The End

Technically this assignment has come to its end.
Due date: tonight Midnight Eastern Standard Time.

I am sure this blog will be revisited before the end of this certification process, heck I might even keep it so that I can have a semi-intellectual place to post things...most likely not.

What does Douglas Adams have to do with DE anyway?

In Modes of Interaction in Distance Education Anderson discusses 6 types of interactions.
Including human/computer interactions. Sorry but I still think that human/computer interaction is human reaction to the computer interface. The computer is a source of information, I have certain ways of providing input, the computer has certain ways or reacting to the specified input. I do not expect the computer to randomly respond to a random input. If I choose an input the computer does not readily understand, I expect a "ping" or an error message. I do not expect my machine to reply at random.
Its purely a one sided relationship. I may be interacting with the computer but it is not interacting with me.
I immediately think of Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic. This is an interactive CD-Rom game where the computer randomly appears to generate a response. The computer appears to actually react to the user. This gives all of the appearance of true human/computer interaction. In reality its brilliant programming, and several very smart people anticipating what the user may actually input in order to provide well over 16 hours or recorded responses.

Heck, Douglas Adams was just brilliant to the point that with out trying too hard I can apply his writings to all sorts of fun stuff! I used examples from Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul when writing about Shango the Nigerian thunder god. After all the Dirk Gently book revolves around Thor, the Norse thunder god. And that really was not the stretch it sounds like it was. In Salmon of Doubt Adams discusses that personal computers started out as fancy calculators and in a short time became fancy typewriters, and then became a model for things we hadn't even thought of yet. He even mentioned that we could be able to use the computer to help model experiences that we could otherwise have no realistic ability to experience first hand. See with out much effort Adams is applicable to a discussion about Second Life! I miss his wit, and I never had the chance to meet him in person and say "thank you for being brilliant and impacting our lives so much." --Ever have anything translated on the web? do you use babelfsih.com? Do you know what a babel fish is? Its an Adam's creation from the Hitchiker's Guide. Seriously.

Ok back to course design and other fun bits....

I found it interesting that Anderson again brought up the content less interactions is not a desired learning methodology, yet student to student interaction produced the highest satisfactory levels in learning. Thus showing students already think they know what it is they are learning about, and don't really give a toss about actually learning, as long as the appearance of learning is satisfactory.

I really felt that Ch 10 from Anderson's book and Ch 5 from Moore & Kearsley were painfully redundant to each other and to them selves. I am aware that where my brain is while I read this stuff is part of it. But I can't help but wonder how much am I getting in my own way? I had been in a classroom once for an anthropology project before I began my M.Ed. Once. So I was fresh and able to absorb all of the theories. I could not understand how some of the teachers who were getting their master's degrees had conceptual issues with these concepts. I get it now. Some of the information being written is just not applicable to me, specifically, and I have a hard time seeing how to extend it beyond theory. Are these researchers in the field? Ever?
Yes having a team design a course would be peachy-keen, but really? Who is going to get all of these experts to subdue their egos long enough to produce a quality product within the time constraints? AND what institution is going to fund all of this? The author-editor and Lone Ranger models seem to be the most realistic options when developing course material.
Sure there will be limits based on the instructors media capabilities, but....with easier user interface in LMS software, the limits are going to not be so limiting.

Mea Culpa!

I am completely guilty of putting off this sections assignments until close to the end of the time period. Sheer laziness on my behalf. Its horrible of me, especially since I request time and time again of my own students to not do this when they have to rely on another student to provide comment fodder. I have not provided adequate comment fodder in a timely fashion.

Having owned up to my slacking on the home work, here is my beginning commentary on the course readings:

These are totally random thought I jotted down as I was reading, they will be meshed into a coherent and articulate response to the questions addressing the similarities and differences between designing and delivering DE courses and f2f courses, and the change in the instructor's role.

(Bates and Poole Chapter 7)
• I wonder how much of the course design is influenced by the software? would the UMUC course be structured differently if it was not using WebTycho but using D2L instead?

• So if my course designer was a "Lone Ranger" before I was hired to take on his courses does that make me "Tonto?" Do I really even want to contemplate calling DW "kemosabe?"

•Fear of lower qualified instructors, lower pay?
Ok I am very much concerned about this one. I do MORE WORK for my online course than I do f2f. I check on my students every day. They get more one-on-one than my f2f students do.
This does bring up a concern I have as an instructor. I had a discussion with my dean at the art school. He wanted some information about taking classes on line, and since I teach online he was interested in my point of view. He was very surprised to hear that I get paid just as much for an online course as I would for a live course. He had not expected that. I also told him that the online students get more of my time He was also taken aback when I told him I understood that developing courses were paid the same as teaching a course for a semester, and that it took roughly a semester to get a course online and ready to go.
I also said that it takes a person who knows the material to put a course together (design) and that it is best if they do know the material if they are running the course (teaching it).
This was a great chapter to read right now, especially since I am hoping to do some course design and to assist in course design over the summer for the art school

•Content free courses that become only the students' and instructors' opinions.
Ha! this is a good point. Actually it came up in class this week. Again my f2f class in art history, we had our poster discussions. This allows us to have 5 different "conversations" that relate to class, and the discussions cannot be dominated by one or two students. Well, one of the dominating students again asked why this format, and he said its takes away the fun of seeing where a discussion goes. I said no, it keeps the discussion on topic. Apparently there is a course where all they do is show up and discuss, what they "think" about something, and the section of that class I taught they were required to actually read the text book. And they wished the other guy taught art history! Whatever happened to going to school because you wanted to learn?

•Yet again the issue of course material in one class being of use to another class. I could have used some of the information in this chapter when I was working on the evaluation plan with the group in the other class.

Support

Here I am sloggin away on my first academic paper in months ( ok its been 3 years) and finding it difficult to get into the swing of things. Review this read that, take notes. I am to incorporate from the assigned course readings to show that I have considered the ideas presented. 1200 words is a bit more of a challenge than I care to admit. Not the generating 1200 words, thats easy, but limiting to 1200 words. Also the bit with incorporating the reading. I've had to go thru and reread. Im including bits and pieces, but with all papers I wonder: am I producing what the professor has requested?

So I am happily drafting away when I realize that in the pedagogical review section of the paper I can lean heavily of the Reeves and Harmon paper. After all is all about weighing and measuring pedagogical "dimensions" of IMM. Then after a cite or two I remember: the Reeves and Harmon paper is not one of the readings for this course. Oye! I'm still using it, it still is a valuable source, and it is a reading from the program.

So far in this program I have had more cross-over information than I can remember ever having done before. Its so nice to see the program support itself information wise. What is also nice is this is not a program where I will encounter this information at some distant point in my future, but this is applicable now. I am teaching in an asynchronous environment. I am teaching via mobile communications. I am so doing what I can to ensure this is how I continue teaching professionally.