Joe McConda on Technology, Education, and Culture

In thinking about designing an online course and reading the Design and Development post, I decided to focus on what was said about equilvalency.  My experience with recipes is very limited, but my wife and I talked about it (she’s a home ec. teacher) and she said that the term equivalent to her means the same, yet different.  I can echo those thoughts from my math background as well…..the same, yet different.  As far as designing an online course, I would think that the very nature of distance education would indicate that the course is to be different, yet it should be the same in terms of learning objectives and outcomes.  Okay, I haven’t said anything different from what has been posted, but I thought I would try to take components of regular classroom and draw anaologies to online courses and see what I come up with.

There are some things that could be the same, for example the course syllabus.  This document handed out at the beginning of a class is also presented at the beginning of an online course and states objectives, policies, activities, due dates, grading, etc.

In a regular classroom, a student has the opportunity to talk to the teacher one on one at various times…..during class, before class, after class, passing in the hallway, etc.  In my mind this would be analogous to IM.  The student has the ability and is encouraged to chat one on one with the teacher anytime the teacher is online.

Class discussions are often a big part of regular classroom routine.  In an online class, the group chat would be the equivalent to this.  Just like in the classroom, the teacher would guide the discussion and pull it back to the course content when needed.

Learning activities such as reading and writing, in a regular class, the text or other materials would be read and students would have writing assignments.  This could be designed in an online course to include a variety of reading materials, including text, online readings such as blogs and other feeds.  Student receive feedback from comments on their papers in a regular class, as well as direct comments from the teacher.  Grades are also a form of feedback.   In an online course, the teacher is able to comment directly on a students’ blog post and also gives grades and can comment through e-mail or IM.

Class interaction, in a regular classroom, is dependent on the students in the class.  The same is true for online classes….the makeup of the class determines to a large degree how much voluntary interaction there is.  In online classes,  the opportunity to IM each other  can be a design feature of the class when the teacher builds that into the plan.  Students can also be encouraged to comment on one another’s writings.  This is a definite plus to online classes because in the regular classroom, students don’t often read others’ writings.  They probably do have the opportunity to listen to classmates present their ideas in class, but they don’t usually read it.  But the class presentation and the  student blog post could be equivalents in the sense that they both give students the opportunity to present their ideas to the teacher and their classmates and receive feedback.

These are the main equivalencies that I would use in designing an online course.  The goal is to set forth the objectives of the course and decide which tools one will use to accomplish those objectives.  The process is the same in both venues, the tools, however, are different.  There are variables , such as stated by Lowell in Recipe is a Bad Metaphor And just as many factors  can affect the classroom climate as the “bread baking” environment.  The designer of both types of courses needs to be aware of the “possibilities” and plan for these.  Students are individuals, whether they are actual bodies in a classroom or bodies in front of their computers at home and they bring many different qualities to the “classroom”.  The teacher needs to be flexible enough to see these differences and adjust when necessary.