During this course, you will post a reflection in your personal blog based on the topic of each module. If you are already a blogger, you can use your existing blog for this purpose. If you are not a blogger, you will need to create a blog for this purpose. You will utilize your blog in other courses as well. Please post the URL for your blog in the Class Café so your classmates can find it. You may want to use an aggregator like www.Bloglines.com so you can check the blogs of your classmates on a regular basis. An aggregator lets you see all the new posts to the blogs you follow since the last time you checked, and will save you a lot of time. You only have to open your aggregator, rather than each blog separately to see if a posting has been made.
Your instructor will assign you to a group of four to five learners so you can read and respond within a small group learning community throughout the course.
For your first blog for this module, reflect on the following:
Your instructor will assign you to a group of four to five learners so you can read and respond within a small group learning community throughout the course.
For your first blog for this module, reflect on the following:
- After reading the three articles by Moller, Huett, Foshay and Coleman, and listening to the Simonson video programs, compare and contrast the reasons these authors believe there is a need to evolve distance education to the next generation. Do you agree with their positions? Why or why not?
Be sure to link to these resources in your blog, so others who read it will be able to reference them. After you have posted your blog, visit the blogs of other members of your learning community and read and respond to their posts.
Response
The number of adults that are participating in the online learning or e-learning experience is vastly growing. Adults are wanting to obtain higher degrees to help secure their jobs or climb the economic ladder to success. For myself, I want to obtain a higher degree to help keep the students in the classroom engaged. With learning about new technology that can help my students succeed, then I feel successful as an educator.
Moller, Foshay, and Huett state "It seems plausible that, given the lack of collaborative learning background of many learners, our educational system is producing learners who prefer, or are able to only interact with the content and/or instructor, but not each other" (May/June 2008). I disagree with this statement. I know that there is a lot of peer interaction in all classrooms. As educators we try to incorporate this daily so that we are preparing the students for the work force where they have to work with people that they do not get along with. I know for myself that I took my first online class in March of 2009 and was very successful. I enjoyed the amount of interaction that I had with my colleagues and professors. The best part is that I could complete assignments and communicate with them while I was in the comfort of my own home. Online learning may be a little more expensive, but you do not have to worry about traveling and changing your schedule around to be at classes on a certain day and time.
I do agree with Moller, Foshay and Huett in that web-based instruction may not be beneficial for everyone (May/June 2008, p.74). Some people need to be able to have the face-to-face interaction with their peers and instructors. Also, Moller, Foshat, and Huett discussed in part two of the essay that the faculty that is "deploying the online courses should be required training" (July/August 2008, p.69). This is a very true statement. I know that some people who have taking online courses have had a really bad experience because of the lack of experience that the professor had involving the online program.
In the last part of the essay, Moller, Foshay, Huett, and Coleman state that distance learning may become a "dumping ground" for credit recovery and alternative setting for problem students (September/October 2008). I disagree with this because online learning is beneficial to working adults and classroom students. Online learning should not be used as a punishment for children because they will learn to resent computer based learning. What happens when they enter the work force, and they have to take a course to prepare them for their job that is on the computer? They would give up because they new online learning from school was not successful for them when they were in school.
References:
Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, May/June). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 1: Training and Development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75. Retreived from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/detail?sid=1c5b4c2b-db1a-4c72-8922-807f0d3b56f6%40sessionmgr115&vid=1&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=33281719
Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, July/August). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 2: Higher Education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70. Retreived from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/detail?sid=44e22096-c573-4919-98d6-0d47ef15bd5a%40sessionmgr112&vid=1&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=33991516
Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W. & Coleman, C. (2008, September/October). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67. Retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/detail?sid=8e31a47c-714e-488d-84eb-3b75d9d3615c%40sessionmgr111&vid=1&hid=125&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=a9h&AN=34729472
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