Teachers who develop e-learning courses find that creating online courses usually takes more time than creating for face-to-face courses. This is so because online work needs to be understood on its own. It is not always possible for the presence of a teacher in online courses so the design of the course should be strong enough to stand on its own.
Many times it is easier to create an online course from scratch than to modify an existing course since modifications that need to be done are usually extensive.
In relation to the students, those who usually are dedicated to face-to-face courses are also dedicated to logging to online courses and following them. On the other hand students who do not display such dedication for normal face-to-face course, neither do they display such dedication to online courses. (de Vega, McAnally-Salas, & Lavigne, 2009)
Reference
de Vega, C. A., McAnally-Salas, L., & Lavigne, G. (2009). Attitudes and Perceptions of Students in a Systems Engineering E-Learning Course. Acta Didactica Napocensia , 95-110.
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In my opinion it is much easier for me to design and to teach a language course that is face to face rather than an on-line course. I think that if I really had to design an on-line course it would take me longer to understand how to use the software than to actually design it and teach it! Apart from that, I think that a teacher's job involves a lot of face to face communication and I only resort to communication by e-mail just to send notes and to pass on administrative messages.
ReplyDeleteI think that it depends on who the teacher is since everyone is an individual. For example I enjoy working closely with my students, helping them to understand the relevance of the information to their life, inspiring them, learning from them as well. This can be gained from face to face interaction and it would be lost on a strictly e-learning course. However, the benefits of e-learning courses cannot be denied.
ReplyDeleteRegarding difficulties, it depends on the level of your own knowledge. If you do not know a lot in this area, then obviously it will be more difficult to create an e-learning course, however, as knowledge and experience is gained, I believe that this can eventually become easier as the tools become common.
I am not sure where e-learning will lead us. What I do know is that e-learning gives opportunities to people who would otherwise have found it difficult if not impossible to continue their studying. This includes mothers, people who cannot afford the luxury to stop work while they study and people who would like to study subjects or specialise in subjects which are not taught in Malta and it would be too expensive or too difficult for them to leave the island.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that I believe that the role of an educator can never be replaced with e-learning.
I agree with Haber especially the last comment: "The role of an educator can never be replaced with e-learning." That's why I believe it is called e-Learning rather than e-Educating.
ReplyDeleteI think that one can learn many useful theoretical and practical things from e-Learning but education as a whole comes at a much higher price in terms of HR. It may be more comfortable for both students and lecturers to e-Teach and e-Learn but where would human interaction be?
Personally, this is the exact reason why I'm probably going to be lethargic when I go to design a course that uses some form of e-learning... it is more difficult and time-consuming, so I'd think "let's do this in the usual way"!
ReplyDeleteYour last comment, Mary Grace, is interesting, and I really hope that it is not true. If both traditional learning and e-learning will appeal largely to the same subset of students, then why bother with e-learning? In my latest wiki contribution (Field-dependent and Field-independent Learners and e-Learning), I actually found out that the reverse is true. Maybe I'm misinterpreting what the word "dedicated" means in your context.
Creating online courses like with creating a whole course is definitely not an easy task however I do tend to agree that online courses would be more difficult to create since they have to be very clearly explained as students need to be able to understand everything on their own without the need of a teacher. Having said that it probably depends also on the level and age of the students targeted for the course. For example it is understood that undergraduate University students are no longer spoon-fed but need to do a lot of reading and research on their own.
ReplyDeleteVery often I feel that my students require face-to-face communication in order to fully understand a lecture or an assignment, therefore I am in doubt whether they would succeed if they had to follow the same course online. At the same time I also agree with what Desiree is saying that there are teachers who actually rely a lot of their interaction with their students.
With regards to students’ dedication I think that it might vary between face to face and online courses. I do believe that who is highly dedicated and motivated will give his best during both types of courses. On the other hand a person who likes to use technology a lot might possibly be more dedicated during an online course while a person who is not so technologically oriented might not enjoy so much spending time online.
Mildred
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ReplyDeleteFor me designing an online course is very difficult. First I need to train myself in using dedicated software which I lack. Here comes the importance for MCAST to provide updating software recognition courses on a voluntarily basis. Secondly while I always prepare myself prior to the lesson I normally try to be creative during the actual lecture. During explaining a topic I will start recalling past events or recent breaking news and use them as examples. I found this method very convenient due to the fact that the lesson will become more interactive and students will listen with interest and participate more. I also include some humour aspects to again make the lesson more interesting. For me this is very difficult to produce it during an online course.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, let’s not forget that e-learning has been invented by big corporations to reduce the cost of training for their own employees. Then e-learning was accepted in educational field, where certain benefits cannot be ignored or denied. From the other side, one has to acknowledge that e-learning is a very profitable business. Once by profit driven, e-learning would not stop, unless all teachers would be replaced by on-line lessons, being previously created by the same teachers. Since there will always the need to create more of such lessons or to update the existing once, I can see the future of the teachers as writers of on-line lessons.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that my exposure to e-Learning over the last four weeks has changed completely my views on the subject. From a skeptic, I have converted to a firm believer.
ReplyDeleteNow…
1. I believe that e-Learning compliments class based teaching and (combined with online learning) provides the ideal approach to education, reaching across the world, overcoming physical boundaries and borders, linking different cultures and societies.
2. I believe that e-Learning is important since it reaches out to those members of our society that are impaired or that cannot afford to attend schooling because they have to work to earn a living for themselves and their families. Without e-Learning, they would not be able to exercise their basic human right to Education.
3. I believe in a blended approach (e-Learning + class based). This would help maintain the human contact between educators and students which is essential in human interaction.
4. I believe that e-Learning can be successful and effective as long as:
a. The proper framework is created in the local Education system to support e-Learning.
b. An adequate budget is provided to set up the system.
c. Lecturers are trained on how to set up e-Learning programmes.
d. Lecturers are provided with the resources (including time) to set up e-Learning programmes.
e. Students are trained on how to adhere to and complete successfully e-Learning courses.
5. I believe that e-Learning is here to stay. We do not have to resist it but rather embrace it and work to implement it adequately into our educational system for the benefit of students, lecturers and society alike.
@ Louis: I agree with all your points mentioned above, we cannot resist e-Learning but rather use it to our and the students' advantage. If it weren't for e-Learning, probably we would still have to attend MCAST till 8:30 twice a week rather than blogging from home as currently I'm doing while enjoying a bottle of beer and reading the last World Cup updates.
ReplyDeleteIf we would have stuck to the traditional methods of learning, we wouldn't enjoy such benefits and would never have dreamt of including them in our teaching.
Regarding point 4, the whole education system is being revamped with the introduction of VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), where the teacher and the student communicate virtually for notes and work.
The last point I would like to mention before going to sleep, whenever we as lecturers would embark on an e-Learning strategy, we shall be doing mistakes for sure, as nobody's perfect. Let's not be afraid of such a venture and learn from our mistakes while remembering the old (but ever contemporary) saying:
"All men make mistakes, but only fools repeat them."
Good night
I agree with Mary Grace that preparing a lesson online takes much longer than preparing a traditional lecture. I think that we are all experiencing this while preparing our 20mins presentation for this course!! It took us over three weeks to finally finish our presentation!! We tried to be specific in our lecture. When teaching in a classroom, we immediately get feedback from the students. Simply from their facial expressions we can assess if they are grasping the subject or not. With this feedback we can act accordingly. We can either move forward with the lecture, or decide to slow down, or sometimes we need to change our technique completely to reach the students! When preparing an online lecture, we don’t know what the reaction of the students to the material will be.
ReplyDeleteAnother difficulty I find on e-learning, is the mode of assessment. I think that, (especially in mathematics, which is my main subject) students should still be finally assessed in the classroom to check that they have indeed understood the material provided.
I think that e-learning eliminates space and time problems as it is widening the spectrum of education since it is catering for a wider segment of people.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, people who work long hours and cannot afford to attend face to face classes but still would like to enhance their education and/or career, today can attend online classes where they still have the option to learn at their own pace and convenience.
Geoff Petty in Teaching Today - a practical guide, states that:
ReplyDelete'If teaching were a one way process, we would learn perfectly satisfactorily from books and videos, and teachers would just be an unnecessary irritation'
..to this we can obviously add the internet.
I acknowledge the benefits of e-Learning, however I feel that this definitely needs to be supported by human interaction. Many a time there is more than one solution to a particular problem or scenario. Dichotomies and dilemmas are part and parcel of human activity and are probably inherent in every subject taught - this is one of the many reasons why discussions and human interaction is imperative in teaching and learning.
I believe that most of what we learn is enriched by sharing that experience with others in the many varying ways available (in the class as well as through the net).
After all what is important is not how large our reservoir of information is, but how able we are of applying that knowledge in our everyday life.
I think that if we remove the element of emption and passion in anyything that we do (including teaching), we/our students will gradually become indifferent and alienated to both our surroundings as well as fellow humans.
We will be missing the wood for the tree if we look at learning as only a means to an end rather than as being an end in itself - i.e. of enriching one's journey in this life.
I believe that one cannot generalize that e-learning would be better than face to face instruction or vice versa. I think that every situation should be analysed separately. Personally I would prefer face to face teaching mainly for assessment and feedback purposes, however I would not exclude e-learning if this means giving impaired individuals a chance to follow the course. As Louis mentioned however, we would have to be supplied with the required resources in order to have the right quality of teaching, especially time which is not accounted for very often. Sufficient training should also be provided to people with very little knowledge of how to go about designing an online course and the technology necessary to do so, in order to have courses which students may follow easily and enjoy.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, teachers have to face an avalanche of knowledge and a larger spread of qualifications. The educator has to find his way to be competent in new technologies. As other professionals, teachers have to be prepared for a life style based on continual learning.
ReplyDeleteToday’s society is bombarded by evolving new technologies, used for leisure, learning and commercial applications. The IT usage in education is an emergent reality which will characterize tomorrow’s society.
Although a lecturer may have poor competence in computing skills, he is the competent professional in learning and education. The educator’s contributions are the background, the knowledge in the subject, the strategies to reach the learning objectives, the modelling of the course structure. E-Learning based or integrated courses should be developed in harmony with the educational setup.
The acquisition of knowledge and skill of handling new technologies is a necessity now days. The limited skill is no barriers for e-learning implementation. Successful implementation results with proper management and implementation, especially using a common e-learning platform and most of all adequate training of staff.
Most of the teachers prefer Face to Face learning as their dominant learning process. From the intrinsic sense of belonging to a society and to be part of a community, it follows that the communication and transfer of information using direct face to face dialogue is interactive and more effective. One may consider that e-learning provides an enhancement to the lesson or an alternative self-teaching process through the technologic media.
As a teacher I recognise that e-Learning proved beneficial as an alternative method to overcome the following barriers:
Time and place; access and use not limited to one location, more flexible time,
Remote places; Learning is accessible from remote places. E learning makes possibility to defuse education to everyone and caters for distant learners.
Impaired learners; Strategic designs and enhancements addressing individual needs.
Teachers’ perspective on e-learning are defined in Malta’s National e-Learning Strategy 2008-2010, called smart learning which is subsidiary to, and integrated with, the national strategies for education and information and communications technology, or Smart Island.
ReplyDeleteWithin this e-learning policy the teachers will have:
The means to create and upload learning material for classroom use
Classrooms equipped with technology
Access to high-quality professional development
The means to upload, distribute, grade and store student assignments in an on-line class space
The means to assess and monitor pupils’ progress online
Training on the integration of ICT in learning
The means to share knowledge with other teachers in other schools
Access to an integrated personal organizer
I see elearning as an opportunity, given the right conditions. I must admit that initially it is going to be an uphill struggle, but by time when on learns to master the art of elearning life will be easier. I think elearning can give an opportunity to those individuals who struggle to communicate face-to-face. Individuals I mean lecturers or non lecturers. Unfortunately for us teaching mortals, individuals who have no experience or training in teaching,might be tempted to deliver teaching through elearning. Will everyone be allowed to deliver elearning teaching?
ReplyDeleteI would like to comment on the following paragraph by Umamaheswari R (2010) taken from her article E-learning Versus Classroom Learning on www.chillibreeze.com.
ReplyDelete"This brings us to the question of how relevant traditional methods of teaching like classroom teaching are in the modern world. Will a teacher or a trainer eventually become dispensable? Will textbooks and other reference books cease to exist? Will there be no schools and colleges in future? Will e-learning companies replace traditional publishing companies?"
The world we live in is always a modern one. Today is more modern than yesterday and tomorrow will be more modern than today. I firmly believe that there is no modern world in which traditional teaching methods become outdated. The big picture tells us that not all students are all of the same level and that methods of teaching have to be customised to cater for all types of students. I think one should be careful to say that we no longer need traditional methods of teaching. Will a teacher or a trainer eventually become dispensable? I would category declare no. The reason being is that someone has to be there to give verbal explanations. Again keeping in mind that not all the students are of the same level of literacy. Will there be no schools and colleges in future? May God help us if this is not so. What kind of community would we be fostering. One that stays indoors and does not socialise? Life on campus means socialising with other students or colleagues. Will e-learning companies replace
traditional publishing companies? This might be for the simple reason that digital books are more easily available at cheaper prices than printed matter.
Reference
Umamaheswari, R. (2010) E-learning Versus Classroom Learning [Internet]. Chilli breeze. Available from:
http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles/E-learningversusClassroomLearning.asp [Accessed 28 June 2010].