Answering post comments

To all of you who commented on my thoughts, thank-you.

While I do sometimes feel like a prophet for a "brave new world", I feel I should share an experience from the 1980s.

During those years, I managed an independent bookstore. I bought from publishers' reps the titles I thought would sell in our Lakes Region area of NH - and when personal computer titles started cropping up, I honestly believed they would be a phase. Don't ask me why...except that the programmers from Hewlett Packard who came in to look at the list I had to offer, purchased books that didn't even look like they were printed in English.
It didn't take long for me to realize how wrong I had been. It occurred to me that if I didn't learn about this new way of communicating, I would be left behind. The decision to learn all I could about personal computing, and then web design altered the course of my career.

While I am old enough to remember life with typewriters and carbon copies (not to mention mimeograph machines), I wouldn't go back to that time anymore than I would to the days before Edison or Bell. We are living through a momentous time, and our challenge is to take advantage of the best it has to offer. Education is now available to people on a wider scale than ever before.

I agree that socialization is incredibly important, and that people should not spend hours upon hours before a computer monitor without an equal amount of time spent enjoying family, friends, and colleagues. That concept is the same as the one that says you should go out to enjoy life, and not simply read about it, or watch others do it on televison - hi-def, holographic, or otherwise.

Online learning is proving to be a valuable asset to independent learners. Some courses lend themselves beautifully to this environment, but others do not. Cursive writing (AKA the Palmer method, which I learned in elementary school) is one of those arts that can only be mastered with practice. One of our most respected professors told me he would never offer his "Myth of the Hero" as an online course, because the spontaneaous interaction of students would be lost online.

Children need to be with other children, and with adults who can serve as roll models. The special, intuitive, unspoken language of personal interaction cannot be recreated by a computer - that's certainly true. But - our children are learning to use computers as soon as they can sit up. Unlike us, they have no resistance to learning this way, and technology will continue to change more and more rapidly. If we want to pass on our message, we need to speak their language.

Today and Tomorrow via DL

While looking for possible innovations for online learning that would be suitable for this week's assignment, I came across this presentation on YouTube...of all places. Not only was I surprised at where I landed, but I was surprised at the way my interest was captured during the video. I believe this is the beginning of the way future students will learn...at a distance, sometime, but connected always.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIDvIo6x9mM

Learning Via Text (text-messaging, that is)

I came across two videos I considered sharing with you this evening - one was by NASA and shared the way robots are being used to collect data on other planets. Now, I must admit I was tempted to use that as an example of out of this world learning methods, but the average educational institution doesn't have NASA's budget. Nor do we have out of this world students.
Our students, like young mods of all ages, love their gadgets, but they also love to be cool. They take to change like ducklings take to water, and I believe that if we want to communicate with them, we need to be where they are.
I'm thinking especially of a comment I read today- about taking care when equating innovation with excellence. While it's always been true that change for the sake of change isn't a good idea, I believe those who don't learn to change with the times will be left behind.
With that in mind, I'd like to share the second video I discovered. It was filmed in New Zealand and illustrates my point - that we must make the most of the opportunity to teach, using of the technology students have adopted. This video surprised me, but I have to hand it to this instructor...talk about psychology!
Enjoy, and TGIF ;o)
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=742

High School Opportunities with DL

When I was first exposed to students trying to get used to college-level courses, I could only sympathize and try to make their lives easier by helping with basic tutorials in Office software, especially Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Although they were masters at texting, and posting to FaceBook or You Tube, many were lost when it came to styling a research paper according to MLA or APA. Furthermore, many had no understanding of the demands a college- level course would place on their lives.

Distance learning is growing in ways faster than we can accurately predict. The very nature of the web allows for expansion in directions we could not have accomplished ten years ago.
Children growing up today will never know a world without internet access (or some variation yet undiscovered), and I believe we must offer them online options to complement traditional learning methods.

This fall, the Community College System of New Hampshire will begin offering eStart courses to high school students. These 100% online college-level courses will be taught by our facuty, and will enable high-school students to earn concurrent high-school and college credit.

This is very new for our System, and promises to grow as rapidly as our Head Start Program .
View the press release: http://www.ccsnh.edu/news/estart.html

My Involvement with Distance Learning

Because of my position in Academic Affairs, I work with faculty in a variety of ways. Among these are course scheduling, catalog, web content and most lately, distance learning. Our college is offering more online courses each semester, and with these offerings I'm receiving requests for help with information about podcasts, blogs and video. As technology grows and changes, so will the requests for help.

My observations are a blend of personal experience, faculty comments, and student needs.

Distance learning works for many students because it fits their schedules, their learning styles, and their budgets. Far from feeling isolated by this style of learning, most students I've helped feel as though they're part of a group, and enjoy the opportunity to contact instructors, and other people in their classes outside the traditional class time.

Faculty I've worked with comment that although online courses do create more work, they fill a growing need for flexibility in today's educational setting. The rapid advances of technology are giving them new tools with which to teach, and are creating a space where students from a wide range of areas are able to communicate as never before.

The links I've included on this page come from my brief tour of sites devoted to distance learning. They've provided me with reading, video, and tutorials for hours to come, and I hope some of them will interest you.