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last.updated 4.17.13

 

Distance Education


Purpose


Although distance education has existed for over a century, mostly as correspondence courses through postal services, radio, and television, this pedagogical approach has proliferated over the last two decades as various computer applications have made it more manageable and accessible–not to mention cheaper and potentially more profitable. For many instructors the challenge of teaching distance education courses is figuring out how to map traditional courses onto a distance course. But this may not be the best approach. Instead, we may want to think of distance education pedagogy as an approach in and of itself. Likewise, we may be able to develop better approaches for teaching aspects of our traditional courses by considering the strategies we use to teach distance education. Today we will examine the best teaching practices for distance education and their implications for other teaching contexts.


ePoster Session and Pedagogical Article

We will discuss the final assignments of the semester–the e-Poster Session and Pedagogical Article.

Activity – Our Principles Were Approved in Vegas

Read though the recently approved Position Statement of Principles for Online Writing Instruction (just the principles). Pretending that the assigned technology below is your campus's primary program for mediating distance education, think about 1) the principles, 2) the assigned technology, 3) the assigned readings, and 4) your own experiences with the assigned technology. Use these sources of information to compose a memo to your provost explaining how writing instructors across campus and their departments/programs should respond to these principles specifically using this technology. You may make assumptions about the faculties current use of these technologies.

Technology Members
WebEx April, Mae, Beth
Blackboard Sarah J, Wil, Matt
Google Documents Sarah S, Susan, Amy

You have an 45 minutes to complete your row. Then we will discuss what we have produced.

Discussion – Talking about DE at a Distance, Mostly

We will discuss the following:

  • What questions, comment, and/or concerns do you have about these articles?
  • What are their respective arguments?
  • Cargile Cook and Rude, respectively, provide suggestions about setting up and preparing for distance education. Due to the growing ubiquity of both technology in classrooms and certain features of distance education (in hybrid classrooms) what suggestions do you think will lose their relevancy (because they will essentially resolve themselves for most)? which suggestions do you think will have staying power?
  • As a distance student in the English PhD program or as a student who has been in one of the courses taught in the Gornto studios (yes, this is all of you), which arguments or claims made in these articles spoke to or contrdicted your experiences?
  • What are the implications for the technology we are using now? What is its potential? What are its limitations?
  • Based upon the readings for today, how might we set up any of the courses that you developed for your pedagogy project to be taught at a distance?