Future of Distant Learning

Distant learning is not a new idea, this type of teaching has been offered back in the 1700’s, the difference is as technology got more advanced like audio and visual devices in the early 1900’s. Audio and visual devices has modified how training has been used for over the years, this became the building block on how teaching in schools and universities would need to change. Universities have already started to change to either full online distant learning or to mix traditional and online learning. K-12 schools are now opening the doors to distant learning but are faced with some road blocks.

The future of distant learning will grow in all levels fields but some may take longer than others. Here is what I think would open up for the future of distant learning into two categories 5-10 years and 10-20 years. First the 5- 10 years we can see more partnerships between universities and corporations to specialized degrees and specialized certification programs, textbooks and printed materials will be replaced by online materials, and a greater number of different majors within traditional majors will be offered. For the future 10-20 years I can see the perception of the college campus will change from one dimensional to multi- dimensions, courses will vary in length instead of being semester based, institutions will be leading for the adoption of new technologies, there would be an increase in vocational specific instruction, and offer ways to engage and support different learning styles.

When completing any project, as instructional designer, we need to have a well thought out project, utilizing the design models that we have learned for example the ADDIE mode. As an ID, we need to also use the AEIOU approach to evaluate our project. When utilizing both of these approaches it will lead our outcome of a well thought out project in distant learning. When technology glitches occur, customers are not relating it to the design of distant learning. Also ID needs to take into consideration their populations learning styles (Simonson, 2009) and state the distant learner’s attributes (Dabbagh, 2007), so their distant learning project can be successful.

Distant learning has the advantage to use multiple ways to present material. The creativity of the design will reflex this. Many times I have been in a brick mortar type learning, and when the teacher would narrate a specific idea I would have to think about in my mind to see how it would work. In a distant learning design I can use technology to also present the idea as a visual. This would help me understand the material easier, so I can learn more things about the topic causing more interest and motivation on learning.

With this idea in mind, designing for distant learning can be opened to so many ways, with the use of simulation software, online educational gaming, differential instruction, etc. Hardware technology will also allow a better feel of human connection with simulation and gaming programs. When I presented the works of Pranav Mistry “Sixth Sense” (http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/), definitely allowed me to see how the training industry can change with this Mistry’s invention. He was able to invent a product that allowed the computer to adapt to the humans experience of the world, instead how it is now humans adapting to the restrictions of the computer. If I would take one of the examples from above, a partnership with corporations and universities with training to a specific certifications and combine it with Mistry’s invention, this would open up to the changes of how trainings will be held. As an instructional designer I will need to stay in touch with the new technology that is available to us and consistently think of new designs that can enhance learning.

References

Dabbagh, N. (2007). The online learner: Characteristics and pedagogical implications. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education [Online serial], 7(3). Available: http://www.citejournal.org/vol7/iss3/general/article1.cfm

Mistry, P. (2009). Sixth Sense. Retrieved from http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson

Converting a F2F training to a Distance Learning Format

I was given an assignment to convert a face to face training to a distance learning format: A blended online training.  Below you will see how I plan for this type of change and given example of a past experience that has worked for me.  The key to converting this type of training is to know who you are presenting to, and make your changes that will work best for that audience and always practice the training before the real training to get the kinks out of the implementation stage. 

Click on link below to download the pdf of file on the planning stages of topic above. http://www.mediafire.com/?wdzhm5ygh4bimdh

Evaluation of an Open Source Online Course from Stanford Engineer

Introduction

The course I decided to evaluate is an open source online course offered from Stanford Engineering, http://www.ml-class.org/course/video/preview_list ,  even though the course is coming from an engineering department, the course is called Machine Learning.  I used to be a Mathematics’ major before I switched to Psychology, so this will help me to truly evaluate the course since math as a lot to do with computer programing that can lead to AI- Artificial Intelligence.   These online videos are based on linear algebra.   The pre-requisite skills are the Algebra I & II, Geometry, and Calculus I, II, & III.  The ideas of Linear Algebra are a different way to solve problems with multiple variables that leads to computer coding.  When looking into the course you will hear words like matrices, vectors, and linear equations.  Now let us see how they planned and developed this course for distance learning.

Description & Planning of Course

The title of the course is Machine Learning; here there are a set of 3 sections called Introduction, Linear regression with one variable, and Linear Algebra review, which the last one is optional.  All of the sections consist of videos to watch all within a certain length of time.  The longest video runs for 14 minutes and the shortest video is 6 minutes.  Within the introduction there are 4 videos available that goes in linear order starting with the first video called Welcome.  Below is how the sections are set up.

I.                    Introduction

A.      Welcome – running 7 minutes

B.      What is Machine Learning- running 7 minutes

C.      Supervised Learning- running 12 minutes

D.      Unsupervised Learning- running 14 minutes

II.                  Linear Regression with one variable

A.      Model Representation- running 8 minutes.

B.      Cost function-running 8 minutes

C.      Cost Function- Intuition I-  running 9 minutes

D.      Cost –Function- Intuition II- running 9 minutes

E.       Gradient Descent- running in 11 minutes

F.       Gradient Descent Intuition- running  in 12 minutes

G.     Gradient Descent for Linear Regression- running in 10 minutes

H.      What’s Next- running in 6 minutes

III.                Linear Algebra Review

A.      Matrices and vectors- running in 9 minutes

B.      Addition and Scalar Multiplication –running in 7 minutes

C.      Matrix Vector Multiplication- running in 11 minutes

D.      Matrix & Matrix Multiplication- running in 11minutes

E.       Matrix Multiplication Properties running in 9 minutes

F.       Inverse and Transpose running in 11 minutes

 Each of the videos follow the same layout, you will see a person sitting in front of his computer screen, he turns toward the camera and begins to talk about the  topic having the video zoom towards the computer screen.  Then as you look on to the screen of the computer you will no longer see the person talking but you will be able to hear him.  The person talking (the voice) is always talking about the topic you see on the screen and when the screen starts to show a problem to work on, the voice then describes how to solve the problem using as many visual cues as possible.  Below is a picture of one screen with the voice describing the procedures on how to solve the problem.

                                                                         Figure 1

As you can see in Fig. 1,the voice goes through the problem he lets you know which number he is dealing with by highlighting it with a certain color, and h when he moves along the problem and to another number he changes the color of the highlighter, so when you want to pause the video you can see the connection of which numbers are used.  This procedure is great, because you can see how to solve the problem exactly as if you had a tutor in front of you as a F2F set up.  Another edition that is great is the practice function.  When you look back on the picture you can see two yellow hash lines on the video timeline, these markings let you know when a practice exercise is available.  When you get a chance to work on the problem you get a choice to skip or submit your answer.  There would be 4 answers to choose from, only one is correct. When you pick your answer and click submit you will be told at that point if it’s correct or incorrect.  If incorrect you can still work on the problem to get it correct, or if you don’t want to you can still have the choice to skip it.   There is no place on the video for you to write the problem out, you will still need a piece of paper and a writing utensil.  During the video clip playing you have the choice to press previous video or next video and to zoom in on the screen 1x, 1.2x, and 1.5x.

Conclusion

This open source online program was very well planned with visual cues to follow along and activities for the learner to participate (Simonson, 2009).  Allowing the screen to be legible with multiple options of increasing the screen which would make the letters and numbers bigger (Simonson, 2009).  The lengths of the videos are short to keep the student interested in the topic (Simonson, 2009).  Giving the student options to skip the problem or to see the videos multiple times gives the student options when taking the course (Simonson, 2009).  I enjoyed this course layout so much I gave the link to one of my students in high school who is thinking about electrical engineer for study, now he gets a chance to see the topics and get more information about the subject.  He was able to follow along and answered the problems from the Linear Algebra review.   

Thank you Andrew Ng for making this open source online course. 

References:

Machine Learning Retrieved October 6, 2011 from http://www.ml-class.org/course/video/preview_list

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.