Most students do not want an online education, and many are calling for reductions in tuition fees to compensate for what they perceive might be a lower-quality education and experience. Some might choose to wait for a return to on-campus delivery.
Most professors do not want to teach in an online environment because they value engaging with students in discussions, debates, and laboratory demonstrations. There are many good pedagogical reasons why most post-secondary education continues to take place in a face-to-face, on-campus delivery mode despite the longstanding availability of technology to support online teaching.
Professor and student preferences aside, there is a more pressing problem looming.
There is precious little time for professors to change all of their courses to an online mode of delivery.
Nova Scotia Universities and Colleges need a significant and urgent infusion of funding from the provincial government to cover the increased costs of converting post-secondary education into an entirely different mode of operation over the next three months. Universities cannot be expected to cover those costs alone, and neither should students.
experts in distance learning warned that it can magnify inequities, with the most able and highly advantaged learners humming along while learners who need more support fall far behind.
ParentsTogether, in its survey of 1,500 of its members across the country, discovered big gaps — both by income levels and between families with and without children in special education. The online survey wasn’t a scientifically weighted sample, but it was geographically, racially and socioeconomically diverse.
Freire’s pedagogical concepts, such as problem posing, dialogue, praxis, conscientiazation and the politics of education, were devel-oped in a pre-Internet era. His work in popular education was deeply interpersonal and involved spending significant time in a community becoming familiar with the culture, linguistic patterns, and lifestyle of the people before ever embarking on teaching.
struggles to employ a critical pedagogy in the increasingly assessment-oriented, outcomes-based environment
While designed to make teaching in the online environment more efficient, these systems confront the critical pedagogue with challenges to create a teaching-learning environment that promotes critical reflection not only on the content of a course but on the very way in which content is delivered.
teaching in cyberspace requires a different teaching paradigm altogether
p. 170 Feenberg (2009) developed the Critical Theory of Technology (CTT),
p. 171 As outlined by CTT, technology creates a cyber culture that redefines human identity and the meaning and means of human interaction (Gomez, 2009). When viewed through this lens, online education is not simply another tool for the promotion of learning, but rather an all-encompassing environment managing and controlling access to information, structuring relationships, and redefining individual identities.
p. 171 While masquerading as efforts to enhance student learning, these industries are clearly profit-oriented. Knowledge has become a commodity, students have become consumers, faculty have become content providers, and schools operate as businesses
p. 172 Like Feenberg (2009), Freire would be concerned with the values and principles embedded in the technology of online learning, as well as the cyber culture it has created.
p. 173 Schools did not venture into online learning because they thought it was a better way to teach, but rather because they saw it as a way to reach unreached student populations with the promise of off-site educational offerings. Only later was attention given to developing online pedagogies.
Whereas education in the United States was originally viewed as a way to prepare students for effective citizenship, now it is seen as a way to develop loyal and capable employees of their corporate overlords
p. 174 A second area of concern is the banking nature of the LMSs. One of the underlying assumptions of an LMS like Blackboard™, Moodle™, or Brightspace™ is that the online platform is a repository of resources for teaching and learning.
Freire vehemently rejected this banking approach to education because it did not recognize or encourage the student’s creative, exploratory, and critical abilities. In the banking model the teacher is regarded as the holder and transmitter of knowledge, which is then imparted to the student. The banking model assumes the student is an empty vessel and does not value or recognize the student’s experiential and cultural knowledge
By contrast Freire argued for a problem-posing, constructivist approach that invites students to critically engage their world and one another. In the critical classroom, the student at times takes on the role of teacher and the teacher becomes a learner, inviting a sharing of power and mutual learning. While this approach can be carried out to an extent online, the LMS is set up to be the primary source of information in a course, and the teacher is assigned as the expert designer of the learning experience, thus limiting the constructivist nature and mutuality of the learning process.
p. 175 A third area of concern is the limited access to online learning to large sectors of society. While e-learning advocates tout the greater access to learning provided by online learning (Goral, 2013; Kashi & Conway, 2010), the digital divide is a reality impacting millions of students.
p. 176 A final area of concern is the disembodied nature of the online learning process. One of the major attractions of online learning to potential students is the freedom from having to be in a classroom in a particular time or place.
p. 177 Embodied learning means students must not only engage the cognitive dimension (thinking and reflection), but also partake in concrete action. This action in reflection, and reflection in action, referred to as praxis, involves acting on and in the world as one is seeking to learn about and transform the world.
To limit education to the transmission and reception of text-based knowledge without action undermines the entire learning process (Escobar et al., 1994). Freire believed dialogue begins not with what the teacher professes to know, but with the student’s experience and knowledge.
p. 179 For Freire, the building of a learning community is essential to creating meaningful dialogue; this is also true for those who seek to teach effectively online. Palloff and Pratt (2007) contend that all online teaching must begin with building community and stress that a carefully constructed online learning community provides a space for students to test ideas, get feedback, and create a collaborative learning experience.
For Freire, learning was a social and democratic event where authoritarianism and control of the learning process are minimized. “reading the world,” or conscientization, that is, understanding the larger political context in which experience occurs and knowledge is situated. In the current era of Facebook, Twitter, instant message, and other social media, in-depth discussion and analysis is often absent in favor of brief, often innocuous statements and personal opinions. Through online academic databases, students have easy access to far more sources of information than previous generations. Furthermore, search engines like Google, Yahoo, and the like bring students in contact with remote sources, organizations, and individuals instantly.
p. 180 the challenge is not only the accessing of information, but also encouraging students to become discerning purveyors of information—to develop “critical digital literacy,” the capacity to effectively and critically navigate the databases and myriads of potential sources (Poore, 2011, p. 15)
when we talk about online education is using digital technologies to transform the learning experience,” said Vijay Govindarajan, a professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. “That is not what is happening right now. What is happening now is we had eight days to put everything we do in class onto Zoom.”
Conceiving, planning, designing and developing a genuine online course or program can consume as much as a year of faculty training and collaboration with instructional designers, and often requires student orientation and support and a complex technological infrastructure.
if there’s a silver lining in this situation for residential colleges and universities, it’s that students no longer take for granted the everyday realities of campus life: low-tech face-to-face classes, cultural diversions, libraries, athletics, extracurricular activities, in-person office hours and social interaction with their classmates.
Online higher education “is a thin diet for the typical 18-year-old,” said Richard Garrett, chief research officer at Eduventures. “But today’s 18-year-olds are tomorrow’s 28-year-olds with families and jobs, who then realize that online can be useful.”
Along with their students, faculty were “thrown into the deep end of the pool for digital learning and asked to swim,” Moe said. “Some will sink, some will crawl to the edge of the pool and climb out and they’ll never go back in the pool ever again. But many will figure out what to do and how to kick and how to stay afloat.”
National Research Council’s (2000) four types of learning environments: assessment-centered, community-centered, knowledge-centered, and learner-centered.
In higher education, 29.7% of all students are taking at least one distance course.
The total distance enrollments are composed of 14.3% of students (2,902,756)
taking exclusively distance courses and 15.4% (3,119,349) who are taking a
combination of distance and non-distance courses. The vast majority (4,999,112,
or 83.0%) of distance students are studying at the undergraduate level.
Almost half of the distance education students are concentrated in just five percent of the institutions, while the top 47 institutions, only 1.0% of the total, enroll 23.0% (1,385,307) of all distance students.
The total number of students studying on campus (those not taking any distance course or taking a combination of distance and non-distance courses) dropped by almost one million (931,317) between 2012 and 2015. The largest declines came at for-profit institutions, which saw a 31.4% drop, followed by 2-year public institutions, which saw a 10.4% decrease.
69% of online students identified employment as their primary goal for entering a program. 17% are grad students.
Seventy percent of administrators said they launch new programs with enrollment growth in mind, while meeting marketing and recruitment goals was their top concern.
Protopsalt is is a professor at George Mason University, where he directs Center for Education Policy and Evaluation. He previously served as a senior official in the U.S. Department of Education.
At four-year universities, students with high grades often did just as well in an online course, but those with low grades suffered more. Another 2017 study of students at a for-profit university which offers both in-person and online classes found that students who took an online class not only got lower grades in that class but also in future classes. Online students were more likely to drop out of college altogether than similar students who attended in-person classes.
The question is whether we should keep expanding online learning, with generous federal subsidies, to the most vulnerable students before colleges have tested and proven they can educate them adequately outside the classroom.
Many librarians have shied away from ICT literacy, concerned that they may be asked how to format a digital document or show students how to create a formula in a spreadsheet. These technical skills focus more on a specific tool than on the underlying nature of information.
librarians have begun to use an embedded model as a way to deepen their connection with instructors and offer more systematic collection development and instruction. That is, librarians focus more on their partnerships with course instructors than on a separate library entity.
If TPACK is applied to instruction within a course, theoretically several people could be contributing this knowledge to the course. A good exercise is for librarians to map their knowledge onto TPACK.
ICT reflects the learner side of a course. However, ICT literacy can be difficult to integrate because it does not constitute a core element of any academic domain. Whereas many academic disciplines deal with key resources in their field, such as vocabulary, critical thinking, and research methodologies, they tend not to address issues of information seeking or collaboration strategies, let alone technological tools for organizing and managing information.
Instructional design for online education provides an optimal opportunity for librarians to fully collaborate with instructors.
The outcomes can include identifying the level of ICT literacy needed to achieve those learning outcomes, a task that typically requires collaboration between the librarian and the program’s faculty member. Librarians can also help faculty identify appropriate resources that students need to build their knowledge and skills. As education administrators encourage faculty to use open educational resources (OERs) to save students money, librarians can facilitate locating and evaluating relevant resources. These OERs not only include digital textbooks but also learning objects such as simulations, case studies, tutorials, and videos.
Reading online text differs from reading print both physically and cognitively. For example, students scroll down rather than turn online pages. And online text often includes hyperlinks, which can lead to deeper coverage—as well as distraction or loss of continuity of thought. Also, most online text does not allow for marginalia that can help students reflect on the content. Teachers and students often do not realize that these differences can impact learning and retention. To address this issue, librarians can suggest resources to include in the course that provide guidance on reading online.
My note – why specialist like Tom Hergert and the entire IMS is crucial for the SCSU library and librarians and how neglecting the IMS role hurts the SCSU library –
Similarly, other types of media need to be evaluated, comprehended, and interpreted in light of their critical features or “grammar.” For example, camera angles can suggest a person’s status (as in looking up to someone), music can set the metaphorical tone of a movie, and color choices can be associated with specific genres (e.g., pastels for romances or children’s literature, dark hues for thrillers). Librarians can explain these media literacy concepts to students (and even faculty) or at least suggest including resources that describe these features
My note – on years-long repetition of the disconnect between SCSU ATT, SCSU library and IMS –
instructors need to make sure that students have the technical skills to produce these products. Although librarians might understand how media impacts the representation of knowledge, they aren’t necessarily technology specialists. However, instructors and librarians can collaborate with technology specialists to provide that expertise. While librarians can locate online resources—general ones such as Lynda.com or tool-specific guidance—technology specialists can quickly identify digital resources that teach technical skills (my note: in this case IMS). My note: we do not have IDs, another years-long reminder to middle and upper management. Many instructors and librarians have not had formal courses on instructional design, so collaborations can provide an authentic means to gain competency in this process.
My note: Tom and I for years have tried to make aware SCSU about this combo –
Instructors likely have high content knowledge (CK) and satisfactory technological content knowledge (TCK) and technological knowledge (TK) for personal use. But even though newer instructors acquire pedagogical knowledge (PK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) early in their careers, veteran instructors may not have received this training. The same limitations can apply to librarians, but technology has become more central in their professional lives. Librarians usually have strong one-to-one instruction skills (an aspect of PK), but until recently they were less likely to have instructional design knowledge. ICT literacy constitutes part of their CK, at least for newly minted professionals. Instructional designers are strong in TK, PK, and TPK, and the level of their CK (and TCK and TPK) will depend on their academic background. And technology specialists have the corner on TK and TCK (and hopefully TPK if they are working in educational settings), but they may not have deep knowledge about ICT literacy.
Therefore, an ideal team for ICT literacy integration consists of the instructor, the librarian, the instructional designer, and the technology specialist. Each member can contribute expertise and cross-train the teammates. Eventually, the instructor can carry the load of ICT literacy, with the benefit of specific just-in-time support from the librarian and instructional designer.
My note: I have been working for more then six years as embedded librarian in the doctoral cohort and had made aware the current library administrator (without any response) about my work, as well as providing lengthy bibliography (e.g.https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2017/08/24/embedded-librarian-qualifications/ and have had meeting with the current SOE administrator and the library administrator (without any response).
I also have delivered discussions to other institutions (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2018/04/12/embedded-librarian-and-gamification-in-libraries/) Librarians should seriously consider TPACK as a way to embed themselves into the classroom to incorporate information and ICT literacy.
Date: Wednesday, April 3rd Time: 3:30 PM to 4:15 PM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 3 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Brian Kane (General Design LLC) Track: Research: Designs, Methods, and Findings Location: Juniper A Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:What happens when you apply design thinking to AI? AI presents a fundamental change in the way people interact with machines. By applying design thinking to the way AI is made and used, we can generate an unlimited amount of new ideas for products and experiences that people will love and use.https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/olc-innovate-2019-session-page/?session=6964&kwds=
Notes from the session:
design thinking: get out from old mental models. new narratives; get out of the sci fi movies.
narrative generators:
we need machines to make mistakes. Ai even more then traditional software.
Lessons learned: don’t replace people
Date: Thursday, April 4th Time: 8:45 AM to 9:30 AM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 4 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Matt Crosslin (University of Texas at Arlington LINK Research Lab) Track: Experiential and Life-Long Learning Location: Cottonwood 4-5 Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:How can teachers utilize chatbots and artificial intelligence in ways that won’t remove humans out of the education picture? Using tools like Twine and Recast.AI chatobts, this session will focus on how to build adaptive content that allows learners to create their own heutagogical educational pathways based on individual needs.++++++++++++++++
Date: Thursday, April 4th Time: 9:45 AM to 10:30 AM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 5 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Maikel Alendy (FIU Online) Co-presenter: Sky V. King (FIU Online – Florida International University) Track: Teaching and Learning Practice Location: Cottonwood 4-5 Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:“This is Us” demonstrates how leveraging storytelling in learning engages students to effectively communicate their authentic story, transitioning from consumerism to become creators and influencers. Addressing responsibility as a digital citizen, information and digital literacy, online privacy, and strategies with examples using several edtech tools, will be reviewed.++++++++++++++++++
Date: Thursday, April 4th Time: 11:15 AM to 12:00 PM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 6 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Kristin Bushong (Arizona State University ) Co-presenter: Heather Nebrich (Arizona State University) Track: Effective Tools, Toys and Technologies Location: Juniper C Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:Considering today’s overstimulated lifestyle, how do we engage busy learners to stay on task? Join this session to discover current efforts in implementing ubiquitous educational opportunities through customized interests and personalized learning aspirations e.g., adaptive math tools, AI support communities, and memory management systems.+++++++++++++
Date: Thursday, April 4th Time: 1:15 PM to 2:00 PM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 7 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Katie Linder (Oregon State University) Co-presenter: June Griffin (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) Track: Teaching and Learning Practice Location: Cottonwood 4-5 Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:The concept of High-impact Educational Practices (HIPs) is well-known, but the conversation about transitioning HIPs online is new. In this session, contributors from the edited collection High-Impact Practices in Online Education will share current HIP research, and offer ideas for participants to reflect on regarding implementing HIPs into online environments.https://www.aacu.org/leap/hipshttps://www.aacu.org/sites/default/files/files/LEAP/HIP_tables.pdf+++++++++++++++++++++++
Date: Thursday, April 4th Time: 3:45 PM to 5:00 PM Streamed session Lead Presenter: Manoush Zomorodi (Stable Genius Productions) Track: N/A Location: Adams Ballroom Session Duration: 1hr 15min Brief Abstract:How can we ensure that students and educators thrive in increasingly digital environments, where change is the only constant? In this keynote, author and journalist Manoush Zomorodi shares her pioneering approach to researching the effects of technology on our behavior. Her unique brand of journalism includes deep-dive investigations into such timely topics as personal privacy, information overload, and the Attention Economy. These interactive multi-media experiments with tens of thousands of podcast listeners will inspire you to think creatively about how we use technology to educate and grow communities.Friday
Date: Friday, April 5th Time: 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM Streamed session Lead Presenter: Michael Caulfield (Washington State University-Vancouver) Track: N/A Location: Adams Ballroom Position: 2 Session Duration: 60min Brief Abstract:Years ago, John Lyndon (then Johnny Rotten) sang that “anger is an energy.” And he was right, of course. Anger isn’t an emotion, like happiness or sadness. It’s a reaction, a swelling up of a confused urge. I’m a person profoundly uncomfortable with anger, but yet I’ve found in my professional career that often my most impactful work begins in a place of anger: anger against injustice, inequality, lies, or corruption. And often it is that anger that gives me the energy and endurance to make a difference, to move the mountains that need to be moved. In this talk I want to think through our uneasy relationship with anger; how it can be helpful, and how it can destroy us if we’re not careful.++++++++++++++++
Date: Friday, April 5th Time: 10:45 AM to 11:30 AM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 10 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Laurie Daily (Augustana University) Co-presenter: Sharon Gray (Augustana University) Track: Problems, Processes, and Practices Location: Juniper A Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:The purpose of this session is to explore the implementation of a Community of Practice to support professional development, enhance online course and program development efforts, and to foster community and engagement between and among full and part time faculty.+++++++++++++++
Date: Friday, April 5th Time: 11:45 AM to 12:30 PM Conference Session: Concurrent Session 11 Streamed session Lead Presenter: Katrina Rainer (Strayer University) Co-presenter: Jennifer M McVay-Dyche (Strayer University) Track: Teaching and Learning Practice Location: Cottonwood 2-3 Session Duration: 45min Brief Abstract:Learning is more effective and organic when we teach through the art of storytelling. At Strayer University, we are blending the principles story-driven learning with research-based instructional design practices to create engaging learning experiences. This session will provide you with strategies to strategically infuse stories into any lesson, course, or curriculum.
interviewed administrators at systems across the United States for a wide look at how the landscape is shifting.
The University of Missouri System last year signaled plans to increase its total enrollment from 75,000 to 100,000 by 2023. Administrators pointed to online education as a key driver of future growth.
In other ways, the Missouri system’s approach could look similar to Massachusetts’. Administrators in Missouri are pondering the creation of a separate entity within the system that would offer online programs to adult learners.
Administrators have ruled out purchasing or merging with an existing online apparatus, as Purdue University did with the for-profit Kaplan University to enrollment-expanding but controversial effect.
Senior administrators and board members at Louisiana State University began looking at online education in the early 2010s.
From 2016 to 2018, Sasha Thackaberry served as assistant vice president of academic technology, course production and alternative learning models at Southern New Hampshire University. Louisiana State hired her in February 2018 to lead its online growth; three months later, she was promoted from associate vice provost to vice provost of digital and continuing education.
When Kristina Johnson became chancellor of the State University of New York system in 2017, she challenged administrators to consider a wide range of possibilities for growing online capabilities. According to Tod Laursen, SUNY’s senior vice chancellor and provost, the system has just wrapped up an information-gathering process that will inform a soon-to-be-released request for proposals. Johnson has slated for this fall a major online learning initiative, the details of which are still being ironed out.
Colorado State University Online serves as an online program manager for the state system — distinct from Colorado State University Global, which has a separate faculty and governance structure, and tends to serve adults at an average age in their 30s. CSU Online, by contrast, tends to serve “less seasoned” students between 24 and 34 years old, according to Amy Smith, senior director of CSU Online.
