Final Reflection for Distance Learning Class

Week 8 Reflection


My eyes were opened in this course when I discovered that the definition of distance learning included more than just the plethora of online courses! I had been involved in this type of learning across the years as I took video courses and correspondence courses, so I guess I should have anticipated that it would be a natural progression for me to move to an online learning environment. After all, the reasons that those early distance learning courses worked for me are the same reasons that the online courses work for me now. As a busy adult working full time and raising a family, I have never been comfortable in a traditional learning environment, as it has never met my needs. I see the natural progression, the natural evolution, of the online course as a means to an end, but I think that a lack of understanding of the nature of the beast is keeping it from widespread acceptance still.

I left one school district where there was a blanket policy not to accept any online courses for professional development. I knew I would never be able to further my education under those circumstances. Thus, I moved to my current position, knowing that I would have to prove the validity of the online program that I wanted to pursue, but at least they would consider it. My current district has developed a policy that they will accept distance-learning classes if they are from accredited programs and if they are recorded at the 600-course level or above. I think this is a realistic policy, and I know that in being allowed to study this way, I have been able to show the district administrators what the courses look like and the rigor and relevancy of the coursework. I think that there is still a resistance to online learning because of a lack of familiarity with it. However, as nearly all major colleges and universities are offering part of their curriculum online, the idea of online courses is going to become mainstream. What becomes acceptable at the higher levels of education will then trickle down to the secondary level and even lower levels. This is the way it has worked with prior changes.

Even over the course of being enrolled in two programs through Walden, I have seen changes in the acceptance, albeit at the secondary level it has been more of a “If you can’t beat them, join them” approach rather than embracing online learning. However, everything in education takes a long time to change! Just look at the fact that the school year is based on an agrarian calendar when we are no longer that type of society! I think the changes in mindset are going to be client-driven, rather than institution driven. As the cost of education keeps going up, and the economy still is stagnant, the old model of going away to a four-year college is going to have to change. The influx of students into community colleges in this country already demonstrates this is happening! However, students will need to have their educational needs met beyond the two-year offerings in a fiscally responsible manner. Online education will be a viable alternative in many cases. Therefore, I think we are at the very verge of an explosion of the common acceptance of this type of learning. I think as more and more well-known universities make online offerings known, it will continue to gain acceptance. Twenty years from now we’ll have moved on to some other form of distance learning, and we’ll wonder why anyone ever resisted this type of learning.
I think my role in promoting distance education is to keep addressing how it may be used in my current setting and explaining what it is not! I am currently on my district’s “Future Trends in Technology” committee, and I have already been able to bring to the forefront the idea that we have what we need to offer and control our own online credit recovery program. From my coursework, I have been able to discuss these ideas with our technology people, administrators, and fellow teachers in an educated manner backing up my ideas with solid pedagogy. I find my biggest role is dispelling, or at least addressing, concerns about what online courses can and can’t do. The biggest concern, outside of cheating, has been the fact that students do not have the social interaction that they would in a classroom. I have been able to explain that just the opposite may be true when a course is designed correctly and participation is required, especially as compared to the shy student who sits in the back of the classroom and never volunteers an answer in the traditional classroom! I think, to be honest, that the way I am going to be able to help promote distance learning in our district will come down to the idea of writing and piloting a course to show that it can work. I definitely see this on the horizon, and with the help of this class, I feel that I will be prepared to design curriculum that will meet the needs of the district, the instructors, and the students.

Converting from face-to-face to distance learning

WARNING - I'm writing this through a haze of painkillers after enduring 9 surgical procedures on Friday. The good news is that I'm upright; the bad news is that despite wearing my glasses, the text keeps going "in and out." The bottom line is please forgive any errors in this!

I decided to take the approach that good teaching is good teaching no matter its format, and that therefore the key idea to converting to any distance learning environment is starting with a solid lesson plan. That's no different than in a traditional class, though. I then broke up the brochure into categories. The inside of the brochure points out the philosophy of distance learning and explains what differences to expect in a sidebar. The back of the brochure lists tips for instructional designers and facilitators to help ensure a positive learning experience for the students. I did try to use a little humor on the cover suggesting that there is no need for a melt down when facing this change! I tried to pick out the highlights upon which to focus, and I felt that the video this week really did a good job in addressing many of these specific issues related to this task.

A "brand name" doesn't always guarantee high quality!

I feel like the child who just discovered there is no real Santa Claus, rather only the spirit of Santa Claus! This feeling is a result of my exploration of an open course offered by THE Yale University. THE Yale University whose name echoed through my head as a high school student as my father hoped to send me to an Ivy League school. When this assignment was given to explore one of the free online courses available through them, I thought it would be the key to unlocking the mystique of what made Yale and all those other iconic institutions almost magical! Wow! If it turned out to be something special, I planned to explore their English offerings further after this course. I could almost see my father in heaven smiling, as I finally would attend the school he always dreamed of for me. Well, Dad, I hate to disappoint you again, but just as I told you when I dropped out of the big name university to attend Northern Illinois University, the name doesn’t promise quality in all areas, and this online course was an example of that!

I chose to explore a class that would be particularly relevant to my current teaching position: The American Novel since 1945 (http://oyc.yale.edu/english/american-novel-since-1945/content/downloads.html ). Upon first examination of the home page, I found the open courses available at Yale to meet my basic expectations. The philosophy and objectives were clearly laid out at the main text on the page and the departments offering courses were links on the left. Upon clicking on English, once again the department philosophy and objectives were listed at the top of the page, and I saw four offerings, each explained succinctly along and featuring a small picture of the professor. The navigation at this point was easy, and the general objectives of the course were clear.

However, as soon as I went to the page for the specific course, I knew I was in trouble. This course doesn’t meet any of the criteria that have been established in our readings or media presentations as to how a course should be set up! This is definitely NOT a distance education course. It is simply a filmed version of the face-to-face class! In addition, the filming was done in the actual classroom, and while the sound is excellent, the pacing of the teacher back and forth across the dirty chalkboard and the movement of the students were in the audience but caught in the filming frame drove me to distraction! Where were the activities? Where was the chance to explore ideas on my own? How could I relate to my fellow learners? Where was the technology? There was really no excuse for some of these things because this course was filmed in 2008. The technology and knowledge to create this course to be truly effective was available at that time!

There was no evidence that the ADDIE process was followed at all. There is little commendable that I can say about this course other than they do make the technology available in a multitude of ways, such as multiple audio and video file formats, so they did take into consideration what technology needs the learners might possess. However, that is the extent to which they addressed the needs of the distance learner. Even when I did go to download the files for the course, which were difficult to locate due to the multiple formats within the file folders, it took so long to download 250 mb at speed of 1.5 mb/second using my DSL line that I did exactly what Dr. George Piskurich warned about could happen in this week’s video; I multi-tasked as it was downloading and lost interest. In addition since I could have simply downloaded the lecture as an mp3, I could have skipped the video part altogether.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in this offering, which I’m sure is not much different than the other courses they are offering as Open Courses. Knowing that it’s Yale, I can’t believe that they totally ignored everything that makes an online course effective. As a matter of fact, I would like to compare this to an online course for which one pays to see the similarities and differences. I think instead that this was purely done as a public relations tool: “You, too, can attend Yale! See what our classes are like!” This is supported in the fact that there is very little financial expenditures associated with creating these types of classes. Someone just has to turn on the switch on the video camera and use a template for the courses and fill them in and make the links. I think of the suggestions in this week’s second video about how time consuming it is to create the framework for the course, to analyze which technology to use, and all of the other steps, including the alpha and beta testing and resulting tweaking, and I can only believe that none of that was done. Unfortunately, this public relations tool could ultimately backfire on Yale because the material is presented in such a boring manner to students who must be passive learners, other than writing papers in isolation, that I would think this type of course would discourage, rather than encourage, learners.

So, once again, I’m back to my idea that I first proposed to my parents back in 1978 when I decided to leave the prestigious university I was at to come back and attend my state university because there really wasn’t much difference between the two, other than the price tag. Therefore, just because the course has the name “Yale” associated with it doesn’t guarantee quality. I think instead a better adage to consider when looking at this class would be, “You get what you pay for.”