Elements of Distance Education Diffusion
Module II
Distance education has gained acceptance in both the corporate and educational sectors. In his video, George Siemens discusses this growth and three possible elements of distance education that are creating more effective learning giving distance education its own identity, distinct from the customary face-to-face(F2F) learning environment.
While Siemens discusses global diversity, communication, and collaborative interaction as the three elements, I feel that collaborative interaction has evolved greatly as a result of distance learning. This increase in interaction is most likely caused by our increased comfort level in using computers and communicating online. As people become more confident with online communication, the process is able to evolve and include collaboration. As Siemens points out, people are more apt to be open because of the anonymity of online collaboration as compared to F2F learning.
In the past, if people wanted to collaborate schedules had to be coordinated, arrangements made etc. With the diffusion of online collaboration, groups of people, in the corporate and academic settings, can meet, share ideas, agree/disagree, revise, and formulate an entire project all with a few clicks of the keyboard. Several tools and devices are available for collaboration/communication including Skype, Googledocs, Elluminate, and Dimdim. Students can also collaborate via online forums, class discussions, blogs, and wikis to name a few. Being able to connect, communicate and collaborate with cohorts from diverse backgrounds people are able to share and the world becomes a smaller, hopefully more understanding place.
Jane
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). The future of distance education [Motion picture]. (Available from Laureate Education, Inc., Baltimore)
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I also believe collaboration is important in distance education. It gives students the opportunity to generate new ideas and useful information. As they say, "two heads are better than one". There has been some many more ways to collaborate created within the last few years it just amazing, and the idea is still growing as new and developing technology arises!!!
ReplyDeleteCarol
ReplyDeleteI also beleive that when students collaborate and that includes the use of technology, they are gaining so more than just listening to someone lecture. The diffusion of so many new technologies is making the world a connected place, where we ca now learn first hand about various places, people, customs etc.
Jane
Jane,
ReplyDeleteI too chose collaboration! The use of collaboration has not only evolved in Distance Education among Higher Education institutions but also among K-12 Public Education. I use wikipsaces quite often to collaborate with peers in my county as well open source file sharing websites like slide share (www.slideshare.com) to collaborate in staff development settings.
Jane,
ReplyDeleteCollaboration is definitely very important! I chose this as well. Distance education has changed the way we think about collaboration and where it can be done. I have used several ways to collaborate with peers on a day to day basis and I have learned new ways to do this through this program.
Sherry