Welcome - Educ 6145

Project Management in Education and Training

Well, after a much-needed couple of months off, I'm now back to the routine of juggling work, kids, housework, and grad school. The next course in my Walden program is about project management, which is totally new material for me. I'm ready for some hard work, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! I'll be glad when I've finished this degree. Just don't ask me what I plan to do next! :)

If you're new to following my blog, here's a link to a Prezi I created with some info about me. Enjoy! :)

Reflection on Distance Learning

Over the past eight weeks, I have delved into the theory and applications of distance learning. It’s been very interesting to learn the “why and how” of what I do every day as a virtual teacher, and I’ve really appreciated how relevant this class has been to my career. One interesting aspect has been to look at the perceptions of distance learning, especially as it pertains to k-12 education.

When I was interviewing for my current position as a middle school language arts teacher in a virtual charter school in Indiana, I remember asking the principal how virtual teachers were able to form relationships with students. I was fairly comfortable with the online environment, and I’d even taken a few college classes online, but those seemed to be set up with little interaction between students and instructors; I was concerned that I’d miss out on my favorite part of teaching – getting to know my students. The principal laughed a little and said she heard that question a lot. She told me that as a virtual teacher, I’d be spending much less of my time on classroom management and writing lesson plans, and more time interacting with my students one-on-one and in small groups – the difference would be that these meetings would be online or over the phone instead of face-to-face. She convinced me, I got the job, and she was absolutely right – virtual education is much different than teaching in a brick-and-mortar classroom, but I am amazed at how well I know my students, even if I have no idea what they look like. (Funny story: one of my students, after completing my class, added me as a Facebook friend. I had talked to this student for hours and hours over the course of the school year, and the picture I had in my head of him was a tall, lanky kid wearing jeans and glasses, but in reality he’s short, stocky, and practically the opposite of my mental picture!)

I use those stories to illustrate the fact that perception is really important, but it’s also very easy to come up with the wrong perceptions based on our prior experience. Distance learning is no different. People with little experience regarding distance learning often believe that it’s less valuable than education received via face-to-face methods, when research has continually shown that this is not true: Zacharis (2010), for example, found that there is no statistically significant difference in achievement between online learning and face-to-face learning.

However, even though the misperceptions are common today, more and more people are choosing distance learning. Both at the k-12 level and in higher education, numbers of online learners are growing dramatically. This growth indicates that in the future, even within the next five to ten years, the perceptions of distance learning will be much more positive than they are today. As we get students who are “digital natives” entering higher education with strong opinions about their educational needs and how to meet them, online education will be ready for them.

As an instructional designer and as a teacher in the virtual school environment, I think my job is to continue to pursue excellence. If I do my job well, my students and their parents will know the value of online education. If I design courses, units, or lessons that are instructionally sound, motivate my students to learn, and provide individualized attention, I will add to the body of positive experiences surrounding online education. I also believe that I can act as an advocate for online learning by sharing my own experiences as a teacher and instructional designer with those around me. My school’s motto this year is “Expecting Excellence Every Day.” In order for continuous improvement in distance education to happen, everyone involved needs to be committed to excellence.

References:

Siemens, G. (n.d.). The Future of Distance Education [Video Program]. Laureate Education, Inc., 2012.

Zacharis, N. Z. (2010). The Impact of Learning Styles on Student Achievement In a Web-based Versus an Equivalent Face-to-Face Course.  College Student Journal, 44(3), 591-597.

Converting to Blending Learning: A Best Practices Guide

For this week's application assignment, we were asked to think about a scenario where a training manager wanted to convert a face-to-face training program to a blended learning format in order to foster higher-quality communication. I used Prezi to create a "best practices' guide for the trainer.

In laying out this guide, I followed the ADDIE model of instructional design, hoping that the simple process would help outline each step. I used Prezi as the format for this guide because it lets me highlight the key points in a visual format without overwhelming the training manager.

Click below to view the Best Practices Guide on Prezi:

Converting to Blended Learning: A Best Practices Guide

Revew: Open Courses from Coursera

Vaccines: An Open Course from Coursera

A relatively new trend in distance learning involves free courses available online for anyone, not just those enrolled in college programs. These “open courses” are for students who wish to expand their knowledge base without committing to (or paying for) a university program. Kikkas, Laanpere, and Poldoja (2011) claim that an open course “facilitates a more flexible and also more challenging model of learning.”  It’s an innovative approach to education that has important implications to the future of the field: “Organizations like Coursera are part of a push that could alter the way we learn forever. Education is easily one of the most important things in the world, and now there are countless ways and places to learn outside of the university” (Weber, 2012).

Earlier this summer, I enrolled in a Vaccines course through Coursera. Coursera is a “social entrepreneurship company  that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free” (Coursera.org).  The company partners with several universities, including Stanford, Princeton, University of Michigan, and University of Pennsylvania, along with 12 new partnering universities announced in mid-July.  

Coursera differs a bit from other open courses I researched in that you must sign up for a (free) account and actually enroll in the course, rather than just watching video lectures online. Coursera is set up in an LMS with many of the same attributes as college courses I’ve taken.  The courses are asynchronous, but they include a real-time schedule and class/teacher interactions similar to my college courses at Walden.

Due to a busier-than-expected summer, I did not complete the Vaccines course in which I enrolled. However, I did review the course material in detail, and I was very impressed. In this class, the material is clearly organized with a syllabus and weekly instructions and a “course how-to.”  The instruction is divided into video lectures, discussion forums, and assessments (in the form of quizzes). Lectures  are 10-15 minutes in length and focus on a single concept. The lectures are professionally created with a video of the instructor accompanied by visuals. The quizzes are short multiple-choice quizzes that are auto-graded, and they give students instant feedback on their understanding of the material.  Finally, students collaborate in the discussion boards to help them understand the material in more depth.

According to Simonson et. al (2012), “distance learning programs are most effective when they include careful planning and consistency among courses.” It looks to me as if this course was designed with a clear purpose and a careful analysis of the goals, audience, and stakeholders.  It was definitely designed for online learners. It seems, from reading the discussion posts, that some students were unhappy with a few bugs in the course and the low level of instructor interaction, but otherwise the reviews were excellent.  Coursera’s materials indicate their commitment to using Mastery Learning principles, and this course seems to be an effective example of this. I think the only way it could encourage more active learning would be if there were group projects involved, but in a voluntary asynchronous course, this would be extremely difficult to implement.  I’m not sure about the consistency among courses, because they offer courses from a variety of instructors and universities, so I’m looking forward to my next Coursera class, which starts in a few weeks, to find out whether the expectations and course arrangement are similar.

All in all, I was very impressed with Coursera. It seems to be an excellent way for students around the world to take advantage of excellent instructional materials at no cost.

References

Coursera.org. (n.d.) About Coursera. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/#about.

Kikkas, K., Laanpere, M., & Põldoja, H. (2011). Open Courses: The Next big Thing in eLearning?. Proceedings Of The European Conference On E-Learning, 371-377.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Weber, Harrison. (2012). Education startup Coursera partners with 12 new universities, raises $3.7M and hits 1.6M enrollments. TNW Insider. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/17/education-startup-coursera-partners-with-12-new-universities-raises-3-7m-and-hits-1-5m-students/

Distance Learning Technologies: Virtual Field Trips

Field trips – piling on to a yellow school bus, sitting not-so-quietly for the trip, wandering throughout a museum with a group of friends, eating lunch from a brown paper sack – have become increasingly rare in today’s public education. Often the funds just don’t exist for this type of experience (Lind 2009). In addition, teachers are under increasing pressure to spend as much time as possible on the skills that students will have to master for state tests, rather than “wasting” a day at a museum.  In order to bridge the gap for students who don’t get the opportunity for field trips, some teachers are turning to virtual tours instead (Zaino 2009).

Imagine hearing about two new exhibits at New York City museums that would be absolutely perfect to supplement the curriculum in the high school history course you teach. You want your students to tour the museums, interact with the curators, and participate in a group critique of a few pieces of artwork from each exhibit.

The problem?  You’re located on the west coast. What do you do? Perhaps asking students to front part of the costs would work, as would fundraisers or seeking donations from local businesses, but all of these are very time consuming, Besides, you’re not sure how many parents would let their children travel cross-country with a school group, and you want ALL of your students to experience these exhibits. Enter virtual field trips. By using web 2.0 tools like Skype, discussion boards, and media sharing sites, students can participate in rich learning experiences from their classrooms (Zaino 2009). According to Simonson et. al (2012), the cone of experience helps educators to choose the type of distance learning activity that is most effective to the circumstances: “The critical job of the educator, especially the designer of distance education materials, is to be only as realistic as needed in order for learning to effectively occur” (pg 92). In this case, an actual field trip would be an inefficient use of funds and time, while a virtual trip gives students a realistic experience of a museum visit while cutting back drastically on the cost and travel considerations involved.

In this scenario, I would suggest a combination of distance learning tools. I would start by looking for a virtual tour offered online by the museum – many prominent organizations already offer these on their websites. For example, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum  has an extensive collection of online exhibit resources, with even MORE available online than you’d see in the museum. The National Gallery of Art offers online tours of exhibits as well as what they call “in-depth study tours,” or guided virtual tours of specific artists or themes.

Screenshot of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's virtual tour

In addition to the virtual tour, I would suggest a webconferencing  tool like Skype to connect students with a museum curator. Skype is easy to use, free of cost, and requires little in the way of special equipment (just a webcam and a high speed internet connection). Finally, in order for students to work on a group critique of  a few selected exhibit pieces, a discussion forum with capability for embedded graphics would be effective. Forums.com is an easy to use example, and many course management tools (like Moodle, for example) include discussion forums as well.

Virtual field trips have been used successfully in classrooms around the world. According to Spicer and Stratford (2001), students have very positive perceptions of virtual field trips (although students are still insistent that they should not completely replace real field trips). One science teacher at a New Jersey middle school received a local education foundation grant in order to set up a series of virtual field trips for students at her school – they’ve “measured elevations of topographical features on the moon, dissected a cow’s eye via a link to the Hands-On Museum in Ann Arbor, MI., and took a virtual tour of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY” (Manzo, 2009). Other teachers have used virtual field trips to prepare for and supplement an actual trip: one elementary classroom in Alabama met virtually with a scientist at NASA’s Mississippi Space Center, and they “studied features of space crafts and the solar system as they prepared for an actual visit to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, later this year” (Manzo, 2009).

References

Lind, G.  2009. Cash-strapped schools cancel field trips. USA Today.

Manzo, K. (2009). Virtual Field Trips Open Doors for Multimedia Lessons. Education Week, 28(21), 9.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of 

      distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA:Pearson.

Spicer, J. I., & Stratford, J. J. (2001). Student perceptions of a virtual field trip to replace a real field trip. Journal Of  

      Computer Assisted Learning, 17(4), 345-354.

Zaino, J. (2009). Field-Tripping Goes Virtual. Instructor, 119(2), 34-36.

What is distance learning?

Educ 6135: What is distance learning?
Before starting this course, my definition of “distance learning” was any learning that takes place when the teacher and student are separated by space and time. I’ve taken quite a few online classes as an undergraduate student, and now I’m attending an entirely online university. In addition, I am currently teaching middle school students in a virtual charter school. You could say that I have a pretty good grasp on what distance education entails. 

After reading this week’s course resources, I learned that the definition of distance learning has been evolving throughout the years (centuries, even!), and it can even vary depending on who’s writing the definition. There are several driving factors behind this continually evolving idea of distance learning: first, technology. As we have moved from correspondence courses by mail to lectures broadcast on cable television to fully online programs, the definition of distance learning changes to encompass each new technology. Today, if I looked into a distance learning program, I would not expect to mail my handwritten essays to a teacher to be graded. Another factor that affects the definition of distance learning is personal experience – we each have our own ideas of how distance education works. My perception as a virtual teacher AND student is probably different from someone who is just a student…I believe that student/teacher interaction, for example, is very important, but some higher education students in online classes might not feel that this is important.

Following this reflection on the changing nature of distance learning, I still believe my definition is much the same. According to Dr. Michael Simonson (2010), distance education includes distance teaching and distance learning and can be defined as “formal education in which the learning group (teacher, students, resources) are separated by geography and, sometimes, by time” and where technology provides the link between teacher and learner.

Self-Study vs. Distance Education

I found it interesting that Simonson makes the distinction between “self-study at a distance” and distance education – he states that if the student is learning from an online source on his or her own, then it’s not really distance education according to his definition. I think this is something worth thinking about further. In my experience as a distance teacher, much of the curriculum is delivered to the students via the learning management system, and the student works independently to master the material. I help the student along this path, but often he/she is learning the material without my assistance. 
As a student, I have seen that the Walden courses in this program are all very similar in layout and content, leading me to assume that the teachers aren’t creating and delivering the course content, but rather facilitating my learning through discussion and assignment feedback. This, in my opinion, is still distance education, even though I am primarily learning the content on my own. To me, it’s similar to a teacher assigning a reading assignment from the textbook  - the student is  learning the material on his/her own, but it’s still considered teaching, right? While I believe that teacher interaction is a key part of a good educational experience, I think it’s possible to design self-study modules or lessons that still fit the definition of distance education.

The Future of Distance Education

“Distance education is going to increase dramatically” over the next few years, according to Simonson (2010). I think this is a pretty safe bet.  No, distance learning won’t replace traditional schools, but it will become a widely accepted alternative type of education. I think distance learning will become more and more common as an educational option for k-12 students, especially those students who don’t thrive in a brick-and-mortar classroom – as an example, in the 2010-2011 school year, Indiana had just a few hundred students in a virtual pilot charter school, but the very next year, enrollment jumped to almost 2000! Students and parents are looking for more flexible options for schooling, and distance learning is going to play a big part.  I think there will certainly be some controversy and resistance, especially as charter schools gain more ground, since they compete with public schools for funding (Huett et. al, 2008).

I also think that distance learning will be incorporated more into the traditional school model – perhaps rural schools will offer advanced classes from an online source, or students will use a learning management system to collaborate with students at other schools. We’ve seen in the corporate world that distance has little effect on business….in the near future, I think it will be the same for education.

References:
Laureate Education, Inc..  (2010). Distance Learning: The Next Generation.  Boston, MA: Michael Simonson, PhD.
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), 63–6 7.

(I know the mind map is difficult to read. I'm working on fixing it, but we're leaving on very short notice for a funeral, and I don't know what kind of internet access I'll have while I'm gone. this might have to be good enough.)

Reflection

As I trudge towards finishing another college course, I am reflecting back upon the past eight weeks in order to evaluate my learning and think about what I have accomplished. Last week’s blog post included a section where I wrote about my opinion of theory-based courses: even though I’ve taken lots of classes on educational theory and psychology, I never really felt like I was learning anything that would be of that much value as far as practical applications go. But this class felt like a good blend of theory and practice – understanding the basics of the different learning theories was important, but I also learned about how those theories could be used in real situations by an instructional designer.

I found surprising and interesting facts nearly every week as I learned about learning. One of the concepts that was most appealing to me was the idea presented by Dr. Ormrod in response to the discussion of different learning styles. Gardner (2003) is fairly well-known for his presentation of the different learning styles and how educators can use these learning styles in order to tailor instruction to every student. However, Dr. Ormrod suggested that while some people are definitely more visual learners while others are more verbal, one of the best things teachers can do is to teach students different learning strategies that have been proven successful. I really liked this concept for several reasons: first, it makes students responsible for their own learning; second, it give students tools that they can use in the future in a variety of circumstances; and third, it takes some of the responsibility off of teachers, who have enough to do without trying to cater to each student’s whims (Now, I definitely believe in individualized instruction, but I think my time is better spent teaching a whole class how to use a mnemonic device and then modeling its use for a specific concept, rather than developing 25 different ways to teach a particular concept to 25 different students.)

In contemplating my own learning process, I think the most important aspect is motivation. Learning comes easily to me – I can read an article and understand it thoroughly in just a few minutes, and I can whip up an A paper with very little effort. But if I’m not interested in the material, I have a very hard time staying focused and motivated. Even as an adult learner who typically, according to last week’s discussion, should be fairly self-motivated, I have a difficult time.

Learning theories, learning styles, educational technology, and motivation are the four main aspects that we covered in this course. I believe that they are intricately linked together in good teaching. An effective teacher needs to understand the various learning theories and learning styles, be able to use technology to deliver or enhance instruction, and understand and use motivational factors in order to maximize student learning. Without the understanding of the theory, a teacher doesn’t have a clear understanding of different educational methods. I find myself strongly drawn to the concept of connectivism, which is a theory that deals with the interconnectedness of technology, information, and social networks.

I think what I have learned over the past few weeks will be incredibly useful as I learn and grow as an educator. Understanding connectivism, especially, has important implications for teachers in an online environment. I also know that a solid understanding of theory has been useful more often than I would have expected.