Blog #3 Online Education for Practicing Professionals

SUMMARY

Computer mediated communication or CMC, offers a new type of learning called distance learning for students. In On-line Education for Practicing Professionals: A Case Study, Heather Duncan takes a deep look into this type of education. CMC comes with a lot of stigmas to begin with. Duncan wanted to determine if these were true or not from her own research.

Distance learning involves a type of communication called asynchronous communication. This means that the students can participate at their leisure. Of course there are deadlines for various assignments and web based conversations, students can enter their data at 3:30 in the morning on a Tuesday if they wanted to.

This study was made up of 8 students’ participants and 1 teacher participant. It took place using a master’s level education course called “Curriculum for Rural, Northern and Aboriginal Schools”. The study was qualitative and included data from different sources. In addition to computerized instruction, data was also retrieved by means of “face to face” interviews.

This qualitative study focused on the types of interaction among the students and the teacher. In addition, the study included the participant’s perceptions of the overall experience.

Interactions between the participants were broken down into task-related instruction and relational posts. Their class was organized on WebCT and the researcher (the author of this article and originally a co-teacher of the course) acted as technical support.

In the beginning of the course, the students were not spending too much time on the relational portion of the class. They prioritized their assignments and though relational reports were a portion of their grades, they all felt that written assignments take precedence over “socializing”.

Positive factors for the study include but are not limited to course content relevance, personal safety, self reflection time and self expression. Students described the course content as “inviting, engaging and thought provoking” (Duncan, 2005). In Fran’s case (one of the student participants), she felt that she was more expressive in the class because she wasn’t face to face with other students. She says this class promoted “risk-taking” in people during her final interview.

Negative factors include withdrawal of students, access problems, lack of computer knowledge and difficulty meeting for group assignments. Two of the original students had to withdraw from the class because they lived in remote areas where they could not get access to the internet. For those students who had never taken an online class before, learning how to use their computers was a class on its own. Finally, getting together for group assignments online was particularly “cumbersome” because everyone has different schedules. Collaborative learning seems to take awake the asynchronous factor from this class.

Duncan concluded that overall, this was a positive experience for the students. They had more positive than negative comments. They came into the class with low expectations and left somewhat surprised.

REVIEW

Personal safety was mentioned as a positive factor of distance learning. In the physical sense, graduate students (who generally take their classes in the evening) were happier to stay in the safety of their own home. Duncan noted that university attacks usually take place at night and on women. The security of being able to go to school at home is “nice”.

Honestly, I was very unhappy to read this. I go to school at night three times a week and I like to have more faith in public safety. Though I have heard of women being raped in various parking lots, I don’t have the same qualms about it yet because it hasn’t happened to me (hopefully it never will). I always walk with another person.

I mention this because I think it’s wrong that an apparent solution to parking lot rapists is women being confined to their homes.

We can’t even go to school anymore because of these sick people? I feel like we are giving in…