Siemens (2008) discusses the growing acceptance of distance learning in corporate and educational domains. He points out three possible elements of distance education that contribute to giving distance education its own identity, apart from a traditional face-to-face learning style. The three elements included global diversity, communication, and collaborative interaction. For this blog assignment, we are to pick one of the three elements, talk about how the element evolved and what online tools are available today to facilitate the interaction between learners.
The element that I chose for this discussion was distance communication. Some information on how the element evolved:
·The concept of distance learning evolved in 1728 when an advertisement in the Boston Gazette for persons wanting to learn the art of shorthand, could be sent weekly lessons by mail (Michigan State university (2006).
. Licklider (1962), of MIT wrote a series of memos discussing his “Galactic Network.” Liklider’s vision was a future of globally interconnected computers for rapid access to both data and programs.
· Surprisingly, the first computer ever made dates back 2,000 years ago when a 2,000 year old astronomical calculator built by the ancient Greeks was discovered. This was located at www.metacafe.com/issues/ch000984.htm, and was a video.
·In 1874, institutionally sponsored distance education began at Wesleyan University, and in 1890, Thomas J. Foster in Scranton Pennsylvania (ICS) became the largest “study-at-home” school (Wikipedia, 2010).
I also came across a blog (http://people.uis.edu/rsch1/onlinelearning/blogger.html) that has a number of connecting links about online learning. There are many entries about online learning which all involve communication. This site talks about how Clinton set up an online university for students in Haiti, how members of our military in Afghanistan are taking classes on line, how dentistry students can download surgical procedures, among many other online learning of interest.
A very interesting blog address is http://blogsforlearning.msu.edu/. Aside from a wealth of information on blogging, the site has categories of interesting subjects on blogging. Categories included academicHack; digital writing, digital teaching; secondary worlds, and weblog-ed. I happened to like a blog about designing group projects by Dave. The students had a semester long research project and each group had a public website/blog. This project required a range of skills, design, writing, coding, image manipulation, video and audio editing etc. What a way to communicate.
In this same blog site there was another interesting blog about effective communication. The blog focused on how interaction or communication from anywhere empowers students to effectively communicate.
There are a number of online tools available today to facilitate communication between learners: blogs, Word Press multiuser blog, web pages, wiki sites, e-mail, micro blogs (Skype, Twitter), and online discussion classes. Some tools for social networking include social network sites (SNSs) that were designed to facilitate communication between users who share the same interests, attitudes, and activities. These would include Facebook and MySpace.
References:
Licklider, J.C.R, 1962. Retrieved from http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#JRL62 .
Michigan State University (2006). http://blogsforlearning.msu.edu/.
Siemens, G. (2008). Principles of distance education DVD (vodcast). Produced by Laureate Education, Inc. Baltimore, MD.
Wikipedia, 2010. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments.
I like the fact that you listed several different types of collaborative tools such as blogs, discussion boards, and social networking sites. I wonder how much research is being conducted to determine which of these methods is most effective in producing learning? If these are to become the dominate methods of education, there will need to be evidence based standards upon which the methods are utilized. These are not all created equally which will make the uniform application of them impossible. Any thoughts on this?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links by the way. Very interesting sites with useful information.
Curt
Hello Joy,
ReplyDeleteYou have done an excellent job with distance communication. You have provided numerous ways of communication for distance education. With today’s technology advancements, most are viable to use in education. Since some blogs are open to everyone, how do you suggest learners use the material attained from blog sites? I ask this question because people can provide different ways of accomplishing a task, but the suggested way may not follow proper procedures or safety guidelines. The blog of learning site is a blog site with several categories of information.
Sullus
Hi Sullus,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response. You can not always trust a person's blog. Wikipedia is somewhat of a blog. So that is why it is not reconized as a reliable source. For us in this classroom it is an assignment and we do have to show reference to both our ideas and information.
Joy
Hello Joy,
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. Providing references allows the reader to read the information and make their own assessment.
Sullus