On Fairness of Group Grading

Collaboration is a skill to be learned. Most of us, who has been on this program, has been through at least one difficult experience of working on a team project. Despite the difficulty, major scholars and practitioners in the field of online education emphasize the importance of group activities and the necessity for students to learn how to work as a team. “Collaboration has been the most powerful principle of online course design and delivery” (Palloff & Pratt, 2007, p. 257). We’ve come some way from “I win if you lose” individualistic paradigm of competitive learning (Oosterhof, Conrad, & Ely, 2008) to “when I succeed, we succeed” of collaborative teamwork (Palloff & Pratt, 2007, p. 157).

How do you assess such important collaborative activities? According to Oosterhof, et al. (2008), instructor might be partially excluded from the team activities and cannot directly observe all what transpires between the team members. What the instructor can objectively judge is the product of the team collaboration. Therefore, most commonly, the project gets graded and that’s the grade that goes to each member’s individual record, despite the differences in the workload and the intensity of participation from member to member. Many consider this practice unfair and think each team member should get two grades – one for group effort and another - for individual work.
Consider the following questions:

• Under what circumstances can the group grading work and be fair?
• If team collaboration is such an important skill and an individual’s success is dependent on the group effort, why not cultivate collaboration by grading identically each team member? Wouldn’t it prompt the team to come up with some original plan for equally involving all members and making it fair for all to receive the well-deserved grade?
• What mechanism, in your opinion will make individual grades based on group collaboration fair?

By Friday, please, summarize your thoughts on the topic of fairness of group grading. Try to go beyond your initial reaction to the questions above and come up with arguments both for and against this practice. Return later and read your peers’ responses.

By Sunday, reply to at least two of your classmates’ postings by asking questions, expanding on their ideas, or suggesting a new solution. Please, don’t forget to cite your sources. Please, see Discussion Rubric for information on what’s expected from your work.

Reference:

Oosterhof, A., Conrad, R.-M., & Ely, D. P. (2008). Assessing learners online. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Plagiarism Detection and Prevention

My first reaction to this is: let’s not talk about it! It’s a tough issue for many, and is quite irritating for me. There are reports that plagiarism is on the rise in conjunction with the widespread Internet use. Too many actions nowadays are considered plagiarism, which is an extremely negative and shameful word. They distinguish intentional and unintentional plagiarism. The unintentional is the one that bothers me. Too many people could fall victim to being named plagiarists though unintentional. I bet this could cause irreparable damage and take away lives (imagine being called a thief). I would never, ever consider “stealing” someone else’s ideas, but I could repeat them, with proper credit if the names are available to me. What if they are not? Can I still mention the ideas? Who is the judge to what is considered “common knowledge”? There are these rules, quite vague, that few know: all these possible ways that are considered “improper”. After more than a year in a graduate program, I’m still often in doubt, and I’m not alone.

Ideas are in the air. Does it happen to you that you get a brilliant idea only to find out later it has been already out there? Some ideas are different, but similar. Imagine someone coming to you claiming that you stole his/her idea and modified it. Another important issue is mentioned in this week’s video resource, the conversation between Drs. Pratt and Palloff about plagiarism in distance learning (Walden University, 2010): apparently, copying your own work is considered plagiarism. I disagree – it shouldn’t be. Why is it allowed to facilitators to copy the same response to each group’s discussion forum? Why some authors can recycle their own work? As an example from my previous class on Program Evaluation, one of our textbook authors, Dr. Worthen, used his own earlier article (Worthen, 2001) for writing the last chapter of the textbook (Fitzpatrick, Sanders, & Worthen, 2011). I had fun comparing texts, but it never occurred to me to doubt his academic honesty! If a student was lucky to get the same assignment, s/he should be able to use this lucky break and resubmit his/her work if s/he is willing to. Graduate students are as busy people as their professors and should be able to use their own work as they please.

So what else is plagiarism? According to Chao, Wilhelm, and Neureuther (2009), “copying published information verbatim or with inadequate paraphrasing, failing to acknowledge sources used, excessive quoting, or wrong or inadequate documentation” (p.33). Excessive quoting?! It took me a while to get used to this one. The way it was mentioned to us, students, almost in passing manner, is not enough. Chao et al. list some reasons for increasing instances of plagiarism, such as “the lack of consistency among citation style guides”, and the lack of serious attitude due to, how they quote, “underlying cultural nod toward getting ahead while getting away with unethical behavior” (p. 32). Additionally, surveys reveal that a staggering number of students don’t understand that using ideas of others without proper credit is a form of plagiarism (Chao et al. 2009).

I disagree with Dr. Palloff (Walden University, 2010) that it’s student’s responsibility to learn the rules. They have to be taught systematically about plagiarism, and not just in graduate school, but starting from high school, maybe even earlier. The attitude of respect for intellectual property and creative thinking must be developed from the early age, and it should be the educators’ responsibility. Part of it should be learning effective paraphrasing (and correct citing) through graded exercises (Chao et al. 2009).

Plagiarism detection software, such as Turnitin (seems to be the most popular one), although not perfect, can help faculty in plagiarism detection. Being a computer program, it cannot distinguish true plagiarism from, say, using common idioms and phrases and, therefore, every case must be checked by humans to confirm the fact of transgression. Faculty members don’t favor the program, though. According to Brown, Jordan, Rubin, and Arome (2010), less than 10% of all professors are using the service. Among reasons, the authors list difficulties adjusting and learning how to use it, threat to teacher-student trust, and the belief that this service “is a poor example of the use of another’s intellectual property rights for profit” (as cited in Brown, et al., 2010, p. 114). It is also clear that, with about 10 million student texts in the database, Turnitin is far from being comprehensive because a lot of primary sources, such as scientific journals, are not in its database. Still, despite not being a very elegant solution, many report that Turnitin is effective enough in reduction of plagiarism, at least as a deterrent or as an educational tool (Brown et all., 2010).

I can also see how some professors would be reluctant to use the tool because they believe in their own abilities to recognize plagiarism, either as a departure from one’s individual style or based on their own comprehensive knowledge of all literature on their subject. Others believe in their ability to design course activities in such a way that makes it impossible to pass someone else’s work for one’s own, such as always using original topics and never repeating the same assignment or being actively involved as mentors in the process of writing each student paper. These are very valuable ideas that I would be happy to use as a facilitator and an instructional designer, along with systematic directions and emphasis on the right ways of using someone else’s intellectual properties.

References:

Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G. (2010). Strengths and weaknesses of plagiarism detection software. Journal of Literacy and Technology, 11(1/2), 110–131. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete database

Chao, C., Wilhelm, W., & Neureuther, B. (2009). A study of electronic detection and pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 51(1), 31–42. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Fitzpatrick, J., Sanders, J., & Worthen, B. (2010). Program evaluation: Alternative approaches and practical guidelines (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Walden University. (Producer). (2010). Plagiargism and Cheating. [Online]. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege

Worthen, B. (2001). Whither evaluation? That all depends. American Journal of Evaluation, 22(3), 409–416. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete database

Impact of Technology and Multimedia

Technology makes learning more accessible and engaging. Multimedia promotes deeper learning by using more than one modality to convey messages to be learned. Though not essential for learning in general, technology and multimedia can greatly facilitate learning if used in a judicious way. Also, “we shape our tools, and our tools shape us” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 34); thus, technology, as part of our environment, has a great influence on how we learn and develop. As for online learning environments, they wouldn’t exist without technology. The last decade’s development of Web 2.0 technologies enables user-created and co-created content (blogs, YouTube), distant collaboration (wikis), and creation of learning communities and communities of practice around any subject of study or interest (wikis, forums, Skype) (Walden University, 2010). That opens up new possibilities for deeper, more engaged, up-to-date and even customized learning. One of the negative effects new technologies might have on teaching and learning (especially mobile technologies) is, as Dr. Pratt observed, the tendency of designers to compress curriculum to make it fit on smart phones and in the swift lives of modern learners (Walden University, 2010).

Despite the exciting possibilities the new technologies bringing to the online classroom, designers and instructors shouldn’t try to utilize all of them at once. It could be overwhelming to the learner. Also, not all students might have adequate Internet connection or hardware for seamless integration of all that’s in store. As a rule, only tools that meet learning objectives should be used, with alternative adequate possibilities considered in case of technology failure (Walden University, 2010). Among other important considerations should be the level of student technological preparedness (consider brief training sessions) and possible additional costs involved in using online applications (consider finding free online programs and services).

Developments in educational technology have allowed greater number of students, including those with disabilities, to participate in distance learning classes. The major implication of that for designers and instructors of online teaching and learning experiences is “to always bear in mind that people interact with computers in different ways” (Cooper, Colwell, & Jelfs, 2007) and to make provisions for inclusion of alternative access tools or equivalent learning experiences for such students.

For me, the most exciting tools are ones allowing effortless online collaboration because they embody the best features of both face-to-face and distance learning classrooms. Additionally, they allow deeper, more meaningful learning to take place as well as make the learners possible participants it the global online community of practice constantly creating, enriching and updating knowledge.

References:

Boettcher, J., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Cooper, M., Colwell, C., & Jelfs, A. (2007). Embedding accessibility and usability: Considerations for e-learning research and development projects. ALT-J: Research in Learning Technology, 15(3), 231–245. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete database.

Walden University. (Producer). (2010). Enhancing the online experience. [Online]. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege

Launching the Online Learning Experience

The first thing to do in setting up a positive and productive environment for an online class is to establish social presence for both the students and the instructor. “[G]etting to know each other as three-dimensional people[,] is the foundation of building trust and presence for the teaching and learning experiences” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 51). For the facilitator, that means presenting him/herself as an approachable person, not only as a highbrow scholar with titles and awards, but as a human being with life full of likes and dislikes, family, pets, and hobbies. It’s good to post an informal photo; an audio (or even video) recording of a welcome message in addition to the picture would be even better. That would encourage students to reveal something about themselves. It is inappropriate, however, to insist on certain things, especially photos, because some people feel uncomfortable, or unwilling, for various reasons, to present themselves as who they really are (Walden University, 2010).

The second thing would be to begin to establish cognitive presence, which is one of the three types of presences necessary for running a successful online class: social, cognitive, and teaching (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010). By asking the students to describe their learning goals, the instructor can find out what the students already know and whether they clearly understand the purposes of the class. Knowing that, the instructor can start customizing teaching for this particular group, developing the teaching presence.

Trying to cram all the available technology tools in a class, especially in the first week or two, would be overwhelming and unnecessary. It is important, however, to know what’s available to make an informed decision about what to use. Boettcher and Conrad (2010) also advise to be open to students’ suggestions. A course managements system (CMS) is essential for an online class. It is a website containing all the course materials and some tools often used in distance learning. Boettcher and Conrad (2010) list Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moddle, WebStudye, and Sakai. I have used Edu 2.0 and thought it was simple to use and had all essential tools integrated, such as an announcement area, forums, wikis, blogs, dropbox, its own email system, monitoring system, etc. It is also helpful trying out different examples of the same tool, to be sure to select those best for the subject being taught and the activities chosen for the class.

It is critical to have all major learning materials for the whole course ready at the beginning, even a few days before the official start of the class so that students could get acquainted with the course, set some personal expectations and goals, and adjust their life schedule for better, less stressful course work. Majority of those, who choose distance-learning education, happens to be adults with many demanding commitments besides schoolwork. They like their life to be carefully planned to be able to effectively deal with all important events. Syllabus is a course description that orients learners to the most important elements of the course and things they will need to know or follow. It will include course requirements, learning objectives, performance goals, major expectations, a list of typical weekly activities, learning materials and bibliography, school’s policies about grading, late work, plagiarism, online conduct (netiquette), ways of contacting for help, and other issues. Besides the syllabus, links to each week’s schedule, calendar, course support info, course rubrics for various assignment types, instructor’s information with his/her schedule and contact information, and other various organizational materials are usually presented on the course’s home page. Setting recurring weekly rhythm also greatly contributes to the learner’s expectations. It is wise to warn about any changes in weekly activities—and in more than one way—to avoid everyone getting surprised and unprepared.

Additionally, instructors should consider the possibility of students’ lack of preparedness for online environment. Not only do they include technical difficulties, but psychological adaptability to studying and communicating with everyone through the Internet. Drs. Pratt and Palloff (Walden University, 2010) suggest having a “week zero”— time when students go through a course orientation, technical training, and, hopefully understand the nature of the environment and whether they like it or not. This way, the unavoidable dropouts will happen before they can negatively influence major activities of the course. Another suggestion is not to “make education deadly serious” (Walden University, 2010) On the other hand, have fun, but to a reasonable degree, for many self-propelled learners might get frustrated with time wasted on “silly games”.

So the first week (and a bit of time before that, if possible) is really a crucial week for setting up the mood, the expectations, and the basic dynamics between all the participants of the learning experience. This first week will influence students’ level of engagement and willingness to participate. It will also affect the rate of attrition. If the instructor appears helpful and approachable, people will be less concerned with their ability to cope with the requirements of the class, and everyone will be happier. Facilitator’s work sounds really overwhelming but, if done right, I’m sure, it will bring a lot of satisfaction.

References:

Boettcher, J., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Walden University. (Producer). (2010). Launching the online learning experience. [Online]. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege

Online Learning Communitites

The value of online learning communities is in their collective exploration of the core subject ideas and adding layers upon layers of knowledge, experience, and meaning to the initial structure, thus mirroring the way human memory works and creating strong, deep, multifaceted, and easily retrievable knowledge constructions. Besides building strong collective knowledge base, online learning communities develop important human interaction qualities: the ability to collaborate, to help each other, to overcome shyness and passivity, to exert oneself for the good of one’s group, to analyze and evaluate each other’s thoughts and ideas, to co-create, improve, and crystallize meaning, to sympathize with one another, and to develop personal distinctive voice. It is the best way to learn online because belonging to a community learning the same subject helps to overcome a sense of isolation. It also improves overall student satisfaction because of developing sense of belonging and of growing social presence (it is much harder to ignore a fellow student and leave his/her post without reply when it is right there, in front of you, in black and white; whereas in the classroom, it is easy to forget about one’s quiet presence).

According to Dr. Palloff (Walden University, 2010), learning community needs five elements: people, purpose, process, method, and social presence. The three major ones are people, who come together for a common purpose and interact using a certain process. Additionally, they use some method of interaction, and it helps when people develop a social presence, that is, their recognizable online personality, which makes communication more natural and trustworthy. Another important element of an online community is following certain rules and guidelines to keep constructive communication going.

An instructor is critical for successful functioning of a learning community. S/he plays many roles in an online classroom. Facilitator monitors discussion making sure the learning is happening and conversation is going in the right direction; s/he is the one who makes final decisions and is flexible enough to customize the learning experience for a particular group, to be able to recognize valuable points in discussion, change gears and stir the conversation in a new, even unplanned, direction if it seems important (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010). In an online environment, the instructor should be on a more equal footing with the students because the learning community makes everyone a learner and a practitioner: everyone’s experience becomes a valuable contribution to the common bank of knowledge. The instructor is also a moderator responsible for making the online environment a safe place free of any sort of bias, intolerance, anger, bullying, and other offences. As Dr. Pratt says, the instructor holds the key to the whole online environment and it’s his/her responsibility to create a dynamic setting where students feel safe to be who they are and develop as learners to their fullest potential (Walden University, 2010). Even though, the instructor’s role is very significant, the online environment makes invisible all that work behind the scenes, which might make some student uncomfortable (Walden University, 2010); that means, the instructor should explain to the students at the beginning that s/he will be always there in the supporter’s role ready to jump in if needed.

If you take a traditional face-to-face class and bring it to an online environment, it won’t work: experience shows that the constructivist learning paradigm, where students are engaged with one another to explore and make meaning out of the course content, works best in an online setting (Walden University, 2010)—the instruction has to be more learner-centered, learners have to interact more with one another and be empowered to make some important decisions, have freedom to explore and address their own learning goals, be more responsible for their learning, and share their own experience with other members of their learning community. Building a community of actively engaged learners is directly related to the successful online instruction.

From the online video this week (Walden University, 2010), I learned about the importance of building an online learning community and the right way to build it, also, about all the roles the online instructor has to play to keep the communication going.

References:

Boettcher, J., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Walden University. (Producer). (2010). Online learning communities. [Online]. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege

Online Instructional Strategies Class

Hello to all!
This is to welcome you to my blog, this time, for my tenth class of MS IDT program.
Thanks for visiting - I'll try to be engaging!
Sasha

Communicating Effectively

This week we focused on communication between project team members. The purpose of this exercise was to let us experience the same verbal message in three most commonly used ways: through email, voicemail, and face-to-face talking.We were taken through each modality, starting with the typed text (email), to pause after each one and to write down our perceived interpretation. This is the summary of my impressions and reflection on the differences and implications for the future use of each type of communication.

Email

Jane is nicely asking Mark to complete some report, to give her an ETA (estimated time of arrival?) or send it to her as soon as possible because she needs the information from it to complete her own report before the deadline. The matter is urgent, but Jane is considerate enough to offer Mark to email her just the row data she needs as a possible solution, because she understands that he might be too tired to do a lot of work immediately. The form of written communication is not usually used in extremely urgent cases, so this might give Mark an idea to take it easy for a short while (if the issue were really time-sensitive, people would call in addition to emailing, or ask in the text to give them a call ASAP). Jane could be Mark's boss.

Voicemail

Here, Jane sounds really stressed out and desperately in need of help. I don't think she is Mark's boss anymore.

Face-to-Face

This is the most immediate way of communicating. The woman is relaxed and friendly. She is most likely an equal co-worker, though, she could have some authority; perhaps, she is a project manager. The request is urgent, but looks like Mark might get some help. Because the face-to-face communication implies dialogue, it is easy to clear up any uncertainties, to voice concerns and requests, and to come to the best solution in the most efficient way and in shorter time (the opposite is possible, too – making things more complicated - but let’s hope people would try to avoid that).

All three ways of communicating should be used for different purposes, even though people can use these modalities differently, depending on their personalities and the ability to control their bodies, emotions, and words. Not to run the risks to get really confused, I’ll focus on the most obvious differences.

The benefit of written communication is in the time delay, i.e., in having a moment to compose yourself and the text in the best manner and for the clearest meaning. Also, the recipient has more time to understand the meaning by re-reading the message as many times as needed. The drawback is in the recipient’s inability to get immediate answers to his/her questions. Also, as I stated above, there is the possibility of the recipient missing the email, so one should choose this mode of communication for important but less urgent matters. Another benefit I could think of is the possibility to record important information.

The voicemail is the quickest if all in a sense that you don’t have to “compose” the text and don’t have to visit the recipient; at times, it also might be the rawest emotionally (second only to your immediate reactions to someone next to you) because the speaker’s voice gives out a lot of information about the person’s state of mind, while the time spent traveling for a visit can have a cooling effect. Like email, voice message is also a form of record-keeping. One thing to be aware of when leaving a voicemail is that it is also the least clear way of leaving information, especially when working with people of different nationalities: you might not understand their accent, and they might have a problem getting all the words if their English is not perfect. Another drawback is the lack of dialogue and the possibility to miss the message (like in the email communication).

Face-to-face contact is the most “unsafe” way of delivering a message, unless the participants take time to record, and even sign everything said. The good thing is that it allows clarifying the information without delay. We should be mindful of what we say, though: unprepared communicators run risks of making unfixable mistakes, for as we all know, once the word is out, it’s really difficult to take it back. That is why some people prefer written communication for its luxury to revise the message until no doubt is left about the meaning. The face-to-face modality should also be chosen when the purpose is to show another person visual cues in addition to the verbal ones.

The email modality is the most neutral and probably the safest, even though, the real Jane is hidden – we’ll never know whether she was annoyed, angry, or warm and caring. The email it good for the factual information but not - for showing the writer’s state of mind. The voicemail is probably the least desirable because the meaning might not be apparent and there is room for misinterpretation. The written words are often clearer than the recorded voice, for foreigners. The face-to-face is the best (unless you don’t want to show your emotions) for complicated matters because there is time for a clarifying dialogue.

Learning from a Project "Post-Mortem"

I’ve always felt the necessity for detailed planning in some of my life’s projects, but every time I began the process, it would become so lengthy, such a project in itself, that I would inevitably start cutting corners, getting inpatient, and turning my attention to something else – I would always end up quitting the whole planning stage. The amount of detail would always drive me insane. You can probably afford not planning carefully if you work by yourself, but once other people get involved, the plan has to be in place for others to see and understand your ideas.

One day I decided to try to build myself a bed – something simple and expandable, and that could also serve as storage (I had a tiny apartment back then and every inch counted). I came up with a design, determined what materials I would need and how much I could afford to spend on it. The problem was to build it. I knew the building process would have to happen inside my small apartment, and I did not want to live in a dusty, smelly place for too long. I had to do that quickly – in one day, but I wouldn’t be able to accomplish that by myself. My solution was to invite some friends for help and orchestrate the whole project as a fun, educational and purposeful activity. I was so excited that I actually planned the whole thing in detail – this was probably the best planning job I’ve ever done! Well, apparently, it was still not enough because the project turned out a failure.

Somehow, people were not motivated enough to work: some had to wait for me to give them something to do, some were bored with the assigned task (like measuring); some of them came late, and some had to leave early; people wanted to watch TV, show each other things on computer, eat, drink, and even sleep. Apart from a guy who wanted to improve my design by adding some complex elements requiring additional tools and materials, a couple of people were seriously building until someone made a mistake and cut too short one essential piece. From that point on, it became a mess: the “guilty” person, feeling terrible, insisted on fixing the piece, which brought additional problems, so eventually I put a stop to everything, and we all just had to forget about the project.

Looking back at it now, I still like the idea of inviting friends to help, but I can see several mistakes I made while implementing this idea. First of all, the plan was not detailed enough (I hate to admit that my efforts were not sufficient). I had to divide the project (and the space) into distinct areas and tasks, with certain number of people assigned to each one; then I needed to sequence the tasks while looking for those that can be done simultaneously. To solve the problem of people waiting for instructions, ideally, I needed to approach the project as an instructional design problem and design instructive materials (sort of like the IKEA assembly instructions, well, probably a bit wordier and less graphic to save time and energy), and provide each person with them.

Then I thought of several ideas to address the problem of motivation:

1. Choose people more carefully, perhaps, the less the better. I definitely had too many people over (about 8), and they did not have much to do because of my initial assumption that they would be unhappy if the job exhausted them.

2. Involve them from the beginning by first, letting them know of my prospective project; asking for advice or ideas; perhaps, finding out their areas of expertise; asking them to commit to certain responsibility, maybe even assign some roles.

3. I know, it might sound too much, but maybe rehearsing everything the night before by calling or emailing everyone and reminding them of the sequence of tasks and each one’s responsibility would be a wise thing to do. It all depends on how you do it, for if they are involved enough, they might actually have fun with the rehearsal, especially if everyone is committed to finishing the project in one day.

4. To avoid people being bored with doing one task (like only measuring or sawing), rotating people to give everyone a chance to try all tasks should be good.

5. It is unavoidable, I think, that someone at some point is going to make a mistake, so for people to feel comfortable, there should be extra pieces for each essential element of the construction (or good ideas on how to fix it).

Whew! That’s good that, out of necessity, I eventually came back to this project: after my first disastrous experience, I was avoiding thinking about it, though I knew that one day I would attempt it again. Apparently, this day is near!

Another Class—Another Adventure

I am taking the Project Management class now! That's always useful, and I hope I can apply the knowledge to my life in general. Welcome to my blog once again!

The Future Distance Education

What do you think the perceptions of distance learning will be in the future (in 5–10 years; 10–20 years)?

In our rapidly technologically developing world and constantly changing living and working environments, lifelong learning and distance education are unavoidable. According to George Siemens (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010), there is a growing acceptance of distance education in the society today because people get more comfortable communicating online. “We are recognizing that the notion of distance through geographical separation isn’t as significant a factor as we might have thought it was even 5 years ago, and. . . it is directly tied to the new tools and to our practical experience with these new tools” (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010). This is what I realized when I started my distance education program at Walden a year ago: discussion forum, while being one of the simplest online communications tools existing today, can successfully cross the barrier of space and time in helping maintain continuous conversation and deliver and share knowledge while strengthening online learning community.

Recognizing the global dimension of distance education is another significant trend listed by Siemens (Laureate Education, Inc., 2010) that is going to affect distance education by gathering expert knowledge around the world and building distributed learning communities. Here, Siemens also predicts the increased use of multimedia like games and simulations (which will pave the road for distance education in previously excluded fields of study).

Further down the road, in 10–20 years, I envision distance learning becoming a part of everyday life for all members of our society, as more resources become electronic (books, news, manuals, smart objects, people giving classes of all sorts via podcasts, etc.) and social networking sites turning into places for distributed learning communities, while the learning focus shifts from what we are learning to how we are learning, from the result to the process and to learning how “to be” a full participant in addition to “learning about” the subject matter (Seely Brown & Adler, 2008).

What do you think the perceptions of distance learning will be in the future (in 5–10 years; 10–20 years)?

The things I learned in the last week of Distance Learning class, about insufficient marketing strategies for distance education programs practiced by higher education institutions (Gambescia & Paolucci, 2009) as well as revelations of my interviews, were a complete surprise to me, despite the memories of my own incorrect ideas about distance learning just a year ago. The three interviews I conducted with people I consider exemplary in their contemporary views and behaviors revealed the depth of misconceptions general population must have about distance learning. This gap between the current level of understanding of all the tools and opportunities distance education has to offer and the near future inevitable and desirable global acceptance of distance learning needs to be bridged really soon. As an instructional designer, I can prepare arguments for people who think distance education is impersonal, lacking feedback and communication between instructor and students and among students, is not appropriate for most of fields except teaching hard undisputable facts, is no good for discussion and sharing ideas, and so on. I can also invite people to try DL by offering them a free tutorial or a podcast on the benefits of distance education. Another important action would be to offer help to schools for improving their marketing strategies by adding information about the high quality of their distance learning programs to the prominent spot on their homepage.

What do you think the perceptions of distance learning will be in the future (in 5–10 years; 10–20 years)?

First of all, I must continuously improve myself – my abilities, skills, and knowledge. As any devoted professional of any field, keeping myself abreast with research and innovations in my and all related fields of knowledge is important. I must continuously challenge myself by trying new ideas and learning new technologies and techniques, experimenting with my own solutions and trying them on myself. Also, it is important to maintain the network of colleagues for exchanging ideas and for collaboration, and follow esteemed contemporary thinkers. As a practitioner, I must follow high standards and be uncompromising in achieving the best possible quality in my work. As a firm believer in distance education, I have to promote it among potential students, dispel their misconceptions, and address their concerns by actively looking for solutions in my practice and in conversations with them. The key to being a positive force is to be active and help others to be active and to realize their full potential.

Reference
Gambescia, S., & Paolucci, R. (2009). Academic fidelity and integrity as attributes of university online degree program offerings. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 12(1). Retrieved from www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring121/gambescia121.html

Laureate Education, Inc. (2010). The future of distance education. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege.

Seely Brown, J. & Adler, R., (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. Educause Review, 43/1, 16­–32. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume43/MindsonFireOpenEducationtheLon/162420

The Use of Technology Tools for Distance Learning.

My next task here is to describe and explain the technology tools I selected for the Example 3 (we had a choice of three examples in the Week 3 of the DL course).

The situation: we need to design a safety course for a biodiesel manufacturing plant. It will consist of several modules of step-by-step instructions for safe operation of each piece of heavy machinery on the plant floor. This course has to be asynchronous to make sure all shifts have a chance to train. Additionally, all shift supervisors need a way to make sure the training is successful, and their subordinates can demonstrate their new knowledge.

First of all, we need an LMS for supervisors to track each employee’s engagement and progress. I assume, some kind of certification will be given to those who successfully completed each module or the whole course (depending on how extensive each module will be). At his/her best time, each employee will log in, work on a module, and take a test at the end. Depending on the results of the test, s/he will either do more work on that module or progress to the next one. Because this is a safety course, it is important that employees’ scores on each test are close to 100%, before they can graduate to the next module. The modules can be sequenced from simple to complex machines, if applicable. The machines we are dealing with, most likely belong to the category of machines not requiring extensive troubleshooting training (like computer-controlled machines would). This means, there is a single best safety set of instructions for each machine. We need to write a safety manual for each machine and, to make it easy and engaging, and of have the best learning effect, it has to be presented in multimedia format.

In my opinion, the best approach here will be a mastery training online course, where a learner can log in and continue where s/he stopped the last time. Out of four strategies for organizing online delivery (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009), the 2^nd (branched programmed instruction) or 3^rd (hyper-programmed instruction) will be used, depending on whether or not the order of modules is of importance.

A training module I envision will consist of three parts: presentation, practice, and assessment. During presentation, the learners will watch an interactive two-layer animation. A step-by-step presentation of safe manipulation techniques and their effect on schematically drawn machine parts will be the core of each animation piece. Human voice will be used for explaining each step as animation unfolds. Simple interactive manipulations will be possible, such as stopping the animation, going back or skipping forward. A second layer of animation will be the actual photographic representation of the parts involved and their interaction with each other. This will be shown every time a mouse rolls over an animation frame.

The idea of the practice part came to me after I found a similar safety training example online http://www.masterytech.com/demos/g_demo/g_demo.htm .

In this part, the learner will be given choices at each step of operation of each machine. Depending on his/her choice, a different scenario might play out on the screen, until the right choice is made, and the right sequence of events plays out.

During assessment, similar manipulations will happen, plus other types of test items might be given, to make sure the learner is well trained. If the score is unsatisfactory, the learner is taken back to the practice part, to work on particular sections for which s/he gave wrong answers on the test. This goes on until the learner gets the right score. Then the system will allow the learner to progress to the new module.

Other similar animation-based industrial training programs I found here: http://www.etraininginabox.com/_flash/courseware.html. Their instructions consist of presentation, practice (using various interactive exercises), and short assessments (multiple choice or true/false test items) after each short instructional section.

References:

Etraining in a Box. (Producer). (n.d.). Industrial training course demo. [Online]. Retrieved from www.etraininginabox.com/_flash/courseware.html

Mastery. (Producer). (2011). Online training overview. [Online demo]. Retrieved from www.mastery.com

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

Defining Distance Learning

The definition of distance learning for me a week ago would be any program of study offered by an institution, or an individual, with the purpose of providing a degree, certificate, or just a skill or knowledge, where a student and a teacher interact by correspondence, either by mail or online, without meeting in person; the instructor (or school) provides instructional materials by either mailing them or offering them online for the student to utilize in preparation for the student-teacher interaction, which may be ranging from a mere test to an extensive dialogue, or even collaboration, thus, making instruction either a standard set of lessons or a highly individualized guidance that could be either self-paced or limited in time.

Turns out, my definition is too all-encompassing. It is closest to one by Hilary Perraton (1988) listed in our textbook: “Distance education is an educational process in which a significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space and /or time from the learner” (as cited in Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 33). However, this definition is also the most general and does not specify (and narrow down to) all four elements defined by the authors of our textbook (Simonson, et al., 2009) as necessary for something that could be called distance education. According to them, distance education must include the following: (1) it must be institutionally based; (2) the teacher and the learners must be separated (geographically and/or in time); (3) interactive telecommunications must be involved; (4) learning resources must be carefully designed into learning experiences. In my initial definition, the elements of separation, interactive telecommunication, and the distributed learning resources are present. I, however, do not limit the instruction to offerings of a formal organization. The reason why most definitions in our text insist on the institutionalized instruction has probably something to do with the need to trust in the instruction, making sure the learner gets the true, the best knowledge or skills. The rest of activities are called “self-study”, or “private study or teach-yourself programs” (Simonson, et al., 2009). By not limiting the distant instruction to an organizational enterprise, I was including instruction done by a single mentor (an artist, a scientist, etc.), such as correspondence between a master and an apprentice, which, in my eyes, is very valuable. But that, I guess, is called “private study”.

Desmond Keegan lists five essential elements of distance learning: (1) separation of teacher and learner; (2) organizational planning, designing and implementing of learning material, as well as providing learner support; (3) the use of technology to create bridge between the teacher and the student; (4) two-way communication, and (5) individual study and absence of a learning group (Simonson, et al., 2009).
The last element is rapidly becoming obsolete in the new Internet-dominated environment with its emphasis on social learning, which is a socially constructed understanding of the content through discussion and collaboration (Brown & Adler, 2008).

The distance education is ever evolving. Now, it is possible to talk about “the traditional view of distance education”, one of characteristics of which, as described by Otto Peters, is the possibility of “reproducing of high-quality teaching material” for use by a lot of students at the same time, which makes it “an industrialized form of teaching and learning”(Simonson, et al., 2009, p.34). The new view of distance education reflects instability of the modern world in the midst of technological explosion and exploration. It requires tremendous flexibility and open mind from both educators and learners, and hence is termed “open learning”. It is the opposite to the industrialized form, as it is trying to adjust as much as possible to the individual conditions.

Thus, my new definition of new distance learning is this: Distance learning is an evolving form of instruction offered by accredited institutions in a form of a variety of multimedia learning materials, when individual study may be reinforced by constant sharing of ideas among the teacher and the learning group of fellow students meeting synchronously and/or asynchronously in the online virtual environment.

As the distance learning evolves, I envision a tighter and tighter blend of face-to-face meetings with online instruction—to the point that physical convergence of teachers and students might become unnecessary and will happen only occasionally or not happen at all, depending on the type of students, or program, or project. That, of course, will happen if designers find ways to make distance learning a better learning experience than one in a traditional classroom. Distance learning has to be made comfortable for people preferring to “read” their opponents’ facial expressions and tone of vice and those enjoying socializing in face-to-face meetings. Already, travelling is becoming partially replaced by virtual tours. In the near future, simulation techniques will improve to the point of competing with the actual experiences. Those are techniques, however— by themselves, they might mean, say, convenience of not having to travel to school. In order to actually improve learning and understanding of new knowledge, they must become a part of a well-designed learning experience. The task of instructional designers, therefore, is staying informed of the new inventions with the potential for instructional use and figuring out how these inventions can be incorporated into the instruction to improve learning.

References:

Brown, J. S. & Adler, R.P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review, 43(1), 16–32.

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

Hello! I am glad to be back! This blog was created for a class I was taking last summer. I thought I would keep it going, but it did not happen. Now, my new class requires blogging, and I'm excited! I really hope I have something to say.