Preparing for Distance Ed.
It's difficult for me to go back and remember what it was like the first time I experienced an online course. With that being said I tend to lean on best practices of the instructors I have had in the past.Initial Encounter
Ko and Rossen spend a lot of copy talking about technical issues. Since every instructor uses different terminology communication could either take place in 'collaboration,' 'discussion,' 'group pages,' or just about anywhere. The best approach to this that I have seen is to send out an initial email to all students registered in the class explaining what to expect, basics of the course, and where to get help. (It kills me when the help procedures are located within the LMS. It's like your ISP only providing help online: If I could get online I wouldn't need help!)
Learning Styles
I'll blog this section later because it has been one of the 'grand epiphanies' for me in this course. The main idea is that asynchronous communication can leave a lot of students lost. I don't agree with Ko and Rossen that this is a learning style issue, at least not in the sense of traditional education. I do agree that it is a problem.
Orientation
This is the most important piece. You have to answer the question "What is expected of me and how will it be measured?" I've found that instructors tend to make this very general when it probably should be more specific. The Levenburg example in the book talks about asynchronous communication and then goes on to say that "most students access their e-mail five to seven times a week." Is that daily? Every three days? Will I fail the course if I have a week where I can't be online. If the expectation is 10 hours per week does that mean 2 hours a night, or will their be assignments that require 5 and 6 hour blocks of time? What does the author mean by "cutting edge" technology? My computer is 2 years old. I would rather see some examples. From Ko and Rossen p. 190 Don't just use the terminology 'asynchronously (time-and location-shifts.) If your students don't understand and googe the term asynchronous they are going to get 30,000 sites about advanced computer programming. Instead give them an example from a previous class or send them to e-learnspace. They have a great set of tools about asynchronous communication and how to use it.............
posted by Dallas Becker @ 8:45 AM
1 Comments:
Indeed a very nice piece of writing. I think that the result of any online tutoring and thus the satisfaction of students largely depend upon the applied teaching strategy and student’s own initiatives. Active participation of students in online learning makes the whole learning procedure more effective and interesting. To know more about this aspect, Http://tutorskingdom.com/ too may be a good source.
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