| Charalambos Vrasidas, Ph.D. |
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Current Perspectives on Applied Information Technologies: Distance Education and Distributed Learning
Charalambos
Vrasidas (editor)
For ordering information visit http://www.infoagepub.com. Table of Contents Preface
“Distributed learning” is a term used to describe educational experiences that combine the use of face-to-face teaching with synchronous and asynchronous mediated interaction. This instructional strategy distributes learning across a variety of geographic settings, across time, and across various interactive media. This chapter analyzes the design and educational outcomes of a Harvard Graduate School of Education course, Learning Media That Bridge Distance and Time, as a prototypical distributed learning experience. Our research shows that the integration of interactive media into learning experiences profoundly shapes students’ educational experiences. Many students reported that the use of asynchronous learning environments positively affected their participation in the course and their individual cognitive processes for engaging with the material. In addition, students indicated that synchronous virtual media both helped them get to know classmates with whom they might not otherwise individually interact within a classroom setting and provided a clear advantage over asynchronous media in facilitating the work of small groups. Our study also documents that most students feel something important to their learning is missing in virtual learning spaces, whether synchronous or asynchronous, if those are the only means of interaction used. However, less than half of our students ranked face-to-face interaction as their first choice of learning medium. This indicates that the full range of students’ learning styles is undercut when interaction is limited to classroom settings rather than distributed across multiple media. These findings have major implications for the instructional design of both conventional distance education and traditional classroom instruction.
The field of distance education has changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Technological developments have enabled interaction and collaboration among multiple users at a scale never imagined. As the field of distance education grows and expands, so does the need to re-examine its fundamental assumptions and perspectives. Interaction has been identified as one of the major constructs in distance education research. Seen through a symbolic interactionist lens, interaction is defined as reciprocal action between two or more actors within a given context. This chapter will present a symbolic interactionist conceptual framework for studying distance education and distributed learning environments, discuss findings of research studies from which the framework was generated, and address the implications of this framework for the study of distance education. The framework consists of the categories of context, learner control, social presence, structure, feedback, dialogue, and interaction. It will be argued that theories of distance education, such as the theory of transactional distance, need to be revisited taking into account the affordances of technologies currently available in distance education and pedagogical approaches based on constructivism, collaborative learning, and learning communities. Samples of research questions are proposed that can help educators better understand and improve the field. “Distance” cannot be the defining characteristic of the field. We need to move away from distance, geographical or psychological, and focus our inquiry on those pedagogical intentional interactions mediated by technology and constructed by learners, teachers, and tutors while designing and participating in distance education programs.
This chapter argues that distance educators need to rethink assessment practices in the light of the benefits and problems encountered in the online context. It looks at the fundamentals of assessment that need to be carried over from traditional approaches and then analyzes the attributes of the online environment that can be used to rethink the process. It also reviews examples of innovative assessment strategies and identifies a set of principles of good practice in online assessment. Learning to Solve Problems
Online The limitations implicit in online development platforms constrain the nature of the instruction that can be developed and delivered using those platforms. Popular platforms do not support alternative forms of knowledge representation by learners, authentic forms of assessment, or the use of distributed tools to scaffold different forms of reasoning. Because these platforms replicate face-to-face instruction, they rarely support any form of problem solving, which is the most authentic form of learning in everyday and professional contexts. In this chapter, I describe different kinds of problem solving that can and should be supported in online learning in order to prepare learners for life. Next, I describe two different approaches to designing online problem-based learning environments. The first approach is to tailor environments to meet the needs and parameters of specific kinds of problems. In order to achieve economies of scale necessary to address a range of problems, I describe the development and initial testing of architectures for developing learning environments for solving story problems and troubleshooting problems. Developing and testing these architectures will prove challenging; however, the greatest difficulty may be convincing higher education and business educators of the need for learning to solve problems.
Discussions about distance learning often assume that the main educational task in moving to teaching in a distance mode is essentially that of putting content into a form through which students can easily access it, learn from it, and have their learning assessed, all with minimum direct assistance. In this chapter, drawing directly on my own involvement in writing and teaching distance courses, I describe how I came to realise that distance learning is just as much mediated by social relations and distance teaching is just as much a performance as is classroom teaching. Distance education has a space, a culture, and a set of distinctive work practices. It is different from face-to-face classroom teaching but not in quite the ways that many of us first think.
This chapter defines and overviews the conceptualization of the “hidden curriculum” as it has been developed in the writings of educators over the past 50 years. It then looks at distance education, and in particular the omnibus set of distance education delivery modes known as “e-learning.” Does e-learning conceal a distinct hidden curriculum that is different from campus-based delivery of formal education? Using Ahola’s (2000) four dimensions of the hidden curriculum, I examine e-learning and conclude that indeed it does contain a hidden curriculum. However, this hidden curriculum has both advantages and disadvantages for learners for different reasons. The article concludes by calling for an unbiased and fair evaluation of the strengths, biases, and hidden agendas of this newest form of education design and delivery. Such analysis reveals that e-learning has a unique and valued place in the array of educational systems built to serve the diverse needs of students in a distributed world.
Faculty productivity is a complex variable that is difficult to measure. Most measures have focused on the amount of time faculty members spend per week in various functions such as teaching, research, and service. Middaugh (2001) reports that the average faculty member in the United States works 53 hours per week, but that only 11 of those hours are devoted to teaching. Current research in distance education provides a mixed picture of results, but the balance of the evidence indicates that distance teaching demands more faculty time than traditional classroom teaching. This creates a tension, especially in institutions where expectations for excellence in both teaching and research are high. Both entrepreneurial and traditional academic institutions are exploring alternative solutions such as “unbundling” of faculty functions in instruction and the increased use of technology. Unfortunately, many of these approaches remain uninformed by research. A developmental research agenda is recommended to provide a better basis for decision-making regarding the roles of faculty in distance education in the foreseeable future.
In this chapter, we start our discussion on the importance of defining the construct of distance education before proceeding with theory development and research in distance education. We then make a case for the importance of theory-building in distance education and discuss research methods that merit special attention by distance education scholars, and pose questions that need to be addressed using these methodologies. Finally, we identify six areas that need to be included in distance education research programs: adaptations for learners, instructors, and instructional designers, evaluation (student, course, program), globalization and cultural diversity, access and equity, policy issues, and the impact of technology on the fabric of education.
This chapter discusses a conceptual framework, the research methodology, and the results of empirical studies conducted to identify effective strategies for online learning. The author employs the notion of discourse as central to knowledge building and views learning as a social, negotiated, consensual process. The theoretical and methodological frameworks are discussed to help us understand learning effectiveness in online environments. These frameworks are integrally linked to understanding how and under what circumstances collaboration and discourse contribute to learning. The chapter draws on the processes of democratic participation, intellectual progress, and gradual convergence to adumbrate the trajectory of online learning from idea generation to idea linking to intellectual convergence. How moderator functions can support intellectual and social development (discourse, conceptual change, and intellectual convergence) in online seminars are also discussed.
In this chapter, we discuss the reciprocal relationships among the forces of globalization, information technologies, and education, and we critically examine the role of distance education in the 21st century. We argue that common metaphors such as the global village may not always work when applied to experiences of marginalized people in online communications and thus, regardless of physical access, the online environment can be “exclusionary.” We unpack assumptions embedded in this metaphor and suggest alternative ways of articulating our relationship with new technologies. We propose that both the metaphors of the nomad (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983, 1987) and the polyglot (Braidotti, 1994) suggest an empowering way of conceiving such a relationship because they describe how information technologies can be inclusionary for the underprivileged. Analyzing the metaphors of the nomad and the polyglot sheds light to questions such as the following: Who benefits the most from the growing application of information technology around the world? Who benefits the least? What are the implications of such inequities, for us, our students, and the world? Finally, we examine how critical education online can serve to promote social justice, equity, multicultural education, and peace education. We focus on three ideas that help us redefine our relationship with information technologies: (1) critical emotional literacy, (2) collective witnessing, and (3) collective intelligence.
URL:http://www.cait.org/vrasidas |