Prompt: What you think about distance education and training at this point starting out the semester? Do you have a positive or negative view? What has been your experience with distance education as an instructor or student?
In my initial investigation into online, distributed, and distance learning, I found related, tangential terms that both confound and delimit the working definitions of distance, distributed, and online learning including open, remote, virtual, flexible, dynamic, long (implying there is short distance learning?). The field of education is still clearly grappling with establishing authority naming protocols and indexed terms for publishing on these topics.
But what do I think about distance education? When Covid was in full swing I learned a lot about myself as an educator and as a learner. Like others, I affirmed my tolerances for computer-based learning and working while also deeply reflecting about my productivity, engagement, and retention in diverse, dynamic environments. Like some, but unlike most, I thrive in blended environments. What this means for me is that I do best when 1) I am given asynchronous, scaffolded, independent learning challenges to explore, 2) have access to synchronous online or in-person communication with classmates/professor, and 3) have multiple technological tools to show the application of my learning. To counter any misconceptions of underlying solphism, I understand and value the different perspectives of other learners along the learning spectrum.
My experience with distance education started in my undergraduate English degree at Texas State University using correspondence courses for literature courses. The weekly materials were printed by the instructor and mailed to my house in a large tri-folded envelope. These included a bibliography of reading materials (that I had to find) and blue books for writing my essays. I mailed these back or dropped them off in a “book-return” looking box on campus. The independence of learning and letting my curiosity determine the depth of my research set new parameters for how I desire to learn. These values and parameters helped me find the UNT COI masters program in Information Science. This was/is the only ALA accredited, online masters course in Texas (residential) that allowed me to keep my job, grow my family, and earn an advanced degree. The model mirrors our LTEC model for an annual meeting and synchronous, online courses.
As a professor now, I feel differently about online education. I had to teach hybrid, blended courses in Covid and would NOT do that again. Here was the situation: I had 22 students in one section. Four students were remote from Korea, China, California, ect. Ten were virtual and self-isolating in the dorm but on campus. Eight students were in person. In-person students had to sit 10 feet apart and bring a laptop and headphones to class to be able to engage with the virtual students. We had to all mute and the one talking had to unmute or we had microphone feedback. And small group discussions required us to relocate to the gym to spread out and allow all microphones to be on without feedback.
From all my personal preferences and professional experiences, I maintain a positive, hopeful view that online learning both synchronous and asynchronous allows personalized access to diverse learners when they need and as they need to engage with concepts. Not everyone is self-directed like I am, so multimodal, scaffolded guidance is amazing and technology provides tools for each type of teacher and learner. I am most critical of how we are managing the psychology of learning and the diverse needs for independent and group led learning. But that is another blog post.
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