Background on Distance Education
Placing the Internet in Context – If knowledge is power, as Francis Bacon said, then communication is freedom – freedom for people to reach information they need in order to acquire knowledge that can empower them.
Distance learning – the acquisition of knowledge and skills through mediated information and instruction, encompassing all technologies and other forms of learning at a distance.
Distance Learning Delivery Systems – the internet was the catalyst for an unprecedented interest in distance learning, it is not the only system for distance learning. It can be done without electronic assistance. (Used to be done with postal system, videos, or live taped.)
See Figure 7.1 – shows classification system for distance learning delivery.
Most popular arrangements for distance learning are video courses or telecourses and web-based courses. Videoconferencing via the Internet also is becoming increasingly popular in K-12 classrooms.
Types of Distance Learning Activities
Student Research
Online Classroom materials
Web-based lessons
Virtual courses and programs
Current Issues in Distance Learning
Digital Divide issues
Development and socialization issues – spending too much time on computers has been cited as harmful to children’s development of relationships and social skills. Limit children’s use of media to 1 to 2 hours per day.
Positive and negative impact on education reform – distance resources are usually used to support traditional approaches.
Virtual schooling issues- several ongoing challenges:
Curriculum alignment
Teacher certification
Accreditation
Funding
Possible negative consequences
Current Research in Distance Learning
Asynchronous courses – where information and messages are left for the receiver to read later tended to show greater gains than Synchronous ones, where communications are sent and received immediately.
Course Characteristics that affect success
High interaction
Support during course
Low technical problems
Research on cost effectiveness of distance learning
Technology
Transmission
Maintenance
Infrastructure
Production
Support
Personnel
Introducing the Internet
Internet means “between or among networks”
World Wide Web is a subset of the Internet system. The WWW is an internet service that links sites around the world through hypertext documents.
Current Pitfalls in Internet Use
Potentials:
1. Accessing sites with inappropriate materials – firewall and/or filtering software
2. Safety and privacy issues for students
· Online predators
· Sales pitches aimed at children
· Privacy issues
3. Fraud on the Internet – teachers must be sure to purchase products only from well-known, reputable sites that offer a secure server.
4. Computer viruses
· Email attachments with viruses
· Downloaded files and programs with viruses
5. Copyright and plagiarism issues
Using Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) – Figure 7.7
Three URL uses – three things to learn about URLs are how to locate them, read them, and “fix” errors in them.
Navigating the Net
Navigating with links- you can travel on the internet by using your mouse to click links, text, or images that have been programmed into the web page to send your browser to another location in the internet.
Navigating with buttons – forward and backward
Navigating with the Go menu – lets you jump around randomly to web pages that you have visited.
Using Bookmarks or Favorites, you can organize them into categories of related items
Starting Up Search Engines
Major search engines include:
Google, Yahoo! And AskJeeves
Metacrawlers:
Dog Pile, Visisimo, HotBot, Kartoo, Mamma
Two search strategies –
Subject index searches – provides a list of topics you can click on.
Keyword searches – type in a combination of words and the search engine displays a list of websites with the word or phrase.
Evaluating Internet Information
The internet is still a wild frontier. With this lack of control, there are three kinds of problems:
Content – some information is incomplete, inaccurate, and/or out of date. An essential skill is being able to evaluate information critically and look for indications that content is accurate and reliable. (Figure 7.20 page 236)
Design – some are poorly designed so that people can’t locate or read information.
Basic Internet Troubleshooting
1. Site connection failures
URL syntax errors
Local or domain server down
Server traffic
Bad or dead links –site may have been taken off the internet
Firewalls
2. Feature on the site will not work
Plug-in required
Compatibility errors
Java and other program errors
Communicating on the Internet
The internet has become the primary form of communication for teachers and students.
Email
Listservs, Bulletin Boards, and Blogs
Chatrooms, Instant Messaging, and Videoconferencing
CyberCollaborations – multiuser dungeons and avatar spaces where users can interact through their graphic representations. Uses of avatar spaces in education are limited but have great potential for fostering visual literacy, motivating students to develop writing or other communication skills, and helping teach skills that involve visual design.
Offering Courses and Programs with Distance Technologies
Web-based courses are becoming increasingly common in K-12 education.
Web Course development and support tools include:
· Course Management System- A school district usually buys a license for a system such as WebCT or Blackboard and their personnel use the system’s features to design and deliver courses that are hosted by their servers.
· Site capturing software – on a high traffic day, the Internet can be as slow as a highway traffic jam!
· Intranets – an internal network- belongs only to an organization and can be assessed only by the organization’s members.
· Electronic whiteboards or smartboards – display screens connected to a computer that multiple users can write or draw on.
Characteristics of Effective Distance Courses and Programs
Well designed and structured to support learning. Ten characteristics:
Knowledge is constructed, not transmitted.
Students can take full responsibility for their learning.
Students are motivated to want to learn.
The course provides “mental white space” for reflection.
Learning activities appropriately match student learning styles.
Experimental, active learning augments the website environment.
Solitary and interpersonal learning activities are interspersed.
Inaccurate prior learning is identified and corrected.
“Spiral learning” provides for revisiting and expanding prior lessons.
The master teacher is able to guide the overall learning process.
Engaging Collaborative Activities
Eight ways of achieving more student engagement:
Require participation
Form learning teams
Make activity interesting
Don’t settle for opinions
Structure the activity
Require a deliverable
Know what you are aiming for
Use peer grading
An interactive learning community is groups who “meet” via email or web pages to support each others learning.
Effective assessment strategies for online courses and programs –
An example is WebCT, which has a test module so instructors can develop objective tests, have students take them online, grade them automatically, and summarize test results across the class.
Assessing the Quality of Distance Courses
See Figure 7.26 on page 244 – There is a rubric for online instruction. (Allows courses to be assessed prior to delivering or taking them.) The DVD (that comes with the textbook) also has a rubric useful for post-course evaluation that focuses on:
Social/rapport-building designs for interaction
Instructional designs for interaction
Interactivity of instructional resources
Evidence of learner engagement
Evidence of instructor engagement
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