Interactive Tours for the 9-12 classroom

“Technology has the shelf life of a banana.”  Scott McNealy

As the speed of technological innovation continues to hasten, so does the potential for enriched distance learning.  Instructional designers are creating new, exciting opportunities for learners everywhere.  The immense choices of technologies available provide an exciting range of possibilities. 

Case in point

A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the artwork on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. (Walden University)

Role of the Instructional Designer

There are numerous ways that the instructional designer can help the teacher develop this learning module.   But, the most important first step is to determine the lowest common technologies (LCT).   This can be done through a student survey where the students are prompted to list the technologies available to them (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvacek, 2012, p. 116).   Survey Monkey is a user friendly and efficient tool to use to create and administer surveys.  There is no point in developing a module that requires technologies not available to the learners.

Facebook

High school students are likely to be familiar with social networking sites such as Facebook.   “According to a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life project, 55% of precollege Americans ages 12 to 17 were active on social networking sites in 2006” (Simonson, et al, p. 131).  Using Facebook, students can easily take a picture of the two pieces of artwork they choose to critique and begin discussion threads. Similarly, the museum curator can log in to the Facebook page and interact with the students asynchronously.  He /she can engage in a Q&A with the students regardless of time zone or location.

The “tour” of the museum exhibition(s) can take place through video created by the museum and placed on to the Facebook page.  Further, most museums already have virtual tours of their regular collection, albeit they reserve their special exhibits for those that come in for the face-to-face visit. 

Developing a rubric in order to determine if the learning outcomes have been reached is important to the design of this module.  Discussion threads are an easy way to evaluate the students’ ability to question and analyze content. 

Kristen Nicole Cardon, a student in a British Literary course, describes how her teacher facilitated discussions in her class using a Facebook page. She describes various benefits of the use of Facebook in her class including, “We were able to benefit from insights from peers who generally don’t participate in class discussion” and “Through contributions from our classmates, we understood how each distinct text related to the others and to the class focus, and so on” (Walsh, 2010).  Facebook is a great tool to use for lively discussion threads particularly because of the familiarity of the platform and the ease of use. 

Facebook is also used in the classroom for other purposes.  Not only do the discussion threads provide a platform for developing your ideas but also Facebook gives students a voice they may not of otherwise had.  In a recent article from the popular educational website, Edutopia, I learned how teachers have been using Facebook to give students a voice and to promote advocacy (Walpert-Gawron, 2010). The Buffelgrass Shall Perish fan page provided Mr. Brian Kievit’s middle school students the opportunity to send their message to a broader community using Facebook (2010). 

Facebook is a useful tool, with which the teacher can effectively apply distributed learning, 

allowing “instructor, students, and content to be located in different, non-centralized locations so that instruction and learning occur independent of place and time” (Simonson, et al, 2012, p. 124).

Virtual Worlds

Perhaps a bit ambitious, but another exciting possibility is the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life. Virtual worlds “appear to have exciting potential for placing students in real-life applications of course content”  (Simonson, et al, 2012, p. 132).  The instructional designer can recreate the desired exhibition and the students’ avatars can interact with the art within the virtual world.  

This is an exciting concept but the limitations may be too difficult to overcome.  The necessity of a large bandwidth for users and the extensive amount of time required to recreate the scenarios (Simonson, et al, p. 132) may make this technology impossible for the teacher and instructional designer alike.  However, once developed it would be the next best thing to purchasing a round trip ticket to New York City and being there in person.

Many educators are already experimenting with tools like Second Life.  As part of a Global Kids Inc. initiative, Second Life was used to enhance content in urban classrooms.  They warn not to underestimate the power of Second Life as an instructional tool especially when teamed with other Web 2.0 tools (Joseph, Santo, Tsai, 2007, p. 18). Global Kids offers some ideas for implementing Second Life in classrooms such as creating interactive workshops and photo shows (Joseph, et al, 2007, p. 19).  Both of these would be useful in our scenario. 

Wikis, Blogs and Video Conferencing (Skype)

Depending on the availability of technology and the experience of the instructional designer and the teacher, the right choice may be different from the two outlined above.  Wikis provide an easy to use platform for collaboration.  Videos can be loaded as widgets and discussion threads can be used to critique artwork or/and interact with the museum curators.  Other possibilities include the use of blogs for ease of communication and or video conferencing tools such as Skype to interact with the museum curators in real time.    

References

Joseph, B., Santo, R., & Tsai, T. (2007, July). Best practices in using virtual worlds for education 

     [PDF]. 

Scott McNealy's top five. (2006, April 25). Retrieved from Tech Republic website:

     (http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/scott-mcnealys-top-five-one-liners-of-all-time/349)

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a    

            distance Foundations of distance education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Walsh, K. (2010, August). Facebook as an instructional technology tool [Newsgroup post]. Retrieved 

     from EmergingEd Tech website: http://www.emergingedtech.com/2010/08/ 

     facebook-as-an-instructional-technology-tool/ 

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2010, May). Social media in education: The power of Facebook [Newsgroup post]. 

     Retrieved from Edutopia website: http://www.edutopia.org/ 

     social-media-education-examples-facebook 

 

What the Future Holds: The Evolution of Distance Education

When I graduated from high school in 1985, there were many factors that affected future educational choices.  Had distance education offered the range of opportunities it does today, my choices would possibly have been different.  Although distance education has been around for over 160 years, in 1985 it was not even a consideration for most of us.  I had no idea that distance learning degrees were offered although the limited scope of these would of have hampered my interest in them even if I had known.   Upon starting my teaching career in 1990, I became aware of correspondence courses offered to many high school students, particularly those that needed remediation or wanted to take courses not offered at the school.  

A few years later, when I moved to the American School in Kingston, Jamaica, I found myself coordinating the correspondence course program offering high school degrees from the University of Nebraska. These courses were comprehensive, required self-motivation and initiative from the students, and provided very limited interaction between the teacher/facilitator and student. I think it was this early experience with distance education that made me so skeptical about participating in an online degree program.  Prior to my experience seeking a degree in Instructional Design and Technology, distance learning was something that you engage in if you have absolutely no other alternative.  I viewed distance education as a reading list and a set of questions, only there to demonstrate what we already knew or could learn on our own. 

Today, distance learning is not only defined by what is available now but also by what is possible in the near future. Distance education connects the learner and the teacher using the ever increasing advances in technology communications.   Garrison and Steele offer the following criteria for distance education:

            1. Distance education implies that the majority of educational communication

between (among) teacher and student(s) occurs noncontiguously.

2. Distance education must involve two-way communication between (among)

teacher and student(s) for the purpose of facilitating and supporting the

educational process.

3. Distance education uses technology to mediate the necessary two-way

communication. (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, Zvackek, 2012, p. 35)

Distance education today is much more than a mere reading list and set of questions.  It requires interaction between teacher, student and content.  An interesting debate has emerged possibly sparked by the work of Otto Peters.  Peters used industrialization to explain his rationale for distance education. Focusing on the changes in distance education over the years, educators have used Henry Ford’s industrialization model to explain its evolution.  Post-Fordist thought focuses on “product innovation, process variability, and labor responsibility” (p. 54).  It stresses the needs of the student and the responsibility of the teachers to meet these needs and provide feedback. It is more flexible and individually customized as it focuses more on the consumer, the students, than the product.  While educators continue to research and debate over how learning takes place, what conditions are best and which strategies are most effective, post-Fordists promote a constructionist view of learning. Distance learning today adheres to many of the post-Fordist ideas encouraging students to learn through experiences (p. 58).  The idea of mass produced learning programs (Fordist) would not meet the needs or the expectations of this technology savvy generation.

The future of distance education will be driven by technological advances and research on learning theory.  The ability to target instruction so that optimum learning takes place using all of the technology resources available, I believe, is the goal of distance education.   Not only will distance education offer learners more choice and flexibility, but quality of education will also become a benefit.  Much more research needs to be collected on the use of eLearning for K-12 (Huett, Moller, Foshay, Coleman, 2008) but more and more we will see blended approaches in traditional settings. The future will bring exponential growth of distance education (Laureate Education, n.d.).  As e-schools emerge and the use of technology is prevalent in K-12 settings across the world, it is easy to conclude that web-based learning will be used across grade levels and through higher education, although it is unlikely to ever replace traditional face-to-face instruction particularly in the K-12 environment (Laureate Education, n.d.). 

 See "The Future of Distance Education: The Sky's the Limit"

References

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Coleman, C. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–6 7.

Laureate Education Inc., (Producer). (n.d.). Distance education: The next generation [Video]. Baltimore, MD : Simonson, M.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Distance Learning

Distance learning is changing how we view education.  Education is becoming more accessible and personalized as a result.  As a student in an on-line learning situation, I am a major benefactor of the advent of distance learning.  I look forward to posting much more on this in the coming weeks.