Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Elements of Distance Education Diffusion

Module 2 Post 2

Collaborative interaction allows for multiple intelligences to come together in a single group or learning community. Each member in a learning community must be able to collaborate with one another in order to reach a common goal. Collaborative learning involves not only taking in new ideas but also creating new ideas. Smith and MacGregor (1992) illustrates that collaborative learning produces intellectual synergy of many minds coming to bear on a problem and the social stimulation of mutual engagement in a common endeavor.
Some online tools that are available today to facilitate collaborative interaction are video conferencing, web conferencing, voice over IP, virtual classrooms, blogs, and wiki’s just to name a few. “ Videoconferencing attempts to proximate face-to-face communication and web conferencing integrates the phone and networked computer screen so that an unlimited number of participants can talk to each other while viewing the same content ,” (Foreman, 2003). Foreman (2003) explains that Voice IP is a system, which bypasses the telephone and transmits audio over the same Internet lines that link users to their shared applications.

Foreman, J. (2003). Distance Learning and Synchronous Interaction. The Technology Source Archives at the University of North Carolina. Retrieved fromhttp://technologysource.org/article/distance_learning_and_synchronous_interaction/
Smith, B.L., & MacGregor, J.T. (1992). What is Collaborative learning? Retrieved from http://learningcommons.evergreen.edu/pdf/collab.pdf.

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Next Generation of Distance Education

There is a strong need to evolve distance education to the next generation. Over the recent years, distance education has become a popular avenue of teaching and learning. Distance education is in most school systems around the world and has also entered the workforce at a rapid pace. Simonson explains that there has been an increase in distance education in the last decade which illustrates a stronger demand for the upcoming generation. Some reasons that Simonson give for this rapid evolution in distance education is that it offers self-study at a distance, it's useful in linking resources and it's basically incorporated into most learning environments. The benefits of distance education is almost incomparable to any other type of education. Moller, Huett, Foshay and Coleman (May, 2008) explains that distance learning is very beneficial because it is instantly available, providing timely and on-demand learning access which is impossible in a traditional learning center. They also explain that once distance learning is developed, it is accessible to tens of thousands of e-teachers and e-learners with immediate access. The expansion of distance learning has reached higher education at a profound rate. It's the main source of education as a post-secondary educator and/or learner. Moller, Huett, Foshay and Coleman (July 2008) explains that some colleges and universities see distance education as a way of sustaining growth. As distance education continues to grow in higher education settings, it also shows growth in the k-12 education arena. Studies (September, 2008) show that online learning in k-12 schools is addressing previously unmet needs. As I dissect the resources, I agree with the positions of the authors. Distance and online learning is moving at a rapid pace in the educational arena as well as in other sectors throughout the world. Since the demand is so great, the needs of the next generation must be met in order to go to the next level of e-teaching and e-learning.

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.

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.

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.

Simonson, M. (2010). Distance Education: The Next Generation