The Future of Distance Education

As this course in Distance Learning has come to an end I have been asked to reflect upon the future of distance education and my role in the promotion of distance learning. I don’t believe that distance education or online learning will ever over take traditional learning I simply think that the choices for learners to find an optimal learning environment will grow.  

As technology progresses distance education will also grow and become more common and have the ability to provide more educational opportunities for more people.  Yet even though, “rapid advances in information technology are reshaping the learning styles of many students in higher education" (Dede, 2005) and “as more technology resources are becoming available to educational settings, more students are becoming involved in learning at a distance” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009) we as Instructional Designers must first understand our learners to ensure that we are selecting technology and its uses that will be most effective in fulfilling our learners needs.

I believe that as distance learning grows that individualized learning curriculum will be more of the educational focus and teachers will transition from lecturer to facilitator/tutor.  Simonson et al stated (p.126), “The instructional environment should be viewed as a system, a relationship among and between all the components of that system- the instructor, the learners, the material, and the technology.” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009) I believe this to be true but see parts of this relationship more as a parent to child than as on an equal plane.  For instance, Simonson et al also pointed out, (p.125) “Analysis of the cognitive abilities of the class allows the instructor to observe how students relate to the content of the lesson.” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2009) So an instructor can now base the design of a lesson or content material around the learners’ abilities and engagement level.  

In 10 to 20 years I believe a hybrid/blended learning model will be most predominant especially in academia; a hybrid/blended learning model gives more students the effective strategies of both traditional and online learning environments, thus giving more students more opportunities  to find which learning environment works best for individualized needs.

I believe that my studies in instructional design have supported my personal experiences in different classroom environments.  With my experiences in traditional, hybrid/blended and online learning environments, both as a student and as a teacher, I believe that I can analyze each learning/training scenario from each perspective and help clients select the best options for their learners.  I also believe that these different perspectives will help me to advocate for different forms of distance learning and help others to recognize that distance learning comes in many different forms and levels.

I believe the best way to be a positive force for distance education is to become an expert in a niche market or area of need; brining focus to my professional beliefs, techniques and strategies.  I would really like to establish a niche of converting traditional learning curriculum into effective distance learning models and provide the supporting training and professional development.

Resources

Dede, C. (2005). Planning for Neomillennial Learning Styles. EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 28(1), 7-12. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

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

The Value of Open Courses

This week I explored one of the Open Yale courses to analyze the pre-planning and design of its instructional design.  I specifically reviewed the Biomedical Engineering course, found at http://oyc.yale.edu/biomedical-engineering/frontiers-in-biomedical-engineering/

The Open Yale Biomedical Engineering course is one of several open courses offered on the Yale website and is an amazing opportunity to take college level courses for free and in your own learning time frame.  This open course would be a perfect fit for retirees interested in learning new developments in particular industries or for students who do not need the college credit but wish to have the knowledge found in the available course.  This would not be a good option for a student who has not had prior experience in the featured industry or needs to gain the information for application purposes, such as a job setting.

The Open Yale Biomedical Engineering course is basically course management (Simonson, 2007, p.239) with the lecture materials posted to an online Course Management System (CMS) for other students to utilize to self-teach themselves asynchronously.  Each session of the course offers the session summaries with discussion questions and the recorded lecture; this course does not include the textbook or information on obtaining the textbook.  This course would be considered to be very teacher-centered and not utilizing the opportunities to be learner-centered that distance learning has to offer. (Simonson, 2007, pp.231- 232)  This course has all the information available but lacks distance learning strategies to increase students’ chances of successfully completing the course for application purposes.  The course does a nice job explaining the course content and gives a brief description of student requirements to complete the course but does not give any prerequisites for the course or any other background information that may preface the course’s content. 

The main feature of the course that caught my attention as a good distance learning technique was the ability to receive the lecture content in three different forms: text (transcript), audio, or video.  These different forms of the lecture are a good way to accommodate different learning styles as well as different students’ learning preferences. (Simonson, 2007)

So this open course format that is utilized for this course does give the opportunity of exposure to information that may not have been available in the past but does not show extensive instructional design pre-planning to be an effective distance learning course.

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

Selecting Distance Learning Technologies for a Corporate Collaborative Training Environment

On May 16^th Blackboard Inc. released news that they were presenting their Blackboard Collaborate product with new integrations with Elluminate and Wimba to add enhanced flexibility for both students and teachers. (Blackboard Inc., 2011) I believe this is a next step to the creation of the perfect CMS or LMS system for a large range of distance education opportunities.  

This new system of offering both asynchronous and synchronous options seamlessly in one platform allow for enhanced distance education experiences in academic communities but also in corporate communities.  In June 2009 Cisco found that corporate employees “experienced a significant increase in work-life flexibility, productivity and overall satisfaction as a result of their ability to work remotely.”(Cisco, 2009) In addition, as corporations have moved more into our new technological age and increased the distance between employees, supervisors, and workplaces they have required more distance education based trainings and interactions.  

As an instructional designer I would suggest that corporations begin to use technology like Blackboard Collaborate to train their employees and to allow increased communication between employees at different work locations.  With integrated asynchronous and synchronous tools corporate employees would be able to all attend training in real time all together, using Elluminate system, and then collaborate after training utilizing the Blackboard discussion forums.  In addition, within the Blackboard Collaborate system corporate employees could post to fellow employees or exclusively to supervisors screenshots (utilizing internal computer screen capture tool or additional capture software tool like Snagit) of their successes and challenges or errors within the realm of the training.  Lastly, this system would allow corporations to both formatively and summatively assess both the growth of their employees through the offered training and the effectiveness of the training itself.

So in short I believe that the distance education tools, even those solely focused on academic applications, are becoming the types of tools that could potentially be very beneficial to the corporate training sector as well.

Blackboard Inc. (May 2011) Press Release: Blackboard upgrades integrations for Elluminate, Wimba solutions. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://www.blackboard.com/About-Bb/Media-Center/Press-Releases.aspx?releaseid=1564186

Cisco (June 2009) Press Release: Cisco Study Finds Telecommuting Significantly Increases Employee Productivity, Work-Life Flexibility and Job Satisfaction. Retrieved May 22, 2011 from http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2009/prod_062609.html

My Defining Distance Learning Mind Map

As I recounted my experiences with distance learning while reading this week’s resources I found it very difficult to define distance learning based on my experiences.  I have seen many different forms of distance learning both as a student and as a teacher.  This seems to be a similar theme even among the “experts” of distance learning; distance learning is not easily defined.  

I suppose I first encountered distance learning when I was in high school while taking college courses and completing my senior courses.  This experience taught me how to adjust and adapt to different learning environments, as my college courses were very different than the high school courses I was use to taking.  At this time I defined distance learning based on the contrast between my high school courses and my college courses, either one being a distance learning course at any time.  I then took a distance learning course in college that required me to study purely on my own and send in my tests and assignments to a professor for grading.  Here the contrast was between my self-paced course and my traditional college lecture courses.  Then I took hybrid/blended courses to complete my teaching certificate while I taught and wrote curriculum in a hybrid/blended classroom environment.  This was the first time I could clearly see how a traditional learning classroom could transform into a distance learning classroom.  Lastly, I took my current position high school science teaching 100% online.  I believe the online learning classroom is the distance learning classroom extreme.

I believe that the contrast between the traditional learning classroom and the distance learning classroom would be how I would define distance learning.  There seems to be five main relationships in both classroom settings:

1. Teacher-Student Relationship 
2. Teacher-Curriculum Relationship
3. Student-Curriculum Relationship 
4. Teacher-School Relationship 
5. Student-School Relationship

As in any relationship each of these requires communication, collaboration and mutually benefiting attributes, the way each of these elements is achieved would define the relationship as either “traditional” or “distant.”  If any one of these relationships would be considered a “distance” relationship then it would classify the entire classroom as a distance learning classroom.  Then the distance learning classroom could be further classified by which relationship(s) is/are considered “distant.”

I find it most intriguing to think about the future of distance learning as the traditional learning classroom and the distance learning classroom begin to converge even more with the introduction of technology requirements.  The more technology that is introduced to the traditional classroom environment the more likely is would be that one of the key classroom relationships would be classified as “distant” thus converting the traditional learning classroom into a distant learning classroom.

Based on this explanation the future will be filled with nothing but distance learning classrooms in differing capacities.  It will be very interesting to watch the development of distance learning and I believe we are in the best positions to be leaders in this development.  

Resources

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

Maclaughlin, E. J., Supemaw, R. B., & Howard, K. A. (2004). Impact of Distance Learning Using Videoconferencing Technology on Student Performance. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 68(3), 1-6.

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.

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

Welcome Followers

Welcome one and all.  I am looking forward to sharing what I learning about distance learning and adding to my knowledge through your experiences as well.  Enjoy!