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.