November 1st, 2008 — Distance Education, Web Page Development
If you you would like to create Web pages easily, download the free software, exe. You can download it from exelearning.org I have been using it extensively to for creating Web pages that have screencasts for the Anatomy and Physiology class that I am teaching as a hybrid course. Here’s a video describing exe:
convert this post to pdf. December 31st, 2007 — Distance Education, Learning, Podcasting
At the 2007 Educause conference, Diane Zorn described an online course in philosophy that she created.
Here are the main points that I got out of this podcast:
“The goal of distance education, in my experience, is not to replicate the in-class experience but rather to go beyond what is possible in a conventional classroom.”
She used Mediasite which provides a video of the instructor along with the corresponding Powerpoint files but with a little ingenuity, something similar to this could be done using Keynote, Garageband, and iMovie.
Using Video Streaming and Podcasting to Design Rich-Media Online Courses [29:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Downloadconvert this post to pdf. June 27th, 2007 — Distance Education, Learning
In their article, “Learner differences in distance learning: Finding differences that matter,” Dillon and Greene (2003) point out that although there has been much research conducted in learning styles, it has been difficult to find reliable and valid measures of learning types. They also discuss the notion of field dependence and field independence. But what is particularly interesting in this chapter are two ideas that the authors propose regarding the relationship between learners and instruction. The first has to do with the notion whether distance educators should attempt to provide instruction that matches a learner’s learning style or cognitive style. The second concept is that there are characteristics of learners that are more important to focus on than matching learning style and cognitive style with the instruction in order to help learners achieve. These characteristics will be discussed below.
Dillon and Greene (2003) state that one of the most important goals of education is to help the learner learn how to learn. Rather than spending time attempting to design instruction so as to accommodate the differences among the learners, the authors state that “our ultimate goal should be to help learners learn in a variety of situations and under a variety of conditions, because that is the nature of the learning society in which we live” (Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.238). They go on to suggest that educators should “identify effective approaches to learning and then help students acquire the metacognitive skills needed to adopt those approaches in settings where they have been found to lead to success”(Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.239). They point out that there is large body of empirical research that shows that using different approaches to learning are very good predictors of both effort and achievement. (The authors provide seven references to support this statement.)
According to Dillon and Greene (2003), various approaches to learning are placed into action in terms of three areas: achievement goals, self-efficacy, and reported strategy use.
Achievement goals are the “the reasons students report for trying to learn in a particular setting (Dillon & Greene, 2003, p.239). They indicate that there are three types of achievement goals: learning goals, performance goals, and future goals. Learning goals relate to the desire to increase one’s understanding and skills. Performance goals relate to someone’s desire to do better than others and to protect one’s ego. The authors indicate that there is some research that has shown a negative relationship between performance goals and productive achievement behaviors, while on the other hand, there is a positive relationship between learning goals and self-regulation, strategy use, and effort. Likewise, there is a positive relationship between future goals, those goals that are distant, and productive achievement behaviors.
Self-efficacy refers to a person’s confidence in their ability to accomplish a task. It is not the same as global self-esteem and the confidence level varies with different content.
According to Dillon and Greene (2003), strategy use is influenced by goals and self-efficacy. Various forms of strategy use can be classified as either shallow processing or deep processing. While shallow processing involves processing information separate from existing knowledge, deep processing involves processing new information as it relates to existing knowledge, and attempting to elaborate on new information. This concept of deep processing reminds me David Ausubel’s subsumption theory (http://tip.psychology.org/ausubel.html) and the formation of schemata. The practice of concept mapping popularized by Joseph Novak is based on Ausubel’s subsumption theory and is a technique, which if used by a physical sense and mental sense, could be a strategy that could help learners process information at a deeper level. Novak’s book Learning How to Learn (1984) is a valuable resource on how to use concept mapping as a way of learning. Another book by Novak that is valuable is Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations (1998).
References
Dillon, C. and Greene, B. (2003). Learner differences in distance learning: Finding differences that matter. In M.G. Moore & W.G. Anderson (Eds). Handbook of distance education (pp.235-244). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Novak, J. D. (1984). Learning how to learn. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Novak. J. D. (1998). Learning, Creating, and Using Knowledge: Concept Maps as Facilitative Tools in Schools and Corporations. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, Inc.
convert this post to pdf. February 9th, 2005 — Distance Education
One of the difficulties I am having is teaching my online students how to use particular pieces of software or hardware since I am not meeting them face-to-face which would allow them to touch and see the equipment.
My son (6th grade) suggested I use iChat AV with my iSight camera to illustrate to them what they need to learn. Of course, I’ll have to instruct them on (1) how to set up an AIM account, (2) how to download the software (3) how to start up the program, (3) enter my username, (4) access the video portion, and (5) how to send me text messages. Of course, I could only do this with one person at a time so that is a disadvantage of this but it
is synchronous.
My thought is to put together a video and then either put it on the web or burn it to either a CD or DVD. Not synchronous but does avoid bandwidth limitations.
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