EDUC - 6135-1 Reflections - Class Wrap up

            Distance Education is just now starting to come into the main stream in my opinion.  I know that distance education has been around since the 1830’s in the form of correspondence courses.  As technology progressed so did the forms of correspondence courses and how they were offered, through television, videos, recordings, etc.  Personal computers have come on the scene and taken the correspondence course to a whole new level.  We now have actual distance education coming into its own through online universities, blog postings, wikis, and internet videos.  As people progress to having constant access to the internet through smartphones and tablet computers, online studies will become more accepted and even recommended for those that want to learn more but need to have the flexibility to obtain that learning on their own schedules.  With the advance of Web 2.0 technologies, the sky is the limit and as the society is raised with these technologies it will just be part of how the world works and not an exception to the rule.

            As for the people that think distance education and degrees earned online cannot be comparable with those obtained at traditional institutions, I tell them that it is time to pull their heads out of the sand.  I try to get them to see that everyone is learning through distance education in one form or another.  I also try to point out that they have probably done some form of online learning recently whether it be through research they have done or a live meeting they may have attended or being on the receiving end of a person trying to trouble shoot an issue with their computer from a remote location.  You see it is really the perception that needs to be adjusted.  Once you can adjust the perception you can then take the talk a little further to say, “now that you see what you have done in a small way would it not be feasible that someone does this on just a slightly grander scale like taking a class or two or twenty to fulfill and educational program?”  I find if you start with a small sample and you can get people’s buy in to that sample you can then expand it past the sample to the full blown courses.

            As an Instructional Designer I will attempt to design courses that are not just educational but have interesting presentations and fun interactive projects.  I think that if training programs are developed to be educational and fun more people would want to learn online.  The trend these days is for people to use online games to help children learn and I think we should take that further and design similar avenues for the adult learner.  Adults talk a good game about wanting to learn more, however I know for a fact that there are plenty of adults that like to have a diversion from their everyday lives and giving them games suited for adults would be just what is needed.  As an adult learner utilizing online studies I know I would enjoy some classes that have an element of fun to break from my everyday work.  That Is not to say all classes need to be delivered this way – that would not be productive.

            The biggest help I can provide to be a positive force for distance education is to promote distance education.  Letting people know that I am a product of distance education has already changed some people’s opinions.  I have had several people inquire as to what I am studying, how it is going, and asking how I am able to make it work with my busy schedule.  I have also sent out links to colleagues letting them know about the programs available at Walden University.  There have been some great new additions in the curriculum that some of my colleagues could benefit from attending.

            I have explained to many people that while I am taking these classes to obtain a master’s degree I also want them to understand that online learning can be done at any time for any reason.  I also talk about the grandmother who has obtained her Phd and the number of people that are continuing to obtain their masters degrees.  As for improvement, one thing I would like to do is to continue to take courses myself and see where the field of ID is headed.  I think we all get stuck in the ways we have always done things and unless an effort is made to work outside of our comfort zone we will stop growing.  The best I can do is lead by example.  As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink” holds true in everything we do so the only thing one can do is lead by example.

Instructional Design and Technology - How to/Should You Go Online with Your Class

This post is outlining information to help a trainer determine if a class for which they are the instructor would be appropriate as an online class. There are tips to help determine that very thought as well as some tips on how to make the online class and the materials that may/should be used for the online class.

Converting to a Distance Learning Format

Helene A. Smith

Walden University

Dr. Rosemary Dawson

EDUC – 6135 – 1

February 25, 2012

            When converting to a distance learning format from an instructor-led training environment several considerations need to be reviewed.  After reviewing, The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web – part 2 several questions should be answered before proceeding with converting a traditional course to one that is online:

• Is this class appropriate for online?
• If appropriate, what technologies are best?
• Is there easy access to the technologies?
• What is the cost for creating the class/curriculum?
• Was the traditional classroom training, for the course to be implemented on the web, effective?
• Who will be creating the web based version of the traditional course?

(Moller, Foshay, Huett, 2008)

All these questions are important to answer before even beginning a project to create an online version of a traditional class.


Whenever converting material from a traditional setting to an online version some items to review would be:

• Determine if the class will be appropriate for an online setting.
• Does the course need to have a trainer local to convey the message even after the online portion is completed?
• Can the learner understand what needs to be done even to access the online training?
• Is the course designed to be “user friendly”?
• Determine what will it take to develop the course and what materials are needed.
• What materials will be required?
• Who will generate these materials?
• How much time is needed to create the materials?
• Prepare the trainer for how to deliver the material online if there will be live meetings.
• Prepare the learner on how to find the material needed for the course.
• Create a forum for the learner to ask their questions about the material covered.
• How will the question be addressed in the online classroom?
• How will the question be addressed during a live meeting or synchronous training event?

Once you have determined that the class is appropriate for an online version, consider doing the following best practices:

• Quality design of learning materials for different methods.
• Professional design – aesthetically pleasing.
• Utilize different technologies – so many to choose from today.
• Mix up the technologies to keep the interest of the learner.
• Cover all the media available for the online studies and mix them up.
• There are many technologies available, however try not to use too many.
• “Interaction is essential” (p. 172)
• Determine how large of an audience before continuing – do not limit yourself.
• Just because a technology is newer does not make it better.  Sometime the tried and true programs are quite effective.
• Make sure the teachers/trainers know the technologies being utilized.
• Involve all members on the team when developing the program.
• Remember technology is the tool – how do we want the learners to gain the information they need.

(Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012)

Following these best practices will help keep you on course for creating the online curriculum.  The best help I can provide at this point is to remember best practice #12 above – technology is just a tool.  There is several times where I have seen people not be able to function if their computer is down.  We were able to do most of our functions in the past without a computer so you should be able to continue in this vein.  

To help assist in determining what goes into the online version of the training program try organizing the process into the following hierarchy:

• General Goals
• More Specific Goals
• Objective

The trend in distance education is to reduce the amount of information being delivered (i.e. classroom lectures) and increase the amount of interactivity amongst the learners.  What an online class should strive for is interactivity and cooperation between the learners themselves and with the instructor (Simonson, et. al., 2012)

Try to picture the learner when generating your class and you will develop material that the learners will adapt to quickly.  With this adaptation for the learner, adaptation will also be needed of you as the trainer. As a trainer, in the past, you stood in front of a large/medium/small room giving information and the learner hopefully absorbing the information – this role will change.  As a distance trainer a few items will need to change from the traditional setting you have had:

• As a distance trainer you will no longer be able to see the learners’ faces or hear their sounds so if possible try out your “class” on friends or other co-workers before doing it virtually.  See if you can pick up on areas that may be of concern or areas you may be excited about but the audience will not have a reference.
• Make sure you know your material – nothing sounds worse on a live meeting than when someone just reads their presentation.
• Make the presentation sound like you.  The “class” that you are delivering (with a few exceptions) should not need to be word for word from the “deck” you were given.  If you make the presentation in your style people will stay with you on the calls because they know you believe what you are saying.

Some tips to help facilitate communication and learning in the online environment:

• Begin each class session with a quick quiz to see if the leaners understood what was assigned. Depending on the information received adjust the class to review information that needs clarification (Simonson, et. al., 2012).
• Assign reading assignments that are not in the textbook.  When the learners review information outside of the main textbook they hopefully will understand perhaps a different perspective of the information being taught in the class  and thereby retain the information (Simonson, et. al., 2012).
• Communicate your contact information to the learners.  Make sure they know your schedule for office hours.  Send e-mails to the learners if noticing there are issues with their studies.  Show that you care about the learner – if you keep in contact it is more likely that the learner will as well (Piskurich, 2012). 
• Make sure you contribute to any discussion boards where the learners are posting their information (Piskurich, 2012).
• If a synchronous classroom environment, make the learner have to do something with the communication system at different times during the presentation.  Make sure the learners know that they will have to perform a function when something specific happens during the class.  This should keep the learner focused on the class and not multi-tasking on something else in the area where they are “attending” the class (Piskurich, 2012). 
• Use documents that the learners can refer to later to help with some of the required software that needs to be incorporated for the classes.  I have attached a document which gives an example of what I like to refer to as a QRC or Quick Reference Card.  This is a great way to get some information to the learner so later when they need assistance and you may not be available the learner can reference the information for him/her self.

MIT Online Instructions

In the MIT Online session provided above you will find the class for Linear Algebra. This course, as with many online courses from established universities, is presented online for the learner to expand their knowledge. These free online courses are not for credit, you cannot use this course to gain a degree from the institution and it is simply another way to access information. The main part of the sample from MIT is laid out like any class you would take either in a traditional classroom or online. There is a syllabus, a course description, course format, course overview, goals and prerequisites. This course also offers other suggested sources of information such as a textbook and introductions to the instructor and TAs; there are even credits for the videographers and writers. As you proceed through the screens the way this course differs from a traditional classroom setting is that there are links to view the lecture and/or the transcript of the lecture. These links are a page design set for self-paced study by the online learner (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek., 2012).

This online class demonstrates definite pre-planning because unlike traditional courses there are documents you can use to check your progress in the class. Another item that shows pre-planning has happened is where the links for the sessions are posted on the screen, the length of time for the hyperlinks is shown in parentheses. On the downside and this is probably because the course is an audit type course; however there is no interaction of any kind. There are no blog sites, posting sites, no way for learners to interact. In a true online course for actual credit or as a step in a degree program these posting sites are available. It is understandable that an audit course would not provide posting sites, however it does not mean that people interested in this class could not try and create their own posting site. Anyone can make a blog site these days - the hardest part would be to have others that might be auditing the course to join in on the blog - or even find it.

Yale Online Chemistry Instruction

Another site I reviewed is the Yale Online courses area, specifically Chemistry. I was interested in this area because my daughter is a graduate student in the Chemistry department at Yale University. I was interested to see what a university of the caliber of Yale would put out as an online course. As with the MIT sample above, the free online courses in the Yale site are not for credit, these classes cannot be used to gain a degree from the university. I was not impressed with the online class. There were no indications that the classes were designed for the web. Basically the classes were just videos of the instructor giving his lecture to his class. Unlike the MIT page, there was a syllabus for the class through a link on the left side menu, however when selecting the link the syllabus was somewhat vague and too high level. The only way I found any classes (or lectures in this case) was to start clicking on links and see what the next page would give me. I eventually found the classes for the beginning chemistry classes by sheer luck. Once on the page with the links to the classes and eventually selecting one of the classes all that was on the page was an overview and links to the video of the classroom lecture. There is a link for the HTML version of the script which I suppose is something but nothing significant enough to say this is a online course. The only other item that would be online about the class is that the video can be paused, replayed or fast forwarded - in other words self-paced. It leads me to believe that Yale feels the pressure to offer online courses but it is an afterthought and nothing that they will put much work into since they probably feel that Yale is a prestigious university where the knowledge should be held within its walls.

The big difference here is that Yale is an old established university first opened back in 1701 and MIT is by definition a technical college. I would expect MIT to have a well-developed online course structure and that they would have a well-developed online degree program in many areas of study.

McBride, M. (2008) Freshman Organic Chemistry. (Yale University: Open Yale Courses), http://oyc.yale.edu/chemistry/freshman-organic-chemistry/ (Accessed 05 Feb, 2012). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Strang, G. 18.06SC Linear Algebra, Fall 2011. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 05 Feb, 2012). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA