the members who were asking questions. In between discussion questions, I edited the grid once the Tii report was shared, to make it more compliant with the instructions.
Overall, I would rate my contributions toward Group 2's assignment to be essential, timely, and of a high quality.
https://docs.google.com/a/connections.mcdaniel.edu/document/d/1GTJ-rQJCbBqDqTXrfvaRxDLoFt9s6A13f-6ini6s1pQ/edit
October 10, 2014
Today I found a couple of noteworthy issues with communication in DE. The option of continuous enrollment, though convenient for students who just figured out that they want to take a class, makes communication difficult because the various students in the course are not focusing on the same topic at the same time. I had read that synchronous communication was difficult because the students were not on the same topic as one unit, but I never understood why. All of my online classes had the content set up with deadlines each week, except one which was self-paced. Now I more fully understand why the instructor of this class said our small groups might add a member because registration was open until Oct 30 for this course.
Also, Peters sees media as an opportunity for the prescriptive style of DE to be changed into the constructive style, which is supposedly better (Haughey, 2010). As I said before, I prefer a set prescription for coursework, but I can see the benefits of constructing what I need to know as I learn more about a subject. It is just a lot more work for my learning style, and a little emotionally tiring for my personality.
In addition, I have been exploring Skype as a distance educational communication resource over the past few weeks, and I discovered Google Hangouts today in another UMUC class, which seems to have much the same capabilities.
References
Haughey, M. (2010). Organization and technology of distance education. In M. F. Cleveland-Innes & D. R. Garrison (Eds.), An
introduction to distance education: Understanding teaching and learning in a new era (pp. 26-45). New York, NY: Routledge.
October 15, 2014
According to my experience, Distance Education is the process of teaching and learning, with some physical or temporal distance between the instructor and the student. I am constantly commenting to people around me how interesting it is to me to be practicing/experiencing DE while studying it at the same time! It is fascinating and keeps my mind busy trying to wrap around that dichotomy! While my experience and certification is in secondary education, I am attracted to the concepts concerning distance higher education. It has recently become a possibility in my mind that I might change from teaching at a grade school to teaching at a university, perhaps through DE because I find this fascinating. The possibilities for the technology of the future are endless. Here is a very short video with amazing educational technology in it!
Hans Rosling's 200 Countries, 200 Years, 4 Minutes - The Joy of Stats - BBC Four
Duration: (4:48)
User: bbc - Added: 11/26/10
YouTube URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo
October 19, 2014
Self-assessment of my contributions to DE Wave 2 grid
Group 2 began working on Wave 2 while I was in Bosnia and had limited Internet access. I missed the first chat meeting because I did not see the conversation choosing the time and date until the morning afterwards. Actually, some members of the group posted discussions throughout Oct 7 and in the evening chose the chat to be the evening of Oct 8, which was not enough time for almost half of us to receive notice of the chat. I was especially disappointed on the morning of the 9th when I discovered that I had missed a meeting because I had been online and available the night before, and I would have been at the chat if I had any idea the group was already working on the next wave. Instead I was on another class that night and checked on OMDE 601 in the morning.
What I found from the chat transcript was a deadline for those of us who missed the meeting. I chose my category and color as requested and posted it on three discussion forums before that deadline, along with an apology for missing the meeting and an intention to be at the chat on Oct 15 with my work completed. As I worked on my category, Dominant Forces Driving DE, I also contributed the description and dates for Wave 2 as I did in Wave 1.
In the chat meeting on Oct 15, I was the first to arrive due to my disappointment in missing the previous meeting. I had just read Carolyn’s list of group members who made choices about categories, and I was not on her list. I replied to her discussion post and I mentioned my absence from the list in the chat. In the end, it was agreed that I should go ahead with writing Dominant Forces as planned. I participated in the discussion of the group writing deadline (Oct 17 morning), group editing suggestion time (all day Oct 17), personal revision time (Oct 18 morning), and TurnItIn submission deadline (Oct 18 @4 pm). I also helped discover that Carolyn had signed up for a mistaken category and that she should be the group editor now since all the other writing categories were chosen already. Since Carolyn did not seem receptive to the idea of editing instead of writing, I volunteered to be the group editor for Wave 3 to help prevent this problem next time.
I followed all the deadlines set in the chat and made some suggestions for edits to other people’s posts. A suggestion was made to change the font of Wave 1 to match Wave 2, and after more members agreed, I changed the font. I was on the grid site and the discussion board on and off all day Oct 18 to help in any way necessary. As it turns out, Sherrill did not notice the 4 pm deadline, and several of us volunteered to fill in for her. I collected topics in the empty column so everyone could see it was being worked on. As I was adding information to the topics, Carolyn highlighted everything and deleted it. I tried to get a response from her in several ways, including several comments in the chat box on the grid and a few discussion posts, but in the end I left her to cover the assignment herself. I did edit her introduction this morning because it was the same as I had in Wave 1 that Prof. Christine said was not concise and succinct. This evening I edited many of the parts of Wave 1 that Prof. Christine had advised us to change. Also, I helped Sherrill get her information onto the grid as she could not edit the grid and I did not know how to get her the editing rights. I edited more of Carolyn's contribution to make it clearer and more to the point of the topic, and I was part of the team that fixed the reference list.
This wave was full of feelings for me, but I hope that my actions and contributions were professional and profitable.
October 25, 2014
Questions for Reflection, Wave 2 E-Portfolio Learning Journal
Wave 2 (as defined in OMDE 601) of Distance Education was fascinating to me. Actually, to begin, I was first confused by the existence of 3 waves of DE in this class and 5 generations of DE in our text. But Prof. Christine explained that these designations of the changes in DE are not at all standard and can change from author to author. Then I became interested in how different people divided up the history of DE according to their own perspectives. As I was the team member putting a time frame on our Group Grid of the Waves of DE, I had used the notes in the content area of our course without understanding how the waves were divided. Now that I am paying attention to the differences between the categories in our course and the writings, I see that I was right to remove all mention of the Internet from our Wave 2 grid at the last moment. In fact, the Constructivist Theory that I keep reading so much about will fall under our Wave 3 as well. I have not finished the course yet to see how current DE is similar and different from the initial online education, but I suspect that I will feel that we are about to embark on a Wave 4 as I find that DE today is worlds away from online education of the 1980's. After all, 35 years in technology is surely a different era altogether!
I was most impressed by Dominant Forces Driving DE. This may be because our group divided the writing up by topic: one topic for each member, and this was my topic. But even now as I look at the grid, it still grabs my attention. I realized for the first time how society influenced the (r)evolution of DE. That's not exactly fair -- I admittedly knew next to nothing about DE when I started this course anyway. But it is one of my weaknesses as a student that I do not make connections across subjects easily. And I have never had a history lesson of the 20th century -- I felt too close to consider it history, and I felt each detail would be micro-analyzed since there was only 100 years to cover. In a larger history context, only the most important events are covered, and those less in-depth, to get everything done in one course. All this is to say that I was truly interested in how the development of countries from the Industrial Age into the Information Age caused governments to need more of their populations better educated in order to build modern economies. Also I read about the significant increase in the global awareness of social justice that has always contributed toward the growth of DE. The other main factor was cost-effectiveness. Distance education was morphing into a new form, and this cost money. In order to compete with traditional education, DE needed to achieve economies of scale. This entailed having as many students as possible with as few expenditures per student on top of the foundational cost of starting something new. The DE universities achieved economies of scale by division of labor as far as course design and delivery went, in accordance with the Industrial Age in which they existed, and by predatory admissions, which allowed students to register and pay for classes that they probably would not earn credit for (due to the mismatch between student ability/learning style and the expectations of autonomous DE students). How these social factors contributed to the (r)evolution of DE intrigued me. On the other hand, the theories did not hold my attention well. They were presented in a general sense and not attached to explanations of how they would look in practice. I have found that I (and most students) need a practical picture of application in order to fully understand a theory or concept.
One concept that I had to share with my husband as soon as I came across it was the shift in pedagogy from the teacher as the expert who had knowledge, experience, and wisdom to share with the student to the autonomous learner who did not need a mentor in front of him/her in order to learn. I personally came from a background that taught me to respect the authority and knowledge of the teacher regardless of his/her personality and teaching skills. I also tend toward self-motivated learning, as evidenced by my earning the Girl Scout Gold Award independently of any troop. So I had no trouble in either traditional education or distance education as long as it stayed with the philosophies of this wave (although my education took place in the 1980's and early 1990's). But as I started experiencing distance courses in the last 6 years, I have kept saying that I wish the upper level instructors would give more of their expertise to the students. I was used to being given information and concepts to study, practice, learn, and apply by the lower level instructor, and nobody told me that the goal was for me to be able to partake of the education independently -- until the readings for this wave of DE! (As a foreshadow, I had the same awakening this week when I came upon the next change in pedagogy focus: Constructivism and collaboration.) There were two sentences which made all this crystal clear for me: "This unique pedagogical form of industrialized learning caused 'a dramatic pedagogical paradigm shift.' In particular, Peters (2007, p. 61) argues that it obliged students 'to become autonomous and self-regulated with regard to goals, methods, and media' “(Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2010). This influenced my understanding of DE greatly a few weeks ago, but this picture has already been changed again! As I continue to read in the DE course, I am traveling through time, moving toward the DE of today. I feel like I am in a time tunnel, watching video clips of DE in history as I move forward! As soon as I get used to DE in one perspective, I begin reading about how DE changed into something else! I feel I am missing so many of the details because I am flying through the changes so quickly. And yet I cannot wait to get to the end of the course when I can open the surprise of what exactly DE has become today ... and what the trends look like for tomorrow.
My original definition of DE was general and short so that it could include many different concepts under the surface. That structure has been confirmed to me as necessary by my readings this week. But if I were to be asked for an annotated definition, I would have a lot of information to include in the notes. Probably it would be too much information and have to be thinned out somewhat. However, I am beginning to truly believe that the different waves of distance education are so different that they should not all be covered by the same definition. Peters' (2010) view that DE is a separate entity in and of itself (separate from traditional education) is still rattling around in my brain. I spoke with my teenager today about the vast difference between Maryland K-12 teaching requirements, DE teaching requirements, and traditional higher education teaching requirements. I am currently experiencing all three forms of education at the same time (as teacher and student), and I have a hard time calling them all by the same name: education. They are completely different worlds, with different strategies, different deliveries, different attitudes, different expectations of the students and instructors, different tools, different everything! How could they possibly be grouped under the same anything? (except maybe something as general as zebra, tick, and jellyfish are all animals!) I am just beginning to understand that each wave of DE is just as different from each other as DE is different from other educations.
As far as this wave’s opportunities for contact with experts in the field of DE, my understanding was deeply changed by comments from Alan Tait in response to my questions on the discussion board. I posed the questions as a way to get Alan’s opinion about the column I was in charge of writing, Dominant Forces Driving DE. His answers drew a picture of all of society and how it influenced the changes in DE from Wave 1 to Wave 2 and from Wave 2 to Wave 3, and this picture is what impressed me most about Wave 2 (as I mentioned in response to Reflection Question #1 above). The concept that a section of a society (i.e. education) can be so completely changed by factors in a different section of society (i.e. economics) is fascinating to me – especially when I am interested in education but not so much in economics. But I have to study the economics at least a little to see the truth behind changes in education. One effect it had on my views of education is to remind me that people are involved, in all their complexity and interest in other areas of society. Sometimes I am focused too much on the content or the theory or the pedagogy and forget the people who are the students and the faculty.
Tony Bates said a few things that caught my interest as well. He credited much of the success of the Open University in the UK to 40 % of the initial students being teachers earning a degree for a raise in salary. He said that the fact that they were teachers meant that they were motivated, committed, and able to study well, and this gave the OUUK a good success rate for the first foundation courses. He contrasted this with the 95% failure rate of the London University external degree. This is another example of education being so completely influenced by economics.
As I go down the list of the course objectives listed in the Syllabus, I find myself remarking about how many of them are mentioned in this reflection post. One that has not been fully completed yet, but that I am looking forward to, is the analysis of “the impact of technological changes on the nature of teaching and learning in distance education.” We have seen technological changes in Wave 1 and Wave 2, but I expect that there are so many that will flood us in Wave 3. The rest of the objectives are more fully accomplished, especially the first half of the list. This particular exercise actually makes me feel the course is almost over, since most of the objectives are almost met! But I still have a lot to learn in the month that we have left.
References
Bates, A. W. (2011, November). The second wave of distance education and history of the Open University United Kingdom
[Online video]. Available from http://vimeo.com/32292234 (Transcript: http://www.box.com/s/cvygk4334sub0i6atrn8)
Garrison, D.R., & Cleveland-Innes, M.F. (2010). Foundations of distance education. In M.F. Cleveland-Innes & D.R. Garrison (Eds.),
An introduction to distance education: Understanding teaching and learning in a new era (p. 15). New York, NY: Routledge
Peters, O. (2010). The theory of the "most industrialized education". In O. Peters, Distance education in transition: Developments
and issues (5th edition) (pp. 11-32). Oldenburg, Germany: BIS-Verlag der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg. Available
from: http://www.box.com/s/ktx7ipccetotqrr11mct
Tait, A. (2014). Driving forces of the second wave of distance education. Message posted to discussion board of UMUC OMDE601-
9041.Retrieved from https://learn.umuc.edu/d2l/le/ 33591/discussions/threads/1777241/View
November 9, 2014
Questions for Reflection, Wave 3 E-Portfolio Learning Journal
I had several “a-ha!” moments during Wave 3.
1. I recently realized how involved I was in this wave of DE back when my son was part of an online public school pilot program offered 2008-2010, during his middle school years. I knew something of the effects of the teachers’ union and the for-profit educational organization lobbying against each other in Maryland, but I did not really know how much of a pioneer I was being. And I certainly did not realize then that I was being prepared to be a future pioneer of DE, preparing for the new wave yet to come. Connections Academy gave me a foundational glimpse of what distance education using the Internet entailed, with its flexibility of learning time and place and the different ways of communication.
2. Another moment came when I watched my son look up how to fix his car on YouTube as an OER. Not so long ago, my husband had to go to the library to get charts of car engines in order to make repairs to our cars, but my son just Googled it on his smart phone from our couch and paused the video at the needed picture to see what to do in his car. It showed him that he can do it himself since he saw someone actually doing it instead of just written directions. It was amazing to see the theory of Wave 3 of DE in authentic practice right before my eyes!
3. A third moment came concerning social media. I was at social media activity level zero before this class. I never had a Facebook account, though I had signed up for Twitter once upon a time when I was a classroom teacher. But I never logged in to see how to use it. Well, my husband did show me the basics of Skype so I could talk to him when he was travelling through Europe a few years ago. In any case, my understanding has been opened to the purpose of using social media for education, and I have seen for myself the prevalence of its use (which is half the usefulness in itself). I have learned how to blog (from OMDE 603 actually), how to create and maintain an e-portfolio, how to use collaborative documents and wikis, and have experienced Twitter. I discussed the pros and cons of using Facebook in OMDE 603, though I have yet to actually sign up for that one. But I feel I have learned so much educational technology so fast, which was my desire in taking this course.
My initial definition of distance education has not changed, it has just taken root. The same way that a plant grows roots to seek for water, the seed that was planted within me concerning distance education has now taken root within my understanding and within my experience. The definition in my psyche has grown roots to seek the life-giving substance (thoughts) with which to continue to grow and flourish. Each concept, and even every word of my initial definition has taken on worlds of meaning for me that I never saw before. The main concept that has grabbed hold of me was repeated many times throughout the past two weeks: the creation of new knowledge by collaboration of students working together. This applies to class projects, discussions, and research. At first, I was opposed to the idea of creating new knowledge when I was so used to discovering and teaching theories others have proven and explained. But as the roots grew deeper, I saw that, though humans had acquired much knowledge in the past, the total possible knowledge is by no means exhausted, and there is so much more room for more theories and understanding of our world!
A real-world situation where I could apply what I learned in this module came today when I was discussing child development with my family. Our children are changing, and we had to have a meeting of the adults in charge of daily family management. I shared the concept of creating new knowledge by working together collaboratively. Each of us has certain techniques and differing attitudes toward raising our collective group of children. It has become essential that we work together to pool our knowledge of what psychologists say about development, our experience raising our older kids, and our understanding of what techniques work and which don’t, given our unique situation. It is our intention to create a new system of raising the kids at this stage in the development of the family, a system that no psychologist has ever described before, but one that works for us. This is reminiscent of the concept I have been studying in this course of the creation of new knowledge by the collaboration of peers.
Philosophically, the future of learning is no longer linear where there is past, present, and future. The learning of the future is in the learning taking place now, where one must seek the research, or the learning, of the past to predict future learning so that the present learning can be explored fully. All of the technology is allowing me to go in the past to gather information that is moving learning toward the future. I am planning to teach my children not just to regurgitate something, but to analyze and criticize where knowledge is heading and how they can get there right now. Within a short time, we can research thousands of pieces of information concerning a topic. The summation of everyone’s research is what is propelling us into the future, whether we are conscious of it or not. Before we can change the mind/action of the people, we must change the thing that is driving that action, which is the theories in their mind. The rapid advancement of technology creates momentum, which cures all problems. The learning curve gets to critical mass faster than it would have without the driving force of technology pushing it. I suppose that, though I can apply what I learned in this module to a real-world situation today, it will be outdated before too long, and I had better keep learning in order to keep up with the current thought process of education and of the next generation as a whole.
November 10, 2014
So, I had another “A-ha” moment today. My family has made a past-time of looking at new houses to see what we like about each house’s design. One of the “extras” that we are always excited to see is an intercom system that links each bedroom and the major rooms of the house. It is more common than I expected in the larger homes. Today, my husband was setting up the old computers he just bought for our three girls. He decided to add Google Hangouts so I can call them from my computer while I am working on my homework at my desk, just to check what they are doing at their computers (of course with the tightest of parental controls since they are still elementary age). I realized that this technological set-up was exactly what we were always excited to see in the fancy houses – and technology brought it to our house without a lot of money or being elitist. I was so excited about this “A-ha” that I had to come add it to my learning journal!
I participated in four webinars today, thanks to USDLA. The first two webinars referenced UMUC, which surprised me a little. The first presenter explained that she had worked at UMUC as a course designer before she moved on to Berkley College. She described the wonderful reputation UMUC has as a leader in the field of distance education, both in practice and in teaching. Interestingly, she said that one uniqueness about Berkley is that the instructors both design the course and deliver it to the students. She detailed the quarter-long training session their new online faculty members go through as students and the second quarter when those instructors design the course that they intend to teach during the third quarter. There is one course design expert for each of the Berkley online schools, and that is apparently enough to support all of the faculty who are designing their courses.
The second webinar was by Florida Virtual School. They provide virtual internships for distance students of education. Many of their interns are students of UMUC’s distance program for education certification. The presenter said that the FL Virtual School came about because online clinical experiences were an important issue in Florida. In fact, a high school graduation requirement in FL is taking at least one virtual class. In addition to the requirement for students, the schools are required to provide virtual opportunities even at the elementary level. One intern from UMUC made a video for the webinar from her military deployment in Japan. She had attended her virtual internship and graduated as a pre-service teacher. Because of the small number of schools for her to work in there, she opted to teach at a distance, just as she had learned at a distance. She holds her office hours from Japan on Skype! Very exciting!
The other webinars gave a “goody bag”: cilc.org for virtual field trips and bitly.com/bundles/o_6hc4j4881i/3 for PLEs. The presentation that included the virtual field trips was about videoconferencing. It was said that videoconferencing has been shown to engage learners so much more than webinars because you camera is on and everyone else can see you "multi-tasking" during the activity! I had been caught-- I was looking at which courses I wanted to register for next semester while I was listening to the webinar! The presenter also spoke about how videoconferencing was an open window to health careers, with examples of virtually participating in live open heart and knee surgeries! The student was actively discussing the procedures with the doctors and nurses during the operation! Videoconferencing is known to be an equalizer among K-12 schools. Traditionally, high performing schools would attract the best teachers and students and receive more funding. Now any teacher can get experts by video in a cost effective way. This allows students to stay local rather than reach out to other schools.
Another webinar discussed blended K-12 schools. In the face-to-face time, students received conferencing, tutoring, and mentoring. In the virtual time, students engaged in learning activities and testing. Then there was a required third component: quality physical education and health programs. It was emphasized that the blended model used emerging technology rather than developed technology. It is all great information, and I am looking forward to tomorrow's webinars!
November 23, 2014
601 self-assessment of contribution to group work for Final grid
For the Final grid, I started our group’s discussion of the work to be done right after we all submitted our Current Wave grid, so that we could be finished before Sunday night. After everyone voiced their opinion on the discussion board, I clarified that we agreed to fix our own columns Tuesday and then meet for editing Wednesday night at 9 pm on the grid itself since that process worked so well the previous night (for the Current Wave). I was at the “editing party” Wednesday night and agreed that we would meet again Saturday night since there was more to be done. I was also at the Saturday “editing party” and copied the chat transcript to the discussion board for the group members who were absent. On Sunday, I was part of the small conversation confirming that the grid was finally completed.
Questions for Reflection, Current Trends E-Portfolio Learning Journal
Before this (r)evolutionary grid, I had never worked on a collaborative document. My group chose to work on this assignment using the software called Google Docs which is the word processor part of a free, web-based office suite offered by Google within Google Drive (Page & Brin, 2014). I have been finding features of Google Docs even to this day that are impressive and convenient, though it would have been a lot easier if there had been an instructional session within the course to teach us the basics of working in a shared file. For example, the documents are able to be edited by all members simultaneously, used to suggest edits without actually changing anything, and used to leave comments attached to specific parts (of any size) within the document. The documents are automatically saved and are downloadable and compatible with Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, Google Docs had quite a few times during the months when it was not working properly. I don’t know if these are considered glitches since they were only temporary – perhaps they were issues caused by too many users on the server at one time. Most of the problems that members of my group had with Google Docs fixed themselves shortly after the group member reported the problem to the group.
The grid was a nice learning tool. It helped me to summarize the important aspects of each wave of distance education and to compare and contrast the information within each wave. For those learners who are objective, take things step-by-step, and are goal-oriented, putting course material into a table is the ideal learning activity. It is objective because it helped me to pull out the important facts from the large amount of reading assigned each week. It is step-by-step in that it helped me to see the chronological order of the events that created distance learning as it exists today. Also, categorizing the concepts in a table breaks them down in a step-by-step fashion to be able to analyze each factor separately. The activity is goal-oriented by aiding me to see the goals that were set at the beginning of distance education, the goals that have been met currently and the future goals that are just being conceived. Focusing on the future goals of distance education allows me to create my own goals for my career in DE. The activity also had its own time-related goal of moving the students through the waves of distance education with group accountability so that nobody fell behind in their readings.
Reference
Page, L., and Brin, S. (2014). Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Google Company. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/about/company/
Distance Education is the process of teaching and learning, with some physical or temporal distance between the instructor and the student. It is more general than any of the rest of the similar terms.
While I would not change the definition I chose, the course has given me a deeper understanding of what DE is. Before embarking upon this course (I mean this specific course, but I also mean my course of learning in the field of distance education), I had a vague image, but now I have an idea of how it works. Being a distance learner, I have experienced what we have been studying. I am constantly commenting to people around me how interesting it is to me to be practicing/experiencing DE while studying it at the same time! It is fascinating and keeps my mind busy trying to wrap around that dichotomy!
Though I am not changing the words of my definition, I am changing my perception, my awareness of all that it entails. My original definition of DE was general and short so that it could include many different concepts under the surface. That structure has been confirmed to me as necessary by my readings in this foundations class, but if I were to be asked for an annotated definition, I would have a lot of information to include in the notes. Probably it would be too much information and have to be thinned out somewhat.
However, I am beginning to truly believe that the different waves of distance education are so different that they should not all be covered by the same definition. Peters' (2010) view that DE is a separate entity in and of itself (separate from traditional education) is still rattling around in my brain. I spoke with my teenager about the vast difference between Maryland K-12 teaching requirements, DE teaching requirements, and traditional higher education teaching requirements. I am currently experiencing all three forms of education at the same time (as teacher and student), and I have a hard time calling them all by the same name: education. They are completely different worlds, with different strategies, different deliveries, different attitudes, different expectations of the students and instructors, different tools, different everything! I am just beginning to understand that each wave of DE is just as different from each other as DE is different from other educations.
One change that I want to explain specifically is that now as an online learner, I feel included in the institution, not ostracized. I have the option of attending a class on campus if I desire. DE is still a part of an institution, and I am not a completely independent learner. Before, my image was that I was connected to the learning only through the computer. I did not pay attention to the people “on the other side”: instructors, classmates, administrators, authors, experts, scholars, etc. It was just me and my learning.
Considering the overall course objectives, I believe all of these objectives were achieved.
- Identify the unique characteristics of distance education We learned that DE reflects the learner that is self-directed, goal-oriented, and autonomous. This was accomplished by the e-portfolio in learning reflections on content and the work we did on our personal DE definition.
- Describe the major influences in the evolution of distance education --social, economic, and political-- from its early beginnings to the current IT-based practices This was achieved through the e-portfolio in learning reflections on content, our focus on coming up with our own DE definition, the essay on comparing DE institutions, and the group grid.
- Identify the key authors and theorists in distance education and analyze their contributions to the field We worked on this through our e-portfolio in learning reflections on content, thinking about our DE definition, contributing to the group grid, and writing an essay on a DE theory and its application
- Describe how distance education methodologies have changed over time, in particular how the role of teacher and learner have evolved This was accomplished in our group grid, the e-portfolio in learning reflections on content, the essay on comparing DE institutions, and the essay on a DE theory and its application.
- Describe various types of distance education institutions and the relevance of a systems approach to teaching and learning We worked on this objective through the essay on comparing DE institutions and in contributing to our e-portfolio in learning reflections on content.
- Analyze the impact of technological changes on the nature of teaching and learning in distance education This was accomplished in writing an essay comparing DE institutions, an essay on a DE theory and its application, and in our e-portfolio concerning learning reflections on content.
- Navigate and use an online learning environment, shared virtual spaces, and social media for the purpose of learning, documenting learning, and creating content (e.g., learning management system, maps, charts, wikis, Google docs, Weebly, Twitter, blogs, Diigo, Vimeo) This objective was achieved through our work on our e-portfolio, mind map, LMS (LEO), group grid on Google docs, Twitter account, and Diigo annotation.
- Master and apply research and writing skills for the purpose of critically analyzing issues and topics discussed in relevant literature, synthesizing findings, and communicating ideas and arguments with supporting evidence I believe this is the objective that was met the most. Maybe this is because I just spent so many hours on writing the last paper, but it seems that we practiced research and writing so much in this course. It is included in the plagiarism tutorial, bibliography, e-portfolio, our DE definition, our essay on comparing DE institutions, and our essay on a DE theory and its application.
- Learn collaboratively by using social media and other shared virtual spaces to create content and successfully complete assigned team projects We practiced this in creating our biography, e-portfolio, our Twitter account, our group grid, and our Diigo annotation account.
- Reflect on learning and articulate changes in thinking, feeling, and behavior This was achieved in the e-portfolio, DE definition, essay on comparing DE institutions, essay on a DE theory and its application, and mind map.
Take some time to reflect on your study group experience: What did you think about the experience of working together to create a collaborative document? What worked? What did not? What could your group have improved in order to realize a more smooth process? What do you see as benefits (or drawbacks) of online collaboration? How do you think the activity could be improved?
Teamwork is needed in the world today and even more so in the future. Creating this collaborative document allowed me to see how far we are from working together as a team. We worked more as a group than as a team. This is one of the reasons why I believe Americans are behind, and communities like the Asian communities excel. There the focus is on the corporate learning rather than the individual learning. In other words, corporate learning comes first before individual learning. DE has placed individual learning as a secondary function to the team learning. The individual is there to aid the team in learning new concepts. What is it going to take for us to work together as a team? Google Docs was a reflection to me of how far I am from collaborating with others properly.
What worked is that each of us worked in the area of our strength. We communicated a lot. We took ownership and responsibility for our own work. We all came from different backgrounds and fields of work. What did not work is that we did not trust each other in our strengths. We did not allow our communication to manifest itself in the actual work. We communicated that things that needed to be changed, but we did not allow anybody to go onto our columns and change it for themselves. As a team, we did not take corporate responsibility for the assignment. Each column had its owner, and there was not one person overlooking the project to make sure we were going the right direction. We did not capitalize on our differences.