Adrienne Lormé & Gary Proulx
EDU 713 – Spring 2010
Module Two/Assignment 5
One of the fastest growing trends in higher education, “despite a persistent vein of
criticism from faculty and students,” (Ruth, 2010) is online education. Within this realm,
community colleges are seeing the highest growth with approximately 11% enrolled in
some form of on-line courses, (Ruth, 2010). The idea of on-line education has been
around since the late 1960’s early 1970’s when the internet was in its infancy. Since then,
the interest and the demand have steadily increased, as have the technological advances
to make these courses manageable by both student and teacher.
Technology is an influx of change. Everyday more advanced modes of technology
emerges including the usage of online education. In fact, in the Fall of 2007, over “3.9
million students were taking at least one on-line course,”(Ruth, 2010) and that comes to
roughly 20% of all higher eduation students. As Pedagogue, our role and responsibility is
to stay abreast to this technology and evolve with it. As our world becomes more
sophisticated, so will the expectations of our students and the idea of a “traditional, on
campus, in a classroom, teacher led format” might just be a fledgling idea. In order to
keep up, we have to quickly learn and master these new technological advances.
Fortunately, many online companies are providing teachers with free memberships,
tutorials and resources to their new products (O’Connor-Petruso, 2010). These companies
are helping educators familiarize themselves with the emerging technologies and find
ways to incorporate them into the classroom since an ideology behind online education is
to “provide multiple avenues for communication among members (O’Connor, 2010).
These avenues should be in the form of forums, assignments, and wikis. For instance,
Course Management Systems (CMS) have sprung up to help facilitate these new on-line
options. Examples of these are Blackboard, Moodle, and Sakai. These are free, open
source systems yet function like larger scaled Learning Management Systems (LMS),
(Ruth, 2010).
The purpose of incorporating new technology such as Blackboard, Moodle and
Sakai into the classroom is to enhance students learning experience. Teachers have to
help students develop the skills needed to navigate and process the new technology in
order for the students to have a more enriched learning experience. CMS and LMS like
Blackboard and Wiki should open a portal for free flowing information giving students
personal feedback directly from their professors (O’Connor, 2010). How the CMS and
LMS are used depends on the professors. Every course is constructed differently but
ideally the same goals are often sought after. These goals include distributing course
material and facilitating communication among a class community. Methodically, CMS,
LMS, etc. are supposed to help incorporate the principles of constructivism by allowing
students to collaborate, and reflect on their learning by responding to what others may
have posted. In the constructivist approach, students should be working in teams, have a
chance to self-reflect and grow and be able to explore and review not only their work, but
others.
This course, for example, is a fully online course that requires students to be
online not only to post assignments, but to learn how “integrate new and emerging
technologies of Web 2.0 into lesson planning. This course is student-centered, as opposed
to teacher-centered,” (O'Connor-Petruso, 2010). CUNY uses Blackboard, which can be
very expensive, costing upwards of $300k just to use the software and additional costs
each year. As other “open source” CMS’s, such as Moodle, Desire 2Learn, Sakai, and
Wiki, continue to flood the market, they will be more attractive to universitiy systems
over the commercial brands in order to save money. In these tough economic times,
schools and universities must do what they can to attract students to their campus. In
addition to cost, Blackboard has been critcized by educators for not being user-friendly.
Another reason why open-source is on the rise is due to the concept of inclusiveness.
Moodle is designed to incorporate the principles of constructivism, which is
collaborative, reflective learning. In addtion, Moodle has the capability for feedback and
emphasize the unity within a learning community. Finally, Moodle has been able to
accommodate the “ever changing social habits of web users,” (Ruth, 2010). In other
words, Moodle has modularity, something that Blackboard doesn’t have yet.
As the student popluation continues to rely heavily on technology, starting at a
very young age (cell phones, laptops, twitter, facebook, flickr, skype), teachers need to
make sure they are also advancing. This is easier for younger teachers who have used
these technologies in their prepatory courses than those who have been teaching for
years, but absolute necessary. If we want our students to be competitive in the world, then
it is our responsibility to make sure that we are exposing them to these tools and know
how to use them. Perhaps, in the future, a “snow day” for elementary school will just
mean an “online” class.
Works Cited
O'Connor-Petruso, S. A. (2010). From course 713.22NET1 Syllabus. Advanced Study of
Pedagogy and in Childhood Education II .
O’Connor-Petruso, S.A. (2010). From Globilization Text: Embedding Sychronous
Technologies & Sourceware into Curricula.
Ruth, J. S. (2010). Beyond Blackboard: An Update on Course Management Systems. In
F. Girelli-Carasi, & S. A. O'Connor-Petruso, Globalization: Technology, Literacy,
& Curriculum (pp. 91-119). New York: Custom Publishing.