As distance education has evolved so have many elements of distance education. Distance education is comparable to face to face education, but the two are worlds apart. In terms of content distance education and face to face education are the same, but the delivery models are very different, but one of the areas where there is an extraordinary difference is in communication. In face to face education there is real time interaction and communication with peers during the fifty minutes of the course three times per week, but there is very little communication between peers outside of those hours (Siemens, 2008). However in distance education the key to a students success is the communication between them and their peers and the instructor. The advent of social networking sites, wikis, blogs, and instant message applications with web cam capabilities like Skype have made communication in distance education much easier. I even have the Walden University application on my iPhone, so I am able to access my courses on the go anytime of day or night, no matter where I am at.
In the post by Education Connection the author refers to a program that has been designed to help aid communications and alleviate the feeling of alienation in distance education through the use of web cams at Santa Barbara City College (Education Connection, 2010). Through this program students are able to view professors lectures and participate in discussions via web cam. Roy Bartels outlines several other methods of communication that can be used in distance education and their benefits in his blog also.
Roy Bartels blog can be found here:
http://www.rbartels.com/EDIT%205370/synch_asynch.html
Education Connection blog can be found here:
http://blog.educationconnection.com/2010/04/communication-distance-learning/
Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). The Future of Distance Education. On Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore: Author.
Jami,
ReplyDeleteIn your post you mention that Siemens suggests that peer contact is low outside of a face-to-face course. I am interested in how one creates that social dynamics in a distance course. I have not been able to understand how to connect with my distance classmates outside of the discussions and I feel without understanding these dynamics, I cannot create a connective course. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Bob Streff
Jami,
ReplyDeleteOne of the strengths of an online course is the ability for students to complete their work anytime instead of having to be online at the same time. If the professor is using live webcam lessons, does that mean every student has to be online at the same time? I have had to do that in some classes at Walden and it is very difficult to do when people live in different timezones. One professor had to schedule three times to accommodate students from around the world.
Dave
In response to Bob
ReplyDeleteI think a way to do that would be to exchange instant messenger id's so that if you notice classmates online you can initiate a conversation with them, in courses I have had in the past we sent out a mass email with everyone's contact information that was in your timezone so that if you needed to call someone or talk to someone about an assignment or just reach out, you could do so without the worry of figuring out the time difference. It seemed to really work for us and in those courses are where I felt most comfortable because I did not feel so alone.