Week 8 Readings

Week 8 readings are: Faculty Navigating Institutional Waters: Suggestions for Bottom-up Designs of Online Programs by Richard E. Ferdig and Kara Dawson.

Ferdig and Dawson's account with the problems in higher education of moving the administration forward in the technology course development field and the inner workings of faculty owner-ship, roalities, etc., made interesting reading. Personally after reqading this artilce I am very glad that I do not have to contend with the world of academia in my career. Working in the corporate culture, you know that anything you produce belongs to the company!


The second reading is from Ellen Rose, "Is there a class with this content?" Web CT and the limits of individualization.

An excerpt from Rose's article, page 18:

today, with the advent of Web-based systems, the euphemisms may have changed -
we now talk, for instance, about instructional relevance and the radical
retooling of higher education - but embedded within such language are the same
premises that gave rise to teaching machines and individualization: the belief
that education must be made more efficient; and the belief that it is
imperative, in the interests of enhanced (i.e., more efficient) learning, that
more and more instructional decision-making power be transferred from educators
to devices and those who make them.

It seems that our current foray into social networking with wikis, blogs and podcasts are the prime elements of transferring to tools...however, I think that educators need to maintain the instructional-decision-making power and these tools do provide a freedom to educators instead of undermining their power, especially in guided discussions.

Week 5 Readings

The Readings for Week 5 included Leadership and Management in e-Learning for Teachers and Trainers, An Introductory Guide by D.E. Gray and A Learner-centered Framework for E-Learning by Barbara L. McCombs and Donna Vakili.

Gray's Guide points out many 'gems' needed to succeed as an e-Learning Manager. One gem that I thought especially important is that "to keep end-users informed it is essential that the added value delivered by e-learning becomes visible to all - as quickly as possible." This seems to be the whole intent behind e-learning - providing content as content develops and providing a venue to comment on the content or a place to discuss issues arriving from the content (or lack of it).
I thought that this Guide is one of the most important articles read so far for my personal development. I will soon be the lead in a project and will refer to the project management aspects of Gray's Guide. Also this will be very useful in my eLearning Leadership Proposal.

The McCombs and Vakili article from the Teachers College Review contains research and concerns on "the key issues in using educational technology to support learner-centered principles and practices" (McCombs, p. 1595).
Using the APA research-validated Learner-Centered psychological Principles (1997), McCombs and Vakili contend that " to produce quality learners, all learners must experience both quality content and processes".
If I were able to ask them a questions, I would want their opinion on social networking tools, especially the use of podcasts and blogs in the classroom during the three years since the article published.

Week 4 Reading: E-Learning P3 Model

Khan, Badrul H. (2004, September-October). The people-process-product continuing in e-learning: The E-Learning P3 Model. Educational Technology, 44 (5), 33-40.

I found this article very interesting as I will begin a new career on Monday the 15th as an e-Learning Design Specialist. I am a visual learner and the chart of the 3P Model explained how to move from planning to delivery in simple terms, that is, until I found Table 1 listing the roles and responsibilities in e-learning.
In the article, Khan points out that "Based on the size and scope of the project, the number of individuals involved in various stages of an e-learning project may vary." It never dawned on me that there would be so many people involved in designing an e-Learning course, especially when we designed one last Spring. That really made me feel good about last term! Khan actually defined my project as a "small-size e-learning project since I was, in essence, the content expert, instructional designer, programmer, graphic artist (for the most part), project manager, etc. Way to go members of 5680! Who woulda thunk?

Thoughts on Week 3 Class Blogs

In deciding to read my classmates blogs, I began at the top of the list. So this week I read Dena Fife's, Phillip Havlik's, Jennifer McCarty's, Chad Lynch's and Sheri Trapp-Cordova. I'll also be reading the next five on the list for the Week 4 assignment - whew!


I really agree with Dena's thoughts on time management issues and how these two courses are requiring us to react on a different level than the software courses of last semester (and I thought nothing could be harder to understand all that technology stuff!). Thanks Dena for the reminder that I am not alone in this and that it just takes a little concentration to get back on track.

Phillip's blog mentioned that he also thought the blogging and the discussion boards had similarities and posed a question on their differences.

Personally, I would like just one place to post thoughts and comments then two or three places. Although if I were a full-time student with no other responsibilities like having a family and a job to pay bills, then I think blogging could be really helpful in exchanging ideas and concepts - not that they are not in this instance, but they are really time consuming. Okay enough whining on this subject - my lips (fingers) are sealed evermore!

Jennifer McCarty mentioned she enjoys reading books online - this must be an acquired skill and I will definitely ask her how she manages this as I still print out most material (sorry green folks) to read, highlight and save in my specific binder. I do not mind short articles, but over four pages and into the printer it goes. Thanks Jennifer for posing the question about how to read professional articles - print away!

Kudos to Chad (and to Dena for referring this point) for the info on the RSS feeds from UTube. A great help to me! I also enjoyed reviewing Chad's bullet point on DE - nice summary that reminded me of things I read and forgot about - gosh, already!

The final blog I read this week was Sheri's. I would love to have her read all the articles and summarize them - I would pay! Just kidding a little - thank you Sheri for doing such a great job! I enjoyed how you were faithful to the article, but also brought out the highlights and your thoughts.

Week 3 Reading

This week's reading is from:
West, Richard E., Wright, Geoff, Gabbits, Bruce, & Graham, Charles R. (2006). Reflections from the introduction of blogs and RSS feeds into a preservice instructional technology course. TechTrends, 50 (4), 54-60.

I apologize to my colleagues for the past week's lack of interaction. I was in the process of resigning my position after eight years of employment and seemed to become immersed in a little bout of depression/anxiety. I'm not sure why as my new position will provide an opportunity to use my eLearning skills from the past year and improve and enhance my skills in the future. I know that I will miss the wonderful volunteers that I have known and worked closely with and the dedicated staff I leave behind, but once a GS always a GS.

As I read West's findings, I felt a deep empathy for the students struggling with the blogs and related with their feelings of information overload! I must confessed that I grew up in the day when, for your tenth birthday, you received a diary AND every year after that until you asked your mom to tell your aunt not to buy another one!

I am a voracious reader, but I have never gotten into the habit of journaling - I have purchased many forms of journals throughout the years (diary vs journal? not much difference to me!) from the composition books to cloth bound varieties and usually write the purchase the date and, then end of giving them to my daughter or anyone else who needs paper.

I really like the RSS feeds and agree with the authors that you do not read everything, but pick and choose your links carefully otherwise you end up in the hinterlands. My favorite is The Rapid elearning Blog - while working in a non-profit it became an invaluable resource for using PPt in designing visuals.

From my personal experience, I feel the same as those learners in 2004 - very overwhelmed with all the information and new technologies available - I am reminded of the knight in one of the Indiana Jones movies who advise to "choose wisely" or we may find ourselves going down the rabbit hole and becoming lost in the maze of Blogs and RSS feeds.

One thing that I thought was interesting is that we really need to remind ourselves that just going out there and finding a Blog does not mean that we have found the answers - we have found someone's ideas and opinions that are open for discussion and reflection - let's be sure we do that.

Diigo Account

My Diigo account is set up and it is interesting to explore this new resource. Looking forward to the group work also.

Week 1 Readings

The first reading is from:
Bernard, R. M., Abrami, P. C., Lou, Y., Borokhovski, E., Wade, A., Wozney, L., Wallet, P. A., Fiset, M., & Huang, B. (2004). How does distance education compare with classroom instruction? A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Review of Educational Research, 74 (3), 379-439.

An interesting quantitative research article with references (17 pages!)to other analysis and studies on this subject. The conclusion of the study suggests that classroom instructions and DE (Distance Education) are comparable, but suggests that the current research does not provide concrete evidence. Their research did add several new facets to the study of DE versus classroom instructions and, also discovered slight differences between synchronous and asynchronous DE instruction.

The second reading is from:
Oliver, Ron, & Herrington, Jan. (2001, December). Teaching and learning online: A beginner’s guide to e-learning and e-teaching in higher education. Centre for Research in Information Technology and Communications Edith Cowan University Western Australia.

Trying to locate this book online was interesting in itself, but by persisting in using searching capabilities success was mine! A few days later one of the students posted the URL for Oliver's six chapter article. My apologies to my classmates that I waited since I actually thought that locating the article was part of the assignment...but, back to Oliver.

He states in his opening chapter, that the purpose of this book is to "help those people who believe that online learning provides a means to enhance learning quality...and to provide practical ideas and guidance in the development of effective online learning settings."

Well, Oliver had me hooked immediately! I especially like Chapter 4 where Oliver describes Learning Supports. This was familiar territory for me as I recently completed the Certificate in eLearning Design and had tried to use many of the learning tasks and resources listed.

Chapter 6 also provided a solid background on Design and Development strategies which I wished would have been in last year's course information, although the year was very full of all kinds of new things to learn and explore. i have the feeling that this year's activities will be just as interesting and demanding in their own right!

I am looking for a position as an eLearning Design Specialist and believe that Oliver's short book will prove more beneficial to me than the Bernard research paper.