Week 1 Application

How do online learning communities significantly impact both student learning and satisfaction within online courses?


     Online learning communities are the backbone of online learning, in my opinion. These communities form a network of students/teachers involved in similar projects and as such they allow students to interact and discuss related class topics with other students who are concurrently working on similar projects, etc. In this way I feel that this sort of set up can greatly enhance student learning, which will help student grades and retention and thus these two things will go hand-in-hand with ensuring that students are satisfied with the level of education that they are receiving as well as with communication between the teacher and with other students as well. So in turn all these things come together to benefit all students and teachers in an online community as the course of a semester progresses.

What are the essential elements of online community building?

First and foremost is communication within the community; without proper community communication things can get fragmented and thus become less enjoyable and useful for many members of the community. There should also be more than one method of communication available so as to allow community members to communicate effectively.

Secondly, the online community must be functionable. Programs that are easily navigable and that are user friendly, to an extent, should be chosen so as to make certain that all students are capable of being successful in said course.

Finally, all members of the online community must be made to feel like they are parrt of the group. This will allow for better, open communication and discussion as the semester wears on.

How can online learning communities be sustained? They can be sustained by updating and upgrading software so as to ensure that everything is up-to-date and also they must be managed-grades must be posted, e-mails, BB messages, and other correspondence must be answered on a regular time table, and all this must be done in a way that is set up early in a semester so as students/teachers know what to expect and thus they are satisfied and continue to participate because they can see the advantages of doing so.

What is the relationship between community building and effective online instruction? They go hand-in-hand. In my opinion, one does not really work without the other and vice versa. One is rather heavily predicated by the second, as it should be. Without this seamless transition from one to the other a program's problems stick out, rather than its successes.

Week 6 Post

Describe a project, either personal or professional, that experienced issues related to scope creep. What specific scope creep issues occurred? How did you or other stakeholders deal with those issues at the time? Looking back on the experience now, had you been in the position of managing the project, what could you have done to better manage these issues and control the scope of the project?




When one is working on a project, whether it be as merely a stakeholder or as the Project Manager, scope creep can certainly occur. This can cause previous plans to be restructured and tweaked to fit this new problem, or series of them, which has come up from an unexpected occurrence. Scope creep does not necessarily derail your project, but it is one of those little things that may pop up along the way and cause us to revise, rethink, and to rearrange certain aspects of project. This can range from monetary changes to our budget, adding or removing team members, or even changes in software to minor things like classroom scheduling and other logistics.

Last summer as my team and I initially began to change from the previous English course offering (ENG 80 and 90, Reading 80 and 90) to the current content (Eng 85 and 95) we found that scope creep occurred weekly, if not daily in some cases. It all began as we shuffled team members only a few weeks into our project due to unforeseen circumstances. This caused there to be more English instructors creating modules and caused a deficit in the number of Reading instructors who were to contribute to our final proposal.

We worked around this as I and another former Reading instructor chose to create the bulk of the material which was destined to cover that part of our state competencies. While this allowed us to mold those modules in the ways we wanted it also increased our workload by doubling it. It forced us to push our deadlines back a week or two, but in the end we were better off because of this, in my opinion.

Another type of scope creep that occurred during this project was when our new attendance software killed two computer labs in two days, the first two days of summer school. We were forced to find a better solution in a hurry, and thus turned to the tried and true method of using a traditional sign in sheet. In the end this data was a bit more difficult to gather in this manner, but we dealt with it and I think it made us function better as a team as well.

In conclusion, as I look back at this there are several things I would have done differently as the PM. First and foremost, I would have been more discerning in choosing the team members and secondly I would have made sure that all competency areas were equally covered.

Also I would have tested the software a bit more vigorously and I also would have had a back-up plan in place just in case something did not work. We all learned a lot from this experience and now we have created two functional learning experiences which are now being used at a variety of college campuses across NC.

Week 3 Blog Assignment

How did your interpretation of the message change from one modality to the next?




No matter which version of the three I viewed I was sadly unenthusiastic because for me none of them did a good job of getting the message across. Whoever was attempting to communicate with other group members in this manner has failed miserably. It was best simply as written text. I felt that the video did not really do anything to convey the message that the text version had not already covered. The audio version could have added much to either of the other two, but I was sadly unimpressed with this version as well.

This communication could have certainly been done in a better way, whether it involved mixing several of the methods which were attempted here or not. But the bottom line is that there are certainly better means of communication than the ones used here.



What factors influenced how you perceived the message? Each of us certainly looks at material in different ways. Much of communication is the way that the sender of the message chooses to convey it to their audience. For me personally text along with sound makes for the perfect learning experience, but when we separate the two into one or the other, it can make it a bit more difficult for an audience or student to get the gist of what is being communicated.

As far as video goes, when one is done well this can be the pinnacle of communication; at least one can understand every example etc. when it's done with a video with an audio component as well.

In this case there was not much difference, for me, in the way that the info was given to us as the audience. Once again the text component was the best of three for me personally.





Which form of communication best conveyed the true meaning and intent of the message?

I feel that the text component got across the gist of the exercise because I found both of the others kind of busy as I tried to view and listen to them. The text mode laid out the message and got its point across; whereas, the other two means did more distracting than conveying, in my opinion.

What are the implications of what you learned from this exercise for communicating effectively with members of a project team?



I go back to what I have learned from this, as well as other experiences, in saying the simplest means of communication can be the best. This way your point gets across, the team members know what to do, and everything runs along the way it is intended to. When we try to blend too much audio, video, technology into sending a simple message a lot of times this can skew our message because other team members can get caught up in what they're seeing that we added to supplement our message and in a lot of ways this can distract our team members and thus detract from our message as a whole.

Week 2-6145

What processes, project artifacts, or activities did you include in the project that contributed to its success?
     Originally, before we chose to revamp our English curriculum for developmental into ENG 85 and 95 we considered merely expanding the four courses-Reading 80 and 90 and English 80 and 90- that the two new ones replaced. The numbering for these courses would have been ENG 85 and 95 and Reading 85 and 95. In retrospect, this pilot program was doomed from its inception. We had six team members as part of the group to whom this task was assigned. This seemed like a good number because we are all competent in our given areas, but in the end this number proved to be our first fatal flaw. In our SOW we broke up the work amongst the group, but due yop our numbers it could not be split up equally, in any way. Next we ran into the problem of redundancy. Because all the courses had a very similar set of goals and such, we soon were faced with the type of overkill that pushed us to want to make a change initially. The software was yet another challenge because we were charged with adding a technology component to these new courses by the college. Due to our different goals and ideas for this program we could never really agree on much of anything, except in the end to scrap this effort and start again fresh with the new ENG 85 and 95 format that we now use regularly.
     There was not a lot that could be deemed successful about this initial attempt, but we did narrow it down to two classes and discovered suitable software that could be used for each of those. Also we decided to limit our team members and to install Project Managers for each course. Those were really the only bright spots in this endeavor.


What processes, project artifacts, or activities did you not include in the project that might have made the project more successful?

    To have made this offering more successful we could have structured our hierarchy of leadership better, as we did with the second offering. Also we set a schedule with firm deadlines for the completion of modules during this second attempt and this would have helped us a lot in the first offering. Also using a PM for each course seemed to give us a bit more structure and thus more cohesion as we got closer to launching our efforts for our students.
  As far as activities go we chose these through our small groups and each of us had an equal vote with the PM as the tie-breaker in that case. This worked well and soon we had completed our task.
  If we had chosen to operate in this manner in the first place we could have finished our task of on deadline, but it is probably best that we went through the growing pains of revamping a curriculum because now it will be that much easier if we are ever faced with this obstacle again.

Hello

Hello everyone from Dr. Scribner's class at Walden.

Reflection

 
      In the next decade I think that distance education will easily outdistance traditional classroom learning due to the many advantages that it offers. It will allow students from across the socio-economic gamut to explore learning that would have been out of the question for them merely five years ago. Thanks to the many technological advances that we see happening around us everyday this new way to teach and learn will clearly dominate the educational landscape over the next decade.
   Distance education is definitely the way of the future and it is only going to grow as more students get better with the technology that it requires. Also as education has morphed, as it always does, lawmakers will push more and more funding into this area, thus strengthening this already quickly advancing area of learning and teaching. Over the next 20 years it could very easily replace the traditional classroom in most schools and at many colleges as well. While this day may well be a bit further off than the next 20 years I can easily envision the day when this will occur and so all learning could reasonably be done through distance education. In this way the metamorphosis of the classroom will occur even more fully.
   As an ID I can strive to create educational experiences which are beneficial both for the student and the facilitator and that can promote this type of learning at a high level. By planning and planning well I can show that distance education does work and that it can be a beneficial part of any curriculum. As more students are exposed to this type of learning and they become more comfortable with it then one can reasonably infer that most schools will employ this type of program and that possibly this type of learning could eventually supplant that which takes place in the regular traditional classroom.
  To be a continuous positive force in the world of education in favor of distance education one must always argue for its inclusion when one is creating any new program as well ensuring that your institution of higher learning has the newest and best technology so as to support both your programs and the students who take part in them to the fullest. Even programs that are a bit older, but that work well for their intended uses, can support a program when it is designed with their best uses in mind.
   Overall distance education is the way of the future and thus as ID's we must plan accordingly, so as to keep up with the pace of technological change and ensure that we and our programs and students are not left behind. I feel that it is our responsibilty as ID's to do all this and much more to make sure that we do not get left behind!

Open Course Essay

Open courses are a great idea for several reasons. First of all, this is a great way for students to experience new material without the constraints of grades. Secondly, this allows one to look into whet6her they are actually interested in pursuing learning in a given area.


In the new technological age, I feel that open courses are a great idea for the student who is seeking knowledge simply to expand their knowledge base. My choice to review open courses was http://oyc.yale.edu/. At this site I was able to review information for a possible future study into classical literature. The course I looked at was Introduction to Ancient Greek History, which was taught by Prof. Donald Kagtan in the fall of 2007. The specific site for the course was http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/introduction-to-ancient-greek-history/content/syllabus.html

This open course seemed to be the perfect place to gather more knowledge to either learn for one’s own sake or to see if one was interested enough in the subject so as to take more courses in the given area.

Yes, the course seemed well planned for both in the classroom lecture and as an open course online. The entire semester was set up in link forms in chronological order which would allow the student to view the entire semester at their own pace, which is one of the most important tenets of distance education, to me.

As far as adhering to the things needed for online education this site holds true to many of the options that are listed in Design for Distance Education such as use a large font, Use few words per line, and use white space to enhance readability (Teaching and Learning at a Distance p134). I found that this made it similar to older distance education formats, but for me these are better.

This site lacked many of the “bells and whistles” that are found on more recently created sites, but sometimes all this can detract from the purpose of the site. The basics are clearly covered here and this makes this a bona fide educational experience, which could certainly parallel those that students get on campus at Yale.

This open course does not meet all of the requirements for online education that are listed in the textbook, but I feel that this site is a good one, even without all of those.

As for whether this site designer used course activities to maximize active learning for the students, I think that the answer is clearly no. This is basically a campus-style lecture course, which has been put online in its barest form. Certainly, it does have the basic requirements for that type of course-ie- lectures, syllabus, grading, etc. But it does not maximize student learning not in the same way that new courses do that not only have lecture videos but also require students to regularly attend a discussion board or maintain a blog or that use any of the other parts of new media to supplement the student learning experience.

Overall, this site uses an antiquated teaching method, which may still appeal to older students but on the other hand it is one that I think that younger students might find boring and hard to hold their attention. It certainly has its merits, but those are few and far between. There is much that I would do differently if I had been given the chance to design this learning experience as an ID. I think that a new generation of learners deserves a new generation of educator, who is willing to find new ways to pass on knowledge to all learners and not just to those of a certain type.

Open courses are a great way to help students expand their knowledge of material in different areas, but I still think that we as ID’s should be certain that these experiences provide a good learning experience for students of different learning styles.