Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Distance Learning Technologies

Example 2: Interactive Tours
The scenario I chose is: A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance.
There are several methods that can be implemented to facilitate the instructor’s need to connect the resources so that the learner can access them. Moreover, the issue that the instructor may be faced with is budget. The school may not have the funds to pay for the necessary technologies needed for to complete the distance learning objectives.
There are several technologies that could be incorporated to complete this tour of the New York City museums. Because teens are the learners, enhanced technology would be essential for this distance learning project. As the instructional designer, I would first suggest 3-D virtual tours. These tours would stream via the internet at the learner’s individual computers. This streaming can be provided by the museum that gives a tour of all of the exhibits. Streaming video can hold the attention of the student, fit various learning styles and can act as reinforcement to learning (Cofield, 2002). Virtual tours can expose the learner to the learning opportunity without being at the site. This type of technology would keep budget costs to a minimum.
Another learning technology that the instructor could use is PowerPoint presentations. The instructor could use the information from the museum’s art exhibits and transform them into PowerPoint slides. These slide show the art and offer detail description of the each piece. I do not believe this will capture the student’s attention as long as the virtual tours, simply because virtual tours are real time footage.
The last suggestion would to contact the museum curator to discuss setting up a WebEx for the students. This WebEx would consist of the curator giving the students a detail overview of the museum exhibits and the artists. Along with the WebEx, the curator could provide the instructor with assessment suggestions for the students.
All in all, I believe each one of these technologies could enhance student learning and engagement. These technologies promote student involvement, while learning about art exhibits.


References:


Cofield, J. L. (2002). As assessment of streaming video in web-based instruction. Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association.





Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Distance Learning



The first generation of distance education was print-based correspondence study, and print continued to be the predominant delivery medium for distance education until the beginning of the 1970s (Tracey & Richey). Distance education began over one hundred years ago with simple shorthand education coming through the mail. This practice has now evolved with the use of technology. Now, the same courses that were taught via commercial mail are now being taught via the internet without an instructor. Who would have thought that a simple shorthand course, which was taught via mail, could be taught using a computer and a typing keyboard! Even when I began the distance learning phase of my life, I never thought it would evolve to where it is today.


Prior to beginning this distance learning course, I had an opportunity participate in distance learning programs. The first distance education experience was during my undergraduate studies. The course that I took was college algebra and I thought it was the first time distance learning was being offer by the college. What I learned was it just happened to be the first time it was offered via internet through the college. The college had distance learning courses that students could via telephone with the courses being present via the television. When I first heard of this, I said to my advisor, “school via the television…not likely!”  This was the first and last time I heard of distance learning and its association with the television. As I began the college algebra course, which was an online course, I found it was an online course that requested students to attend the course online, but the participants had to go to the campus to complete quizzes and tests. This opportunity paved the way for me to complete two degree programs online.


Being new to the distance education realm, I knew that was going to be a great opportunity, however, I did not realize that the class would aid in my success for future courses. As, I reflect on my distance learning experiences, I have found that as an adult, with a busy life, distance learning courses provide the necessary attributes for studying while working. It is a great that distant learning courses have evolved from television to working via a virtual campus via the World Wide Web.


As a veteran of the distance learning courses, I see the overall future of this discipline moving toward more interactive courses, where the course will be completed by the computer. All grading will be completed by the computer. The only thing a person would have do is gather the assessment results complied by computer. These results will aid in the improvement of the program. The courses will be completely computer driven. The only thing a person would do is develop, design, and run the virtual classrooms. This is where I see the future of distance learning going.


References:

Tracey, M. W., & Richey, R. C. (n.d.). The evolution of distance education. Distance Learning, 17-21.

Here is my mindmap, which was created on Prezi.com. I am also attaching a link to view the entire presentation.


http://prezi.com/uaevde5l3ljs/present/?auth_key=rb50188&follow=yspd34rmifew

Thursday, September 5, 2013

New and Exciting

This is a new blog that has been set aside for my distance learning course at Walden University. Interesting thoughts will be added soon.


Please check back!