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[2020ldt-blog]

Homogenization of Global Culture in The Distance Education Classroom

“...digital environments can create third cultures where identity can be constructed and negotiated through interaction with other participants. Thus, subscribing to a view of culture as negotiated online, I have adopted the definition of culture as an ‘idioculture’...” Globalization, culture, and online distance learning (Gunawardena, 2014) 

My thoughts surrounding this are that, especially in student-centered learning, the learners define the culture of their collective classroom. The course content should certainly be structured in such a way as to allow cultural neutrality, if even possible, but ultimately, the course participants will shape the cultural identity of their learning.

[2020ldt-blog]

An idioculture is a system of knowledge, beliefs, behaviours, and customs shared by members of an interacting group to which members can refer and that serve as the basis of further interaction. Members recognize that they share experiences, and these experiences can be referred to with the expectation they will be understood by other members, thus being used to construct a reality for the participants.

(Fine, 1987, p. 125)

[2020ldt-blog]

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The Ethical Hybrid Asynchronous/Synchronous Distance Learning Environment

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Distance education pedagogy - Is quality of instruction more important than anything else?

[2020ldt-blog]

In an attempt to define a middle ground between either technological or pedagogical determinism, we’ve previously written about the two being intertwined in a dance: the technology sets the beat and creates the music, while the pedagogy defines the moves.

Three generations of distance education pedagogy (Anderson & Dron, 2011)

[2020ldt-blog]

Intro To *DE* Courses

Student success is a critical outcome to consider in the planning and design of any distance education course, and clearly some of the biggest obstacles can include lack of sense of belonging, support and technology barriers.

I absolutely feel as though all high schools and colleges/universities, for example, should have a mandatory prerequisite course for students that consists solely of introducing the students to distance education and the technologies used. This course should be taken prior to the student’s enrollment in any course that will be delivered even partially online.

Ideally, this course would begin upon entrance to the institution, possibly as part of the already established “introduction” course itself. This way, students will have the opportunity to become enmeshed in the institution’s online communities right away, become comfortable and knowledgeable with interacting with other students and facilitators from a distance, as well as the technology necessary to participate and contribute.

This course of course would also introduce the student to other critical issues such as academic dishonesty, plagiarism, netiquette and digital divide.

The goal then is to eliminate the barriers to distance education and allow the student to focus on the content and assignments with subsequent courses. This also allows a student to assess his/her own learning style in conjunction within the context of a distance learning environment and determine if this type of delivery fits within their own learning abilities prior to attempting such a course.

[2020ldt-blog]

The Syllabus + Interactive Sense of Place

This week I’ve been thinking about the opportunities to make distance learning more interactive.

For instance, Philip’s video introduction, shot from his travels abroad, literally right out in his environment, was so absolutely fun and engaging.

I could see using this example as an ongoing assignment/challenge for course participants, whether they are in the same city, or across the globe, to not only create a sense of community, but also make the course more interactive and social.

Course participants could create an interactive video of their “place” from their home office, backyard, car, or anywhere in their community, allowing others to visually engage and look forward to finding out where they may be shooting from in their next post.

I’m really enjoying the course text. It seems to be very thought-provoking indeed. One of the topics pointed out was the “The Syllabus”. The text states that “the syllabus is the single most important document the instructor can prepare. This is the primary communication tool with students at a distance.”

For our group assignment, we have decided to include one separate “topic” as part of the overall module, specifically for the syllabus. We are also using Flipgrid as the VLE instead of one tool as part of a VLE. It will be interesting to see if this is an effective environment to present all the information adequately enough.

[2020ldt-blog]

The Role of Distance Learning

Thoughts after reading Research report: Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies (U.S. Department of Education, 2010):

The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face to face instruction

Clark has cautioned against interpreting studies of instruction in different media as demonstrating an effect for a given medium inasmuch as conditions may vary with respect to a whole set of instructor and content variables. That caution applies well to the findings of this meta-analysis, which should not be construed as demonstrating that online learning is superior as a medium. Rather, it is the combination of elements in the treatment conditions, which are likely to include additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration that has proven effective.

I had so many different thoughts after reading this report. How are learning styles taken into account in this research? What about students with learning disabilities who need one on one assistance? While I believe online learning is a great asset for many, and possibly an effective substitute for face to face interaction for a large portion of the population, I also believe there are large segments of the population who will fall through the cracks if their education is solely administered online.

I don’t think we ever want to get to a point where all education is delivered via a distance. Human, face to face, interaction is still important for human growth and a sense of belonging in society. And the more isolated learning is on a global scale, the more potential for single-minded views to dictate; the less opportunity for collaboration overall. Imagine if we get to a point where all public school education is uniformly delivered via an online platform. Imagine if the teachers were computers. We don’t want a society where education is 100% dependent on technology. That would not be a positive thing.