Educational Technology Outreach Distance Learning: A University Perspective

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Educational Technology OutreachDistance
Learning A University Perspective
College of Education

• 2001 Maryland Technology Showcase
• Davina Pruitt-Mentle
• December 6, 2001

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Introduction Online Learning

• The explosion of the Internet and the expansion
  of business practices on the web have brought an
  educational equivalent to the online store the
  on-line school
• Educators have questioned the effectiveness of
  these programs
• The on-line model is especially useful for the
  workers who seek to get additional training and
  must fit the course in around their normal workday

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The Market

• The e-learning market (includes Internet and
  Intranet courses)
• 4 billion in 1998
• Estimated to be 15 billion in 2002
• For-profit companies compete against traditional
  educational institutions
• Forcing new marketing strategies on Universities

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Online Distance Learning

• has been defined as
• ... an educational philosophy for designing
  interactive, responsive, and valid information
  and learning opportunities to be delivered to
  learners at a time, place, and in appropriate
  forms convenient to the learners.

(Boettcher, 1999) from http//wwww.csus.edu/pedtec
h/Nuggets.html
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Why Online?

• Can learn at your own pace
• Travel constraints
• School distant from home/work
• Satellite schools can offer access at a variety
  of locations
• Flexible Scheduling
• More non-traditional students (work, family)
• Lowers indirect educational costs
• Travel
• Babysitter
• Enables educational opportunities for students
  not otherwise able to attend

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Why Students Take Courses

• Career Advancement
• Requirements
• Convenience/Flexibility
• Fits schedule
• Student might not want to take the class, but it
  fits their schedule and requirement

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Result of Market Forces

• Continuous need for education and training
• Quickly
• Economically
• On-going
• Digital Diploma Mill
• Course quality is not a focus money is the focus

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Higher Education Attitudes

• University System of Georgia, Chancellor Stephen
  Portch (1998)
• My favorite quotation about a liberal arts
  education is its whats left after youve
  forgotten everything youve been taught. It is
  habits of the mind

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What Do the Experts Say?

• Reeves (1998) .... the WWW does not guarantee
  learning any more than the presence of a library
  on campus guarantees learning.
• Phipps Merisotis (1999) contend that it seems
  clear that technology cannot replace the human
  factor in higher education.

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Moving Online

• Wholesale conversion of a college lecture course
  for web delivery
• Formidable task
• Does not successfully support direct conversion
• A great lecturer
• Does not necessarily have the skills to move
  their course on-line
• Cannot translate their intangible teaching skills
  to the online environment
• Does not wish to add a new task to their
  responsibilities
• To generate an effective online course in the
  time and resource constraints of higher education
  necessitates a quantum change in teaching and
  learning philosophy, if only for reasons of
  efficiency

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Restrictions

• Internet bandwidth restrictions
• Teacher
• Student
• Access problems
• Students access from work (firewalls)
• Application Incompatibilities
• Browsers
• Office tools
• Additional Software (i.e. statistics, web
  development)

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What Does Online Lose?

• Most online courses do not measure up to the
  constructivist theories that are proposed
• More of an online textbook
• No variety of educational method
• Teachers vary style throughout a lecture to reach
  all students
• One type of student may thrive. Is this the
  style of worker we want?
• Not all courses can be converted to online format
  
• faculty are quick to note that online learning
  lacks eye contact, body language, voice
  inflection, a measure of interactivity, and
  adaptability to student feedback ....a majority
  of communication is non verbal

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On-line Categories

• Harmon and Jones (1999) described 5 educational
  levels of web instruction
• Informational web
• Supplemental web use provides some course content
• Essential web use (has to use the web to
  succeed in course)
• Communal (hybrid) F2F and online
• Immersive

• Barron (1998) described 4 categories of
  Internet-delivered instruction
• Email correspondence courses
• Web enhanced (web pages and links)
• Web managed instruction through a structured
  (Internet tools WebCT etc)
• Web delivered through Internet with Internet tool

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Challenge of Higher Education

• Cannot sacrifice quality of education to move
  online
• Compete against companies driven by profit, not
  quality
• Faculty lack technical sophistication, time, and
  finances
• Fight inertia

The normative goal of using the Web and group
communications for educational delivery should be
to completely eliminate the need for any
distinction, organizationally or functionally,
between distance students and on-campus
students. (WebNet Journal Jan-March 1999) Is
this possible?
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Strengths of Higher Education

• Faculty
• Are truly the knowledge experts
• Access to research
• Know how to measure whether courses are effective
• Can stay abreast of new technologies via students
• Follow best practices but can innovate
• Companies may be forced to have all courses fit a
  mold
• Draw on experts in educational design
• Can still be driven by quality
• Will this be recognized by the marketplace?

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Education vs. Training

• Universities maintain there is a difference
• University instills more than a transient body of
  knowledge
• A way of thinking
• A way of problem solving
• A way of learning
• Includes other intangibles
• Advising
• Networking
• Socialization

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What is the College of Education Doing?

• Faculty recognizing that the market is changing
• Moving more courses online
• Supported by on-line
• Hybrids
• Choose between F2F and on-line
• Web supported
• WebCT is University supported platform
• IT support personnel in place
• Educational design expertise available
• Outreach Programs being delivered for
  professionals in the field.

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Example Educational Technology Outreach Mode of
Delivery

• Face to Face (F2F)
• F2F with Web enhancement
• Distance learning labs
• On-line
• synchronous
• asynchronous
• Many courses supported by County Technology
  Specialists

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Cohort Model

• Group of teachers move through a string of six
  courses over a year
• Start face-to-face
• Move to Web-enhanced
• Evolve to completely online
• Teachers have the chance to apply course content
  in their classroom, discuss successes and
  failures with their peers and instructors, and
  form networks for the future

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Faculty Partnerships

• Relationships developing across departmental (and
  college) lines
• Expertise of College of Education staff is being
  leveraged to design courses for a variety of
  subjects
• University is uniting behind an online initiative
• Only want to design the wheel once (or twice)
• University refuses to sacrifice quality
• If we are going to do it, do it right
• Online must be built on our strengths, not
  designed from scratch

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Conclusion

• Individual students should have the choice of the
  mix of media they wish to use for an individual
  class
• Facilitating and instruction critical for a
  course, not only the course content
• Successful online teaching can be as personnel
  intensive (if not more so) than face-to-face, but
  allows more access by a variety of nontraditional
  students

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Educational Technology Outreach

• Contact
• Davina Pruitt-Mentle
• [phone]
• dp151_at_umail.umd.edu