Folks:
This is the first hit I will do on Distance Learning. This is the first hit
that I am doing and hope that I am doing it correctly. I tried posting before
and it did not post.
Thank you for your responses.
Presently, I am finishing my fourth distance learning course. My university
is at least 3 1 1/2 hours away if there is no traffic. The course that I am
presently in is called Hardware/Courseware for the Media Center. My professor
lives in Mississippi and the rest of us are in NJ. Some of my fellow students
are alreqady working in media centers and the rest of us would like to some day.
This summer we been learning how to create a Cyber Library and running the 21st
century librarian. I can safely say that I love taking these courses and never
work harder in my life. Each distance course is different and one needs to
make sure of what is required because some courses might require on site work
to be completed. With Jersey City I a can take all my course work online
except my internship. They will be sending someone down to observe me when I
doing this class. Another neat thing about this is the other people in my
class. There are two ladies who have the responsiblity to redesign their
library for their inner city school that houses special needs students. Two
other ladies (we also have an occassional male in the class) who work in two
completely different levels of media centers (one is elementary and the other
is jr.high).
Since we display our work on message boards or web sites I learned so much more
then I would in a regular class.
~~~~~
http://www.flvs.net/ this school has been in operation for about 6 years.
lots of info on their site.
~~~~~~~~~
I have only experienced it from the student side, so I don't know all the
details of how it was set up, but I suggest you look into the Department of
Defense Dependent Schools district. I was a student in those schools (these
are schools on the overseas American military bases), and because our schools
tend to be on the small side, we often used distance learning to cover the
higher-level classes that wouldn't fill at any one school. I took my classes
about 10 years ago, by which time it was already a fairly established part of
our schools. I took AP Physics through distance ed, and I enjoyed it very
much. It's one of the best classes I've taken!
I was in Japan, and my teacher was in Germany. He filmed his lectures before
the school year started and sent copies of the tapes to each school where he
had students. We also had supplementary videos done by PBS... I have forgotten
the series name, but it was an excellent series that aired in the '80s --
lectures given by a physics prof at CalTech (?). Each week we
got the plan for that week (day 1: watch lecture, day 2: do this experiment,
etc.). We turned in our assignments via e-mail -- he generally assigned many
problems and asked us to turn in only certain ones to him, since typing them up
was tedious. We asked questions via e-mail (of the teacher but also of our
other classmates around the world).
As you might have guessed, there is a lot of honor system involved
here! We had a local teacher (the physics teacher) who acted as an on-site
contact if we got particularly lost, but there was no one watching us during
each day's class period to make sure we watched the whole tape or did every
problem or whatever. We "conducted" class ourselves, so our set-up is
definitely not for everybody. We took our tests in the library, where the
media specialist kept a vague eye one us, but even she had no knowledge of
whether we could use calculators, books, etc. or not.
At many of the DoDDS schools, most of the AP-level classes are offered
only through distance ed, but the more basic levels of courses are not. I
think there is some assumption that students who are that interested in AP are
likely to be self-motivated and disciplined enough to function with little
guidance.
Because of the nature of the school district (small schools located VERy far
apart), DoDDS has been a bit of a pioneer with distance ed. Perhaps someone
has done some more detailed explanations of how it works (research paper or
something); it might be worth looking for. (Incidentally, DoDDS is sometimes
also called DoDEA: Dept. of Defense Educational Association.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I taught high school online for two years. I am very enthusiastic about
learning in this method. However, since your board is just beginning, there
will be many pitfalls, not least of which is the tendency to think that
machines, rather that teachers are doing the work (and lack of funding,
teacher-support, and general experience with this medium)
Students on the whole need more support in cyberspace, so the teacher
needs
to be accessible. On the other hand, a lot of time is wasted in the regular
classroom just getting the class "ready" to learn. I have a web site that I
created for an assignment. It discusses the pros and cons from a student-
centred perspective. You can view it at: http://www.atherton.ca/mdde/assign60/
I am also sending you an email that I sent to another teacher-librarian from
Zimbabwe when she asked to interview me online about online learning.
Hello Roberta,
I could write about this subject all day..so my replies are little long-winded.
Here are the answers to your questions:
: : 1. Do you facilitate a turnkey course, or one of your own design?
I wrote all my courses
: :
: : 2. If this is your own course what was the most difficult part of
: converting your curriculum to the online environment?
You must provide not only content (such as you would find in a text) but
also clear submission guidelines for assignments and even clearer
instructions. The web site is also the classroom space (along with the forum
or message board) and you need to create a friendly atmosphere
The work must be paced so the student has early success, and I feel it is
better to have several small assignments that build to a culminating
product. In this way you provide feedback and instruction and the student
does not get "lost"...
You need to remember that the student can only see one page at a time
online. With a book there are pages to flip through, and in a class there
are other students as well as the teacher to give clues.
If a turnkey course, how much
: : flexibility do you have in changing the course to suit your teaching
: style?
The more control that the teacher has the more successful is the
teaching/learning experience, because it can be individualized.
Standardization and individualization are mutually exclusive concepts. You
can't have both at the same time.
: :
: : 3. Do you feel as if you “get to know” your students? In face to face
: : interaction body language is an important part of communication. What do
: you feel best compensates for this direct interaction?
I feel that you get to know the cognitive/learning style of your students
better online, since you are writing directly to each other. When I would
meet the students during the exam, it would feel like we were
well-acquainted.
There are no distractions online; all communication is personal and
individualized. In a classroom, the teacher rarely gets to speak to a
student individually. If you are tired or frustrated, you can wait until you
are refreshed before you answer a message. So the communication remains
positive. This is not always the case in the classroom, where there are
usually too many demands on the teacher at the same time, with limited
resources, space, time, etc...
:
: : 4. How do you manage feedback? Do you have set times in the day you read
: or answer emails?
I would answer all emails within a school day. If I was not available, I
would tell the students in advance. I preferred working in the early morning
and sometimes in the evenings, if there were a lot of assignments to mark
or messages to answer. The main advantage of online teaching is "any time,
any place and any pace" for both the students and the teacher.
: :
: : 5. Do you use set chatroom times for “office hours”?
No, I did not have office hours. I found that most students preferred to
work in the late evening. This was also indicated in the course web
statistics, and did not wish to answer emails after 10 pm. :o)
Does the chatroom serve
: : any other purpose in your course? Must the students “attend” at specific
: : times in the chatroom? Do you have an informal chatroom also, and if so
do you participate or is this only for students?
Chatting, I found was a waste of time, though I did have several chat
programs available. I would use them mostly for sending larger files, when
the students were submitting longer reports.
When the students chatted, it was with each other, privately, outside the
school
chatroom (ICQ, etc...)
just as they would in school. When they were on chat with me, they literally
wanted to chat - "how are you, Did you see a movie on the weekend, etc...not
school related and did not have the interest or the time for "idle" chat.
: :
: : 6. How quickly do you try to respond to emails?
I would answer within a day if possible. When I was teaching 4 classes at
the same time, I would try to get back to the students within 3 school days
with their marked assignments.
If the students needed assistance, they were told to put "Help" or
"Question" in the subject line of the message and I would answer right away.
I always looked for these message first.
In the Orientation, worth 5% of the final mark, I laid out the rules for
online communication in the beginning of the course. For each course, I
would have a separate email address and for each student I would create
message rules so their messages went directly into their email folders on my
computer. Otherwise, I would be swamped with messages and get disorganized.
They also had to identify themselves in the From line by their REAL NAMES
not an alias, and put the topic of the message in the subject line.
: :
: : 7. Do you use threaded discussions? If so about how many responses are
: : posted per day? Does this part ever feel overwhelming?
Yes the discussions were very productive, but I would ususally post a topic
and insist that the students write a response, and reply to at least two
other postings. If they posted an assignment for marks, then I would have
them send me a message to notify me. I used a lot of peer evaluation, and
tried to stay out of the discussion as much as possible. Just give
encouragement and post the best submitted work online, or in a student
showcase. See http://www.atherton.ca/showcase.htm
: :
: : 8. Approximately how much time do you spend per week facilitating your
: : course?
One hour per student per week. 50 students would be 50 hours per week. -
this is for high school students.
: :
: : 9. Do you feel it is more or less work to facilitate a course versus
: : teaching a traditional class?
It is more work at first (it takes about 3 months full time to write a 100
hour course for a semester), but then the work is mostly done and each time
you run the course, it is easier. You also collect exemplars to show the
students, and this does the teaching for you.
The problem lies in the tendency for the school board to give the online
teacher too many students, as though the computer does the teaching, not the
teacher. If you have a 100 students, you can end up teaching around the
clock, and there are only 168 hours in the week.
: :
: : 10. Do you feel your support structure is effective? Would it be for a
: first time facilitator?
I kept a tracking sheet for each student (an Excel spreadsheet) so the
students knew exactly what their marks were, which assignments were due and
when. I updated and sent it to them every time they submitted, along with a
marked version of their assignment.
They always knew their marks. This was very helpful. I had another
teacher use one of my course, but I gave her a lot of support material -
and she felt it was easy to use. Having examples of previous work is also
helpful.
: : 11. What learning strategies do you feel work best for the online
student and you?
Individualizing is best. For example, I taught students who were LD and they
used Speech Recognition software to write emails and post on the message
board.
It is also best to empower the students - encourage them to find resources
and share their knowledge with others. They like seeing what others are
doing. They tend to "find" each other too - another student with similar
interests and background or circumstances. It is important to have a good
welcome conference - and stay out of it- so the students get to know each
other. I would have the students finish sentences that I posted in the
Orientation unit.
The students won't work for a machine; they need to know that someone cares
about them and their progress.
: :
: : 12. What types of assessment do you use? Do you post rubrics for any
: : assignments?
I used a variety of assessments. Online quizzes/tests, letter writing,
postings, powerpoint presentations, report writing, completing forms,
manuals, creating web pages, etc...I always posted an evaluation checklist or
rubrik.
: :: : 13. Do you have any tips you can share, either things to avoid or :
strategies for success?
Remember the human, and encourage the students to learn how to communicate
effectively in the online environment -with correct grammar and spelling. They
will improve dramatically in this area. Reading instructions and posting and
writing (specific) requests for instructions will improve their literacy
greatly. It is one of the greatest benefits of online learning.
Find someone to talk to for support. You will start to feel isolated, if you
don't have someone to reflect with about what you are doing. You will need to
be very patient, since their are always problems when you rely on technology.
Back up your work! :o))
You can look at one of my Business English courses - I have it saved, though I
am no longer teaching it. I shortened it for a one month summer school, and it
is copyrighted by the TDSB.
http://www.atherton.ca/EBS4A/ -login "ebs4a", password "money"
We are a small single-school district, so distance learning has always
appealed to us as a great way to offer more courses and more flexibility to our
students. We have tried two different programs and were not happy with the
results. We offered courses through Cyber High. It appealed mainly to kids
who
were behind in units. We also offered several Advanced Placement classes
through
AP Online. So we have really seen both our high-performing and our
low-performing kids attempt online courses, both with the same results--it was
simply
too difficult for them to be self-motivated to keep up with their coursework,
and most were not successful.
From what I saw of both courses, the content and presentation of the material
was good. It was simply the students' lack of self-discipline and maturity
that kept them from being successful. In both cases, the teachers who were
supposed to just help them get started and periodically check-up with them
spent
an enormous amount of time with discipline and performance issues because the
kids were not completing their assignments in a timely manner. In short, what
was supposed to be an extra duty turned out to be a nightmare for many of the
teachers assigned to monitor the distance ed kids.
We have tried allowing the students (in groups of 1-2 per period) work on
their online courses in the open library computers and tables. They were more
often off task than not and often skipped their period altogether. We then set
up a separate office with a new computer and desk for them to work in and
found that while they appeared busy, it was often doing anything BUT their
coursework. We've also had issues with cheating during tests as it's been hard
for
us to find someone free to proctor who could devote 1-2 hours per test without
interruption (teacher would be called from the room and kids would cheat).
In short, we have soured on distance education. I have taken online classes
myself and have trouble planning, organizing, and keeping up with them in the
same way I do a face-to-face class, so I can imagine how difficult it would be
for most teens to take on this challenge. Just my experience.
______
Frances Maye
Graduate Student
Jesey City University
JoyTBear@comcast.net
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