Technology
use transcends across geographic borders, religions, and cultures and has an
uncanny ability to unite people around the world. To stay competitive in the marketplace, many businesses are
building project teams with members from different countries and time zones,
which enables them to operate 24x7.
These workers need to
collaborate by using cutting-edge technologies. With the growth of businesses setting up shop in locations
around the world, companies will demand that training programs be implemented
in an online environment as this modality typically provides the best return on
investment.
Norms are what most people think and
do. With technology being ubiquitous in our daily lives, we have entered a new
age in where distance education is growing in acceptance in the higher education
and business setting (Siemens, 2012). K12 settings have not on large scale adopted distance
education, which I believe is attributed to the power of the teacher unions and
lack of understanding by local school boards. As the iPad, iPhone and other technology devices become
prevalent in the K12 environment, I believe the K12 landscape will change
greatly over the next 5-10 years, and the new norm will be blended learning
with some instruction direct and others facilitated via the web. In 10-20
years, the majority of the world will participate in some type of distance
education experience.
The
power of distance education is amazing and for me personally has enabled me to
complete courses and is assisting me to reach my goal of attaining my Masters. Without, the flexibility of distance
learning courses it would be an impossibility for me achieve this goal due to
my family and work obligations.
As an instructional designer and
proponent of distance education, I have found that people are uneasy with the
unknown. Everyone who I know has
taken an online case felt that it was beneficial and not as hard as they
thought it would be. When we were
assigned to conduct an independent review of one of the open courses, I was
blown away by the depth, variety and quality of free online courses out there. This is something that was on my list to
do but didn’t make the time to take free course until this recent assignment. All of us have our own hobbies and
areas of interest. I will continue to suggest to others that they explore the
wealth of free online courses out there as a way to test drive and become
familiar with what online courses have to offer. This approach may help the skeptics dip their toe in the
water of an online class with just the minimal investment of their own time.
As
part of our discussion assignment this week we interviewed friends and
colleagues to ask them to share out their thoughts and perceptions about
distance education. All of the
people I interviewed expressed to be successful in an online setting that they
would need a great communicator as an instructor, would need the ability to ask
and get answered questions in a timely way and would want an engaging and
supportive environment. Best
instructional design practices address the concerns my interviewees had as the
designer would include a plan (syllabus) for the course with clearly defined learning
objectives, instructors would understand the lesson plans from end to end and
instructors would be adept and knowledgeable of the technology platform
(Simonson et al., 2012).
Through my Walden Masters program, I am learning best practices and
gaining the necessary knowledge, which will enable me to be a proactive force
and advocate for online learning.
-Michelle
References
Siemens, G.. (2012). Future of distance education [video]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_1373693_1%26url%3D
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright,
M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance:
Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
No comments:
Post a Comment