Transformation Towards Distance Learning

When a trainer is asked to change or transform a face-to-face formatted course into a blended learning course, a course that gives trainees and trainers the opportunity to interact with each other and learn the material in both a face-to-face and an online environment,  the person in charge of completing the transformation really needs to keep a number of things in mind.

Creating a blended learning course, gives the instructor the opportunity to use a plethora of activities to help move students toward the goals of the course.  First of all, students learn a lot through discussion.  Not only does discussion give students a chance to learn from the knowledge of other students, but many people believe that students learn best when they are able to share their knowledge with others.  But some people do not have the ability to take part in face to face discussions.  These discussions are fast, people are not allowed time to think of their replies, some people get nervous when asked to speak in public, and others are not confident with their comments and do not want to look stupid in front of others.  The online discussion forum is perfect for a situation like this.  These forums allow people to research their thoughts, take time a make a thoughtful reply,  allow their voice to be heard if they are not able to speak in public.  “In many cases, students will read all of the messages posted in a discussion forum to determine which ones they’ll respond to, with the result being a discussion in which everyone gets to talk and everyone listens.” (Simonson)

When preparing to transform a course into blended learning course, the instructor should follow many of the same strategies that they would when creating any course.  The instructor needs to be organized and create a syllabus that the students can follow throughout the course. “Instructors provide enough information within the syllabus that students are able to understand the structure of the course, expectations and assignments, and the assessment process. (Simonson)   By providing this information before hand, the students have a better understanding of what to expect in a blended learning environment.

In a blended learning environment, the instructor is asked to create a learning environment where students have a possibility to actively participate in their learning, while feeling safe to share their thoughts and ideas. “Learners who are engaged in learning are actively participating in their own understanding of the content.” (Simonson)

In order keep students participating in class, the instructor needs not only to come up with creative discussions, but need to show their following of the discussion by taking part in the discussion.  “In order to keep discussion on track instructor should participate once in every four or five student postings, as students take more responsibility for their own learning, instructors posts can drop to once for each 10 to 12.” (Simonson)

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

The impact of open source

http://www.openculture.com/

Journalistic Ethics – Free Online Video – Jim Newton, UCLA

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL10D71A7139FD2D0D

This week my Distance Learning course asked us to look at an Open Source course.  An Open Source course allows to take a quality course, from an accredited institution, entirely for free.  The incentive for students to take this course is not for college credit but instead gives the students the opportunity to build knowledge in areas they are hopefully interested in.  As we reviewed the course, we were asked to reflect on or assess the course; is the course carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction and does the course offer activities that maximize active learning for the students?

The course I decided to look at was Journalistic Ethics offered by UCLA and taught by Jim Newton, an editor-at-large for the LA Times. The course description defines the The course as an intensive examination of ethical and policy issues arising from interaction for media institutions and societal institutions. I chose this course because I have a minor in journalism and thought I would be able to relate things I can learn in this  course to information that I learned so many years ago.

At first look the course doesn’t offer a lot when it comes to distances learning.  The course is basically a single camera static shot of Professor Newton’s lectures on the campus at UCLA.  Engagement wise the presentation is very lacking, the professor is standing behind a table, speaking to and answering questions from students in attendance but not seen on camera. Plus, there are no graphics that can help the learner stay on track, except for a yellow lower third graphic that tells you the course and which class meeting this video was recorded in.  The open source site speaks nothing about a classroom text that will help with the class, but it is often referred to at the end of the daily lectures.

When looking at Bate’s 12 “Golden Rules” for use of technology in education, this journalistic ethics course really meet some of the guidelines of how to design and develop an distance education course.  First of all Bates says Interaction is essential, the open source site is hosted on youtube, and the most interaction that you can have is leaving comments at the bottom of the page, which are usually filled with comments of how students didn’t appreciate the lecture.  Bates also says that courses should offer 4 different types of media (print, audio, video and computer interaction) available to teachers and learners.  The course most definitely does not meet these.  The only medium that I was able to find was video, the course seem to be so lacking in media that it didn’t even offer a syllabus or course guidelines that the student would be able to follow.  Most importantly , the course didn’t follow good teaching strategies, it did not offer learning activities that would allow the learners interact with what they are learning  and show that learning was happening.(Simonson)

All in all the course seemed to be very helpful in developing a better understanding of journalistic ethics, in ways its quite interesting, looking at the decisions that instructor had made and how he related historic events that he covered with those ethical decisions that had to be made.  

References

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

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