Select and reflect on one of the following elements: (a) global diversity, (b) communication, and (c) collaborative interaction and respond to the following in your blog:
-How has this element evolved?
-What online tools are available today to facilitate these interactions among learners?
Find at least two blog posts by other educators on this topic and reflect on their positions in your blog. Include links to these other blogs as you critique their ideas.
The element I chose to focus on for this module's blog post is communication. According to Dr. Siemens (Laureate Education 2008), communication in a distance learning community is no longer limited in comparison to the communication in a traditional face-to-face classroom environment. He attributes the ability to facilitate distance learner communication to the "growing comfort with online discourse." According to Siemens, this comfort is a result of the expanding communication channels. For example, opposed to being limited to face-to-face communication, distance learners can communicate through online tools such as social networks, blog sites, online classrooms, and video technologies such as skype. Although I agree that online communication has evolved in this regard, there are still limitations and challenges that occur in tandem with online learning. One of those limitations is limited rapport among students. According to Palloff and Pratt (2005), networking is only successful when the members of a learning community have established a relationship and sense of trust for one another. Due to the 'participate at your own convenience" nature of online learning, many students do not have the opportunity to establish that connection prior to completing collaborative work with members in the online learning community.
On the Accredited Degrees website, I read a blog in which the author described '10 Things That Increase Your Intelligence' (retrieved from http://www.accrediteddldegrees.com/blog/). One of those 10 things was accessing a learning community in which participants live in close approximation to each other. In accordance with this blog, I agree that relationships tend to be more personable and meaningful when they are face-to-face interactions. The close proximity allows for those face-to-face interactions and communications to occur; whereas online learning obviously does not. Furthermore, distance learners have no control over communication since they can not control when participants of their distance learning communities will be available online. However, in the classroom you are able to anticipate regular communications due to the daily attendance that is required in a face-to-face setting.
On the New York Times website, I read another blog in which the author discussed the degree to which 'Online Education Beats the Classroom' (retrieved from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/study-finds-that-online-education-beats-the-classroom/). This blog, in accordance with Dr. Siemens, acknowledged that the communication within distance learning is rapidly evolving and directly correlates with the expansion of social networking technology. However, there is still no indication that online communication, regardless of its capacity, is as effective as face-to-face communication.
Resources
Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Diffusion and Integration of Technology in Education
Baltimore: Author
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
5 comments:
The difficult aspect in online environments is building the relation based on trust. How can we begin to judge when our first impressions are no longer traditional, sight sound smell, etc. Depending on the age and ability of the student, there may be other aspects to base judgements on, build an online relationship that promotes effective sharing of ideas and group project goals.
Interesting as to the trust factor, as with this and other blogs I am given the hoop of typing the cryptic word proving that I am in fact a single human over a machine....
Jeff Sparling
Tawana,
I too believe that the one major weakness of online learning is how impersonal it can be. I am not quite comfortable with this learning community yet. I guess this is due to the fact of me not having met you all face to face. Developing trust as Jeff mention will take quite a while. However, by that time a new class will have begun.
Jeff and SalleyGirl 1,
Thanks for your feedback. At the time when I typed my post, I was feeling very apprehensive with regards to working in groups from a distance. However, as our group is beginning to come together and form a cohesive unit, I am actually beginning to appreciate the support. It has really been a stuggle maintaining the two courses I am currently taking. Between blogs, wikis, discussions, papers, presentations plus everthing else going on in my everyday life...it really helps to have a group or community of a few individuals who you can share ideas with but also vent to when needed. So although I still feel F2F environments are better for establishing trust and facilitating collaborative groups, there are still benefits of collaborating at a distance. Thanks again for your feedback.
Response to SalleyGirls Module 2 Blog:
In accordance with your statement, I also agree that is difficult to distinguish between certain elements due to the overlap and connection. Although I specifically addressed communication, I kept asking myself if I was focusing more on collaborative interactions or communication or both. This reminded me of one of the recent chapters we read in our course text, when the term R&D was developed due to the overlap with research and development. This just goes to show how different element of education are connected in many different aspects from diffusion of innovations to the elements of distance learning.
Tawana Stiff
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