As I work on assignments for OMDE603 I have learned so much about distance education, online atmospheres, and my own knowledge of technology. While I know more than I thought I knew it usually doesn't apply to the online world.
The new developments like New Life, Blogs and sites like the Sakai Project have really opened my eyes to the online world that I had no idea exited before now and probably wouldn't have if not for this course.
I am still amazed with how much trouble I continued to have with this blog up until the very last week, not to worry my husband got a huge kick out of watching me try to navigate through this site.
The best part about this blog has been the interaction with other student's blog sites. It is refreshing to read their postings and see that you aren't as lost as you thought or to find out about links that can be helpful.
I think blog sites like this would be helpful to all courses due to the fact that students can post their thoughts about the class and get feedback from other students so that they don't feel alone in the sometimes confusing world of academia.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Instructor involvement in Distance Education
This week’s conference asked the following question:
What are the roles of the instructor in Distance Education course as compared to a face to face course?
Which led me to the following response:
As stated by Kuboni (1999) “the learning environment becomes a particular and important consideration. If this indeed true then it becomes a bigger picture than just the professor creating a course curriculum. Unless this professor is one of Information Technology, they would have a hard time turning this important information into an online atmosphere. I believe that is where most schools are going wrong with their distance education and as do many others who have written about the ongoing problems that afflict online learning.
As stated in the Theory and practice of online learning, “the dynamic nature of the online environment presents unique challenges for course developers and editors.” (Anderson & Elloumi) If there are challenges for the developers and editors what about professors who are asked to develop these courses on their own? This paper points out that several schools were quick to jump in the race for having a distance education program and did not take all the intricate into consideration. With these developments most schools did not take into account the cost that would be involved and this has caused them to cut corners in how the course will be developed.
All of these issues have brought sites about like the Sakai Project. This is where professionals in the field of education, development, and editing and information technologist have come together in a forum where they can share ideas and their skills in order to help others in the academia world. There are many sites like this out there for professors to join and try to learn more about what they are being asked to do.
There are also many other sites, like Elliminate, that offer complete classrooms for sale. In this forum schools can buy an already complete online classroom atmosphere that they can simply plug their information to and be up and running in no time. This type of learning tool seems to be a simple solution for professors who are leery to the distance education atmosphere.
So, why the instructor is still an intricate part of the online learning atmosphere they need assistance from developers and information technologist; unlike walking into a classroom with the material that they have developed for their course.
(2001). Elluminate Demos. Retrieved June 04, 2009, from Elluminate Web site: http://www.elluminate.com/demo/live_demo.jspT. Anderson. & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning (Second Edition). Retrieved July 29, 2008, from http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/second_edition.html
What are the roles of the instructor in Distance Education course as compared to a face to face course?
Which led me to the following response:
As stated by Kuboni (1999) “the learning environment becomes a particular and important consideration. If this indeed true then it becomes a bigger picture than just the professor creating a course curriculum. Unless this professor is one of Information Technology, they would have a hard time turning this important information into an online atmosphere. I believe that is where most schools are going wrong with their distance education and as do many others who have written about the ongoing problems that afflict online learning.
As stated in the Theory and practice of online learning, “the dynamic nature of the online environment presents unique challenges for course developers and editors.” (Anderson & Elloumi) If there are challenges for the developers and editors what about professors who are asked to develop these courses on their own? This paper points out that several schools were quick to jump in the race for having a distance education program and did not take all the intricate into consideration. With these developments most schools did not take into account the cost that would be involved and this has caused them to cut corners in how the course will be developed.
All of these issues have brought sites about like the Sakai Project. This is where professionals in the field of education, development, and editing and information technologist have come together in a forum where they can share ideas and their skills in order to help others in the academia world. There are many sites like this out there for professors to join and try to learn more about what they are being asked to do.
There are also many other sites, like Elliminate, that offer complete classrooms for sale. In this forum schools can buy an already complete online classroom atmosphere that they can simply plug their information to and be up and running in no time. This type of learning tool seems to be a simple solution for professors who are leery to the distance education atmosphere.
So, why the instructor is still an intricate part of the online learning atmosphere they need assistance from developers and information technologist; unlike walking into a classroom with the material that they have developed for their course.
(2001). Elluminate Demos. Retrieved June 04, 2009, from Elluminate Web site: http://www.elluminate.com/demo/live_demo.jspT. Anderson. & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning (Second Edition). Retrieved July 29, 2008, from http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/second_edition.html
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Blogs
This assignment has been quite a trying one for me due to the fact that I am a digital immigrant. For those of you who are not familiar "Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives," Marc Prensky (2001) employs an analogy of native speakers and immigrants to describe the generation gap separating today's students (the "Digital Natives") from their teachers (the "Digital Immigrants").
For me to set down and simple post a comment in my blog it takes me about 15 minutes to figure out why I can't log into my blog without it coming up in Japanese ever time, due to the fact that I live in Japan. Because I can't remember what I did the time before to correct this I have to go through the pain staking steps of trouble shooting the site. I have now figured out that if I log in through google.com in English that I do not have to go through the rest of my prior hassles.
I then can not remember where I go to start a new posting and click every possible link until it brings me to the home page that I need to be at. This could be corrected by simpling logging in through the blogger site but I always go back to my save URL in the conference section of the OMDE classroom.
All the while I am thinking about what a luxury it must be to be a digital native and not have to go through this every time you log into a new world online! I am glad that I have had to go through all of these growing pains so to speak because it is a wonderful new world online that I have yet to enjoy because of my fear of navigation!
Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon. Vol 9(5). www.marcprensky.com/writing/
For me to set down and simple post a comment in my blog it takes me about 15 minutes to figure out why I can't log into my blog without it coming up in Japanese ever time, due to the fact that I live in Japan. Because I can't remember what I did the time before to correct this I have to go through the pain staking steps of trouble shooting the site. I have now figured out that if I log in through google.com in English that I do not have to go through the rest of my prior hassles.
I then can not remember where I go to start a new posting and click every possible link until it brings me to the home page that I need to be at. This could be corrected by simpling logging in through the blogger site but I always go back to my save URL in the conference section of the OMDE classroom.
All the while I am thinking about what a luxury it must be to be a digital native and not have to go through this every time you log into a new world online! I am glad that I have had to go through all of these growing pains so to speak because it is a wonderful new world online that I have yet to enjoy because of my fear of navigation!
Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon. Vol 9(5). www.marcprensky.com/writing/
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Avatars
I found that the New Life website was very overwhelming. I could not possibly imagine being a student at my age and trying to not only learn my course material but have to build a community in that site .
I believe that it takes away from the task at hand, which is learning the course material.
Just as with this course and my DETTcourse I am wasting precious time trying to figure out the technology so that I can get down to the course work. This is when I really see the differences between the digital natives and myself the digital immigrants. I really must force myself to make adjustments in my life and learn to work happily along side my friend the computer, instead of fighting him half of the day.
I believe that it takes away from the task at hand, which is learning the course material.
Just as with this course and my DETTcourse I am wasting precious time trying to figure out the technology so that I can get down to the course work. This is when I really see the differences between the digital natives and myself the digital immigrants. I really must force myself to make adjustments in my life and learn to work happily along side my friend the computer, instead of fighting him half of the day.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
First Assignment
This week we were tasked with researching two different technologies that can be used to set up an online or distance classroom. This was very interesting to me since I had no experience with any of these products.
I chose Elluminate, which I absolutely fell in love with, and Sakai Project. The Sakai Project was hard for me to understand and learn about because you really had to have technical knowledge to download the applications or even follow the demo. They used technical terms when describing the products so I was lost. It seemed that if you had someone in your organization that had this type of experience you could task them with monitoring this site and then implementing the products that he thinks will work for you.
With the type of tech knowledge that I have Elluminate was great because it really is like a plug and play application.
I chose Elluminate, which I absolutely fell in love with, and Sakai Project. The Sakai Project was hard for me to understand and learn about because you really had to have technical knowledge to download the applications or even follow the demo. They used technical terms when describing the products so I was lost. It seemed that if you had someone in your organization that had this type of experience you could task them with monitoring this site and then implementing the products that he thinks will work for you.
With the type of tech knowledge that I have Elluminate was great because it really is like a plug and play application.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
First blog
Ok, well I got the blog set up and am not sure of anything else at this point. This is my first blog site or interaction with one. I can't wait to start this assignment because we have been discussing setting up a blog for advisors to interact with each other so this will be a great opportunity for me to add some feedback to that.
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