I am going to be completely honest about this even though it may get me some flack.
I throroughly enjoyed the online experience with talkshoe this week. The information about the Office of Distributed Learning was new to me, and the link to their website enabled me to gather further information. Like climbing a ladder, every link took me to another place with more information that I am still digesting. I am very interested in the development of online courses and how this might be different from classroom face=to=face teaching.
The medium was well suited (to a certain extent) for a guest speaker. Listeners were able to get information and interact with the speaker by asking questions or for clarification. I missed having a handout, or printed information. When programs were discussed, I was not quite sure of the spelling, and the info was coming so quickly that I hadn't thought to take notes about questions, so I had to go back later and listen to the recording. So an accompanying link with either a page of information, programs discussed or links would have been helpful. Most people are visual learners, especially students these days. They need printed information, graphics, data, pictures, etc.
This is the part that will earn me frowns:
I am an auditory learner most of all, so listening meant I could do other things while the broadcast was going on which I would do in any situation. In a classroom, when there is a speaker with no visuals, I often do the same thing--well I don't wander around and do laundry, but I do make notes, read, work on other assignments, check out websites the speaker is discussing, etc. So Thursday, I attached extra speakers so I was able to move around and "multitask"--yes, this was laundry. This was one reason I had to go back to the recording later, even though I heard everything, I was unfamiliar with NING (?) and ELLUMINATE (?) or is it ILLUMINATE (?), so I went back for further information. In a classroom environment, or even in a different medium, the links could have been available, or samples of the program could have been displayed and this would have cemented the information for me. And while I did interact to a certain extent {really, I was in the room the whole time and listening =) } how would this work for someone who was not motivated or interested enough in the material to go back and review it later to fill in missing info?
How would the instructor know if people were engaged? And is it the responsibility of the instructor to engage people? Perhaps this is a different philosophy that I need to adjust to. Present the information so that people can be successful and support them, but then it is up to the student to make the decision to learn? I guess I get hung up on this because in the K-12 classroom teachers are hounded to use all the different strategies to 'engage' students the whole time.
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Hi, Linda. I appreciate your honest feedback, and you are not going to get any flack from me. :-)I still would drive hours to have the classroom environment. I think that is from my brainwashing, I mean experience, as a traditional student that became comfortable with 4 walls, 2 windows with the teacher spending most of her time at the black (green during my time) board. I know I have referenced this in the past, but in EDUC 603 (required class for the Instructional Technology degree)we learned that non-verbal communication makes up something like 90% or better of our communication. I still have not been able to find a study that shows the results of removing, or worse never effectively learning, non-verbal communication decoding skills from a person. Online instruction can teach people information, but I still assert that it cannot teach people how to be people. That takes face-to-face instruction. Just my two cents ;-)
ReplyDeleteI will certainly give you no flack! Designing an online class can be difficult for just the reasons you indicate. As the instructor, I can't "see" you to tell if you are engaging (that's why we have this assignment). And it is true that not every technology serves every learner's preferred learning style.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of a handout or examples of the sites that are mentioned by the guest speaker. I'll try to do that next time!