Sunday, June 28, 2009

Online Learner Engagement
Distance Education:

http://hank91.wikispaces.com/OnlineLearnerEngagment

Friday, June 26, 2009

Collaborative interaction

While reading the resources this week I understand how Distance Education is continuing to evolve and becoming more of an accepted method for teaching and learning. Dr. Siemens mentioned the combining of Universities, governments and corporations fostering the use of Distance Education. Distance Education facilitates collaboration and learning without the obstacles of geographic barriers and encourages the dialogue of a diverse group of individuals. The use of various multimedia tools enable the instructional designers to incorporate researched based methodology used in face to face classrooms into an online format.
Some tools used for collaboration interaction are e-mail, computer conferences and shared document capabilities (Clark 2008). As electronic technology evolve, the many tools utilized to assist collaboration in an online format will increase. The many modes of communication will continue the evolution of Distance Educaton. Web-based media used to deliver course content can effect whether the students actually learn the content (Thurmond & Wambach 2004). The instructor will determine what tools will be used to deliver the content.

References
Clark, J. (2008). Collaboration Tools in Online Learning Environments; Sloan-C retrieved from; http://www.aln.org/publications/magazine/v4n1/clark.asp
Siemens G. (2008) Laureate Education video presentation
Thurmond, V., Wambach, K (2004). Understanding Interaction in Distance Education; International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning; retrieved from; http://itdl.org/journal/jan_04/article02.htm

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

How to engage learners

My presentation will be on learner emgagement which is critical to the success of Distance Education. What is the most effective method of keeping learners engaged? The blog I read concerning learner engagement raised some very interesting questions; such as how do we design for engagement? Today in Distance Education we must look at the intersection between education, teaching, learning and technology. There is another part of learner engagement which is self directed motivation. One has to be motivated to be successful when acquiring knowledge by Distance Education.There has to be some motivating factor or factors with self discipline, because it is the leaner's decision to succeed or not.Blog location;

Veletsianos, G. (2008). How do we design for learning engagement? It was retrieved from http://veletsianos.wordpress.com/category/engagement/


The next blog I found on learner engagement was very interesting also. The blogger spoke of how learners can get distracted when they belong to collaborating groups to complete assignments or other activities. His suggestion is to make these groups passive, active and interactive. Groups should be exposed to issues unrelated to their immediate conversations. Blog site;

TechTicker (2008)educational technology, eLearning & emerging technology; retrieved from; http://techticker.net/2008/10/27/discussion-and-engagement-in-virtual-spaces/


I also found my blog when I did a google search on my presentation topic. Blogging is new to me and I found this very cool. Anyone in the world on the net can read your blog.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Learner Engagement

I have been creating a powerpoint to begin work on my presentation. I do not know how to download it to my blog or if I can. I will keep trying. Any information will be helpful. I will give a short overview of what I have been working on. When I figure out how to post it to my blog I will do so.
Slide 1 is my title page- Online Learner Engagement
Slide 2 questions to be answered- Why and How
Slide 3 researched based instructional strategies that are appropriate for Distance Education.
Slide 4 constructivist method of instruction
Slide 5 anchored instruction
Slide 6 two types of researched based instructional models that give creditability to Distance Education
Slide 7 Distance Education is available to individuals around the world
Slide 8 Reference list,
I have many more slides to complete the presentation I am currently working on. I have been trying to find out how to download to my blog and will continue to do so. I have clipart on each slide. I am having issues creating a storyboard as well. Help!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Distance Education

"As the economic, social and cultural diversity of a population increases, traditional modes of learning may have limited value to people based on their varying needs, interests, and lifestyles" (Hsu & Shiue 2005). We have seen the continued move away from traditional modes of education into distance education through electronic media. New forms of teaching and learning will need to be developed to ensure the continued growth of education by electronic means of instructional design.
Distance education continues to grow in the educational community. In the video presentation Dr. Simonson states; "Distance education may be nearing its critical mass and needs to be nurtured". If distance education is to continue to be a major part of the educational community then it has to evolve and ensure that professional design practice is sound (Moller et.al.). Effective instructional design based in educational theory will lead the effort to shape institutional policies on quality standards and accreditation (Moller et.al.). Research should focus on instructional design to give proof of the effectiveness of distance education by using researched based educational theories. "The history of education is a history of so-called advances and new ideas which fail to hold up to scrutiny over time" (Huett et.al.). There needs to be a methodology of distance learning that will hold up to the scrutiny of the skeptics and naysayer on this form of teaching and learning. While higher education institutions have been the primary users of distance learning there has been an increase in this form of education in the K-12 arena. With the growth of distance education in K-12 schools, if distance education is to become mainstream course development needs to be addressed (Moller et.al.).
Conclusion
Distance education continues to be very popular and growing for adult learners, however distance education is beginning to resonant in the K-12 environment. It is convenient for students and teachers and it has far reaching implications on the educational community. Empirical research is needed to enable the professional online educators to be effective when implementing instruction online and meet the standards that are required in a traditional settings. The standards for distance education may not be identical to traditional education it has to be equivalent (Simonson).
References
Hsu, Y. C. & Shiue, Y. M.(2005). THE EFFECT OF SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING READINESS ON ACHIEVEMENT COMPARING FACE-TO-FACE AND TWO-WAY DISTANCE LEARNING INSTRUCTION, International Journal of Instructional Media. New York: Vol. 32, Iss. 2; pg. 143, 14 pgs. retrieved from: http://proquest.umi.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/pqdweb?index=10&did=1042097821&SrchMode=3&sid=2&Fmt=4&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1220991699&clientId=70192&aid=1&cfc=1

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008, September/October). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5). 63-67. retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=104&sid=d192f111-8723-4efc-9125-0be938b6f1ae%40sessionmgr102

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, May/June). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 1: Training and development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70-75. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's Accession Number: 33281719. retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=104&sid=5ff488c5-2122-4c5e-bdf9-d54b10d943ff%40sessionmgr103.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008, May/June). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 2: Higher education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66-70. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's Accession Number: 33991516. retrieved from: http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdf?vid=2&hid=108&sid=bd3994ce-0bb0-4141-a455-9be7b61f192f%40sessionmgr103.













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Monday, June 1, 2009

Welcome

My name is Henry. I currently live in Norwich, Connecticut. I welcome anyone to join my blog and post whatever. I am studying at Walden University be an educational technologist. My ambition is to become an online educator at some point. Learning the various technologies used to teach will help with my ambition.