What role do you think distance education will play in education as the Information Age unfolds and technologies improve? What advantages and disadvantages for teachers and students do you foresee?
Our readings centered on delivering instruction via technology. Long gone are the days of instructors standing in front of a class and spouting off lessons. Today’s classroom stretches far beyond any physical barriers as the internet now connects students and teachers. I experienced this first hand this semester as my summer included two trips out of Mississippi. It took quite a bit of juggling and discipline to pull off all the logistics, but I managed to balance staying current of all reading assignments and projects while flying and/or driving to my destinations. Airports usually have some sort of free WiFi services, but now even planes and some new models of cars are equipped with internet capabilities. Truly amazing!
Society as a whole has moved away from working with desk top computers to mobile devices of all sorts. In my opinion, distance education is simply keeping up with the times. I see individuals on campus who don’t seem to look up at all from hand held technology. As a result of technology’s mobility, students of all ages can experience an even greater sense of freedom when choosing when and where they continue their education, taking advantage of things like virtual schools. As much as I believe that to be an advantage, I can’t help but fear that society is learning to do without basic human interaction that can only be achieved through person-to-person contact. We seem to be so willing to thoroughly embrace technology that we are creating one huge disadvantage. People use to fear robots taking jobs away from assembly line workers. Aren’t we basically doing the same thing here when we listen to recorded lessons and view digital materials? We have to be careful about maintaining some sort of balance similar to blended delivery systems that make us remember that we are first and foremost humans!
Projects 8-9
Creating the quiz (survey) and forum projects was relatively easy. It’s a little frustrating dealing with the restrictions placed on free accounts, but I had never used those Weebly options before so that was a great way to learn how they functioned. Coming up with a rubric for the “weather briefing” assignment was a little more involved. While using RubiStar was relatively self-explanatory, I spent more time getting my wording right so that I could truly measure a student’s level of professionalism while giving their briefing. I could possibly incorporate some tips into a lesson on weather careers. East Test Maker lived up to its name and turned out to be a rather enjoyable experience. The link to the “assignments” page on my course site below will allow you to view and/or take part in the quiz and forum. All three items for project #9 are uploaded here as well.
test |
answer_key |
rubric.xlsx |