Hello everyone time for my posts for section 7.
I'm a bit late this week due to busy a schedule and low energy level. Those two don't go well together but I got through the week fine.

Section 7 was entitled "Striving for Excellence". For the assignment I choose two articles. The first article has to do with trends in the development of Distance Education.

INNOVATIONS, TRENDS, AND CREATIVITY IN DISTANCE LEARNING

Using the social fabric of the web as a strategic lens to monitor trends and innovations

David Porter

dporter@bccampus.ca

August 2006

The development of Distance Education trends and innovations is such a dynamic and fast developing field that if you rely on static publications such as books and journals as primary resources for monitoring innovation and trend data in the distance learning sector you can be almost certain that by the time you publish your paper new innovations and trends have already been developed. 

"This paper advocates a wholesale swing towards electronic knowledge sources, and especially to the social networks of the web, for educators and administrators who have responsibility for the planning, delivery, or evaluation of online or distance learning in the higher education sector. The trends and innovations of today are being actively shaped by web-based practices in the consumer, entertainment, and commercial sectors. Ignoring these influences and the potential that innovations and trends from these sectors might have for educational institutions, their programs, and practices would be an oversight. AS the web evolves, it presents new opportunities for adopting, adapting, or customizing applications and practices in ways that can be harnessed for benefit of educators and learners."

I find this paper very helpful because it presents trends in five thematic areas, along with web links to sites that would be useful to reference for further updates or statistics. 

Trend: Students are shopping for courses that meet their schedules and circumstances

On many campuses today, administrators and faculty have learned that the time-shifting capabilities of online courses can be used to make additional physical spaces available by providing some high enrollment courses entirely online, freeing up classroom spaces for other courses that might better utilize campus facilities. At the same time, providing flexible access to campuses and courses through online and distance learning strategies is often a better match for students with jobs or family responsibilities.

However, to actualize a scenario that actively meets student needs for more and better distance and online learning opportunities, means that a complementary focus on providing agile access to library, academic advising, and instructional support services must also be put in place. Not only do students want access to more and better courses in flexible formats, they also have higher expectations of service from the institutions providing academic programs online or by distance.

The Sloan Consortium, http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/index.asp , provides free yearly online reports about the extent of online learning in US higher education institutions.

Trend: Distance learner profiles are changing – with high expectations for engagement

Today’s adult learners come from a generation that grew up alongside the development of the Internet. They have high expectations for personalization, immediacy, responsiveness, and mobility from their educational experiences. They value social networking and community-based activities as a component of their experience. If they are employed, they are already familiar with the expectations of the work world for multi-tasking, teamwork, connectivity, and a disdain for delays. These high expectations will force us to rethink the instructional design and delivery models that we choose for online and distance learners, particularly when competing programs exist.

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL, 2006), http://www.col.org/colweb/site , frequently produces reports for download from institutions worldwide that outline current thinking in open and distance learning, with a focus on the conditions for learning and the learners themselves.

Trend: Blended learning leads to a myriad of instructional delivery possibilities

In many courses these days the distinctions between e-learning, online learning, web-supplemented learning, and internet-assisted learning ((OECD, 2005) are increasingly blurred. Instructors are finding innovative ways of using information and communications technologies (ICTs) to suit the learning needs of their students, and are using combinations of internet-based tools to match the conditions of learning for their courses that may range from face-to-face classrooms to pure distance education situations, and all permutations between these poles. What began as a shift in delivery methods towards a fully online learning model in 2003 has more rationally become a continuum of instructional delivery possibilities for faculty and learners engaged in distance learning in 2006.

Keeping pace with rapid technological change and the variety of instructional possibilities afforded by information and communication technology means that educators need to monitor multiple online information sources to keep abreast of trends. Among the best online information sources are:

EduCAUSE (EduCAUSE, 2006) http://www.educause.edu

Learning Circuits (ASTD, 2006) http://www.learningcircuits.org/

Trend: Open source software and notion of shared knowledge resources

The OSS community developed its unique approach partially in response to acquisitive approaches taken by many software companies and entrepreneurs that reserved all rights for themselves and restricted all access to the original software code, sometimes leaving users stranded when the company went out of business, was sold, or no longer supported the code. OSS is a response to costly licensing models from companies providing virtual learning environments, portal software systems, and web services.

The most well-known of the OSS systems making an impact in the higher education space is Moodle (Moodle.org, 2006), a virtual learning environment that challenges market leaders such as Blackboard and WebCT. Moodle is freely available for download from http://www.moodle.org . It has a vibrant community of practice that supports its development, the improvement of its features, and its implementation in various hardware configurations.

Other OSS VLE implementations, instructional development tools, and administrative applications are available from sources worldwide. The UNESCO Free and Open Source Software Portal is the best source of current information on open source software activities and applications for higher education: http://www.unesco.org/cgi-bin/webworld/portal_freesoftware/cgi/page.cgi?d=1 (UNESCO, 2006)

Trend: Patent intrudes on education and may force us to rethink online course “delivery”

If this trend of offensive patent actions continues, and additional legal actions are pursued against online learning companies, or institutions employing competing LMS products or OSS tools, a slowing down of the deployment of learning management systems could occur.

However, an alternative view might suggest that the patent action serves as a wake-up call to all of us who use learning management systems as an instructional tool for course delivery. Perhaps this is the juncture at which we reassess our online learning instructional strategies and begin to employ tools and strategies that use lighter and more personal software applications to conduct our courses, without the industrial presence of a learning management system or a cadre of technical staff to support our course development and delivery requirements.

Newer, innovative software systems are currently emerging that may allow the control of course development and delivery to revert back into the hands of faculty and students, where some argue it belongs. Seasoned instructors with experience in online course delivery are now beginning to explore wikis, blogs, and various media-casting tools as applications that draw upon the social-constructivist aspects of learning. Newer social software system may provide a medium for instructional activities that instructors may have done without when they focused their online and distance teaching activities around production-based learning management systems that place a high emphasis on content development and its transmission.

To follow the latest social, political, and technical trends in the online learning and distance learning sectors, one blog above all others is recommended:

Stephen’s Web (Downes, 2006) http://www.downes.ca/

Even though this paper is from 2006 and relatively dated I still found the trends relative to today's' Distance learning instructors. I especially wanted to comment about the last trend on patents because sometimes we get so taken up into the race to develop new and more innovative ways of teaching DE classes that we don't see the wealth of already existing social media apps which can be used with just the same result as the expensive patented technology! Sometimes it is good that we face opposition because it forces us to be creative in a more productive way!

Kind regards,

Debbie