Reflections on My Distance Education and E-learning Coursework
I had been an accomplished instructional designer and e-learning project manager for over 15 years prior to beginning my pursuit of an MDE in 2009. In the winter before enrolling at UMUC, I found it very difficult to get a position as an instructional designer due to the fact that I did not have a Masters degree. I felt that pursuing a Masters in Instructional Design would be pointless, since there was little for me to learn in that field. Therefore I looked for a related degree program where I could broaden my knowledge. This brought me to the UMUC MDE program.
Although I had never taken a distance education course prior to the MDE program, my wife had taken some at a local community college. The DE courses she took were little more than self study, with little to no interaction with either the instructor or other students in the course. I found the MDE programs to be much different, utilizing the ideas of Moore, Peters, Garrison, et. al. as opposed to simply creating a course from a template in a tool such as BlackBoard and leaving it up to the students to fend for themselves.
I was particularly impressed with the first course in the MDE curriculum, OMDE 601, Foundations of Distance Education and E-learning, since it not only taught me the basics of MDE theory, but I was able to have discussions about DE with leaders in the field, Otto Peters and Borje Holmberg. I also found Moore's theory of transactional distance to be very enlightening, helping me to better understand the ways that many people might learn at a distance. I was also interested to learn that a high transactional distance would be preferable in many settings, since my previous employment had been in creating computer and web-based training in which the instruction was all pre-created and students worked alone at their own pace.
That first semester, I took UCSP 611, OMDE 601, and DETT 607 all at the same time. Even though it was a lot of work, it was made easier since the DETT 607 course, Instructional Design and Course Development in Distance Education and E-learning, was mostly information that I was already proficient in, aside from the use of Web Tycho for course creation. I found Web Tycho to be a capable tool for developing DE courses, as I had prior experience with similar software such as BlackBoard and Moodle. My experience and personal interests made the course I tool the following semester, OMDE 603, Technology in Distance Education & E-learning, both accessible and interesting. I explored some new technologies, such as Adobe Connect, that I still make use of today.
One way that I enjoyed digging deeper than the content presented in a course was to explore the references and further reading found in the assigned readings (and then looked into the references found in these texts). This helped me greatly in OMDE 610, Teaching and Learning in Online Distance Education, when I found an interesting article by Coffield, Mosely, Hall, and Ecclestone (2004) which identified 71 models of learning styles. This number shocked me. It also made me consider an e-learning project I designed a few years ago called RFID Essentials. To market this WBT, the company (RFID Revolution) created a banner on their web site that says “Which way would you rather learn?” and then it shows a bunch of bored people in a classroom with the caption “Passive” and then switches to a few happy people looking at a computer with the caption “Active”. In a sense they are billing the WBT as a constructivist approach, which it dawned on me that it is in many ways. One of the things that I built into several of the modules is a virtual RFID lab where the student can conduct real-world activities to determine whether they understand the fundamental RFID concepts being taught. I was a constructivist and I didn’t even know it!
I particularly enjoyed the text for DEPM 604, Management and Leadership in Distance Education & E-learning, which was Kotter's Leading Change. This is a useful book for any field of study. I have tried to apply the principles I learned in the course to every project I have worked on since taking this course in 2010.
The emphasis of my work in DETC 630, Emerging Technology Trends and Issues in Distance Education and E-learning, was on learning about Twitter (as well as teaching others how to use it) and other Web 2.0 technologies. I was intrigued to find creative ways of using Twitter in distance education, in particular for course study. Yet I still feel that regardless of the means of conveying the content, it is the content above all that helps someone learn. This was reinforced by my readings in DETC 620, Training and Learning with Multimedia, in which I defended the viewpoint that media does not influence learning.
Although I have found some repetition in my MDE coursework, I have learned many new technologies, theories, and skills, which I hope to apply to future endeavors. My current work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been enhanced by the knowledge and skills I have acquired from my coursework. As they are looking to begin offering distance education for the first time, I hope to make more use of what I have learned at UMUC about things such as asynchronous learning, transactional distance, and teaching at a distance.
Coffield, F., Mosely, D., Hall, E., and Ecclestone, K. (2004) Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: a systematic and critical review. Learning and Skills Research Centre Report. Retrieved from http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/edskas/learning%20styles.pdf.
Although I had never taken a distance education course prior to the MDE program, my wife had taken some at a local community college. The DE courses she took were little more than self study, with little to no interaction with either the instructor or other students in the course. I found the MDE programs to be much different, utilizing the ideas of Moore, Peters, Garrison, et. al. as opposed to simply creating a course from a template in a tool such as BlackBoard and leaving it up to the students to fend for themselves.
I was particularly impressed with the first course in the MDE curriculum, OMDE 601, Foundations of Distance Education and E-learning, since it not only taught me the basics of MDE theory, but I was able to have discussions about DE with leaders in the field, Otto Peters and Borje Holmberg. I also found Moore's theory of transactional distance to be very enlightening, helping me to better understand the ways that many people might learn at a distance. I was also interested to learn that a high transactional distance would be preferable in many settings, since my previous employment had been in creating computer and web-based training in which the instruction was all pre-created and students worked alone at their own pace.
That first semester, I took UCSP 611, OMDE 601, and DETT 607 all at the same time. Even though it was a lot of work, it was made easier since the DETT 607 course, Instructional Design and Course Development in Distance Education and E-learning, was mostly information that I was already proficient in, aside from the use of Web Tycho for course creation. I found Web Tycho to be a capable tool for developing DE courses, as I had prior experience with similar software such as BlackBoard and Moodle. My experience and personal interests made the course I tool the following semester, OMDE 603, Technology in Distance Education & E-learning, both accessible and interesting. I explored some new technologies, such as Adobe Connect, that I still make use of today.
One way that I enjoyed digging deeper than the content presented in a course was to explore the references and further reading found in the assigned readings (and then looked into the references found in these texts). This helped me greatly in OMDE 610, Teaching and Learning in Online Distance Education, when I found an interesting article by Coffield, Mosely, Hall, and Ecclestone (2004) which identified 71 models of learning styles. This number shocked me. It also made me consider an e-learning project I designed a few years ago called RFID Essentials. To market this WBT, the company (RFID Revolution) created a banner on their web site that says “Which way would you rather learn?” and then it shows a bunch of bored people in a classroom with the caption “Passive” and then switches to a few happy people looking at a computer with the caption “Active”. In a sense they are billing the WBT as a constructivist approach, which it dawned on me that it is in many ways. One of the things that I built into several of the modules is a virtual RFID lab where the student can conduct real-world activities to determine whether they understand the fundamental RFID concepts being taught. I was a constructivist and I didn’t even know it!
I particularly enjoyed the text for DEPM 604, Management and Leadership in Distance Education & E-learning, which was Kotter's Leading Change. This is a useful book for any field of study. I have tried to apply the principles I learned in the course to every project I have worked on since taking this course in 2010.
The emphasis of my work in DETC 630, Emerging Technology Trends and Issues in Distance Education and E-learning, was on learning about Twitter (as well as teaching others how to use it) and other Web 2.0 technologies. I was intrigued to find creative ways of using Twitter in distance education, in particular for course study. Yet I still feel that regardless of the means of conveying the content, it is the content above all that helps someone learn. This was reinforced by my readings in DETC 620, Training and Learning with Multimedia, in which I defended the viewpoint that media does not influence learning.
Although I have found some repetition in my MDE coursework, I have learned many new technologies, theories, and skills, which I hope to apply to future endeavors. My current work at the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been enhanced by the knowledge and skills I have acquired from my coursework. As they are looking to begin offering distance education for the first time, I hope to make more use of what I have learned at UMUC about things such as asynchronous learning, transactional distance, and teaching at a distance.
Coffield, F., Mosely, D., Hall, E., and Ecclestone, K. (2004) Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning: a systematic and critical review. Learning and Skills Research Centre Report. Retrieved from http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/edskas/learning%20styles.pdf.