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Unit
Four: What Happens in the E-Learning
Environment?
Unit Overview
This unit addresses the issue
of interactivity, independent research, and psychological issues,
which are central to online curriculum design and course content
selection.
Unit Objectives
At the end of this unit,
the student will be able to do the following:
· Develop a set of questions for use in deciding how a course
can build in interactivity in a number of ways
· Develop a set of guidelines for use in assessing the effectiveness
of the course.
Achieving Effectiveness
It is easy to try to measure the effectiveness of an online course
by instituting certain tests that will result in measurable outcomes
(performance on tests, time on task, number of words written in
essays, number of postings on an online discussion board).
However, these are often artificial outcomes and they give false
results. Standardized tests do not account for cultural
diversity and difference. To make matters worse, to base
course performance on mechanical skills and rote memorization
means that not all students will be able to perform well, due
to difference in learning and cognitive styles.
An online university course is not simply a correspondence course
"tailored" for online delivery, nor is it an onsite, traditional
course "adapted" to online delivery. Online courses are
a completely new instructional method, and they require a new
approach that focuses on:
Proactive learning on the
part of the student, who makes a commitment to allow herself to
be "guided"
Instructor assumes the
role of mentor and guide
· The technology itself becomes an additional guide and actor
in the cognitive development of the learner. Each time the
learner types, his or her hands are sending mental cues to the
brain, and certain associations / knowledge are being classified
and managed. The action of typing is very different the
action of reading a book - the act itself involves processing
of information in ways that passive reading does not.
· Mental encoding in the online environment on the part of the
learner is profound because it combines the learner's past experience
with what is occurring in the here and now.
· Physical actions which encode meaning with action, particularly
intense for kinaesthetic learners. For example, a
unit on Mozart that features a button to click that plays a piece
by Mozart will be processed very differently than simply reading
about Mozart, then subsequently listening to a recording.
· Visual imprints are encoded with meaning based on juxtapositions
and labels found on the page or via links. It is very
important to manage the associations that a learner will make
when reading a page. Be very careful not to make unfortunate
or unintended connections!
i) cognitive / kinaesthetic couplings are strongly reinforced
via the sensory-stimulating "rewards" of click-response actions;
ii) personalized attention from the instructor functions as a
"reward" for certain behaviors (sending e-mail, completing tasks,
etc.);
iii) although there is virtual interaction via discussion boards
and via e-mail and instant messaging with the instructor, the
learner is still working alone, and the identity that he/she creates
becomes "real" as others respond to it.
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