3 Things I Learned

Since I have previously read the Distance Education and eLearning: A Brief Introduction article, I decided to reflect on what I had learned about presenting distance education programs during last summer’s EDTEC 700 course.

1. Practice is essential. Often distance courses are only conducted once and in a tight time slot, so if things don’t go smoothly there is no “do over” or possibility of postponing the class. In one of my practice sessions, I discovered that the topic I had selected for group discussion fell flat. The participants had a lot of trouble generating ideas and discussion around the topic. Fortunately, this occurred during a practice session with a few friends and family members, so I was able to add a video as a conversation starter before the discussion session during the “official” class.

2. There are multiple resources available on the Internet. Due to the short length of the class and my choice of topics, I found myself searching the Internet for source materials for the mini-classes we delivered. For example, part of the class requirements required that we incorporate a video segment into our class. I, and many of my classmates, found our video clips through YouTube. Prior to this class, I had only viewed YouTube once or twice, but now I realize it contains a huge assortment of videos that may be used in both distance and classroom settings. Yes, I realize that copyright issues may still need to be resolved.

I was also able to find several sources of information that shape my topics including providing content and ideas for discussion sessions.

3. Almost any topic will work. I was inspired by the diverse topics presented by fellow students during the last class to start re-thinking which “classroom” training topics could also be delivered by “distance”. Like many trainers, I still find myself leaning towards saying “There is no way.” when it comes to converting some topics to an online format. With the emergence of collaborative/social features of the Internet, it is now possible to do a lot more things online. I would like to find a way to include a wiki or a shared workspace like Google Docs in some of my future projects.

Anne Gossett