Module 2 Elements of Distant Eduction Diffusion

Module 2

Elements of Distant Education Diffusion

George Siemens discussed how the acceptance of distance education is growing in the corporate and educational world.   One of the elements that he discussed was the use of collaborative interaction.  Collaboration is important in businesses and in education.  With the use of web 2.0 technology, businesses and individuals and groups in the educational environment have been able to reach new levels of communication.  People across the city, state, country and world can work together on projects so that they can produce the best outcome available.  Siemens says that The "Growing acceptance of distance education is fueled by the increase in online communication, practical experience with new tools, growing comfort with online discourse, and the ability to communicate with diverse and global groups".    Distance education is impacted by the new technologies such as being able to collaborate with people across the world.  The use of tools in the classroom such as multimedia, games and simulations, makes it able for students to progress in their education at a better rate. 

The use of collaboration tools has increased communication to people around the world.  It has made it so students can think outside the box by seeing how people in other parts of the country think and work.  Through increased usage of user friendly applications which support collaboration, people have gained a sense of comfort and even discovery that meaningful relationships can develop using online medium (Siemens, 2009).  I teach in a cyber school and we use collaboration on a daily basis.  Children are able to learn about other children's culture and beliefs while being educated in their daily courses.  With the use of collaboration, each child can have an input into a project which could have been something the other child never thought of including.  Global diversity, communication and collaborative interaction are key elements which are uniquely individualized from F2F classes, ultimately enhancing the learning experience (George Siemens, 2009).  Students are used to communicating through technology with the use of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter.  We should incorporate this into their education by letting them collaborate with others their age rather than inhibiting their education.  According to Siemens (2009), the growing acceptance of distance education is largely due to “more of us having experiences communicating online”.
In the cyber school that I work for, we use a program called Illuminate which has great collaboration tools for an online educational environment.  There are may collaboration tools that people can use.  One of the most popular online collaboration tool/program on the internet is Skype.

References

Seimens, George. (2009). The Future of distance Education.

Module 1 The Next Generation in Distance Education

Module 1 The Next Generation in Distance Education

I have been involved with distance education for over 14 years both in educating elementary and middle school students along with earning two Master’s Degrees at the university level.  Many people have not accepted this form of education yet, even though it has been around for many years.  To some, distance education is still a new idea and they are not ready to make the change.  I remember after I had been teaching for six years in the virtual environment, a teacher in a local district that I had just met explained to me that I really should look for a new job since this job would not be around very long.  I wonder if he still feels the same way?  I do believe that distant education is not for everyone, but there are certainly people that it is right for.

Moller, Foshay, Huett, Coleman and Simonson (2008) agree that distance education will have an explosive growth in the future.  They feel it will occur in business training, higher education, and K12 education.  Moller feels that online courses are considered easier although it takes more work to develop the courses.  Moller also feels that teachers need to be trained on how to deliver the content in a K12 environment online.  I agree with this.   There is a need to reorganize K12 educational systems to incorporate distance learning into the curriculum, state standards, and national levels.  Distant Education should have the Equivalence Theory intact. Distance Educators should provide the same education but should adapt it to the online environment

The authors speak about the differences between face-to-face education and distance education, it should be found that all education should follow a learning theory.  Behaviorism, Connectivism, Cognitivism, and constructivism do not have separate online theories for education.  They just have one theory of education.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008a). 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. 

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008b). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 2: Higher Education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70.

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

Simonson, M. (2000). Making decisions: The use of electronic technology in online classrooms. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 84, 29-34.


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