EDTECH 501: EdTech Challenges

Qualified Online Instruction

The New Media Consortium (NMC) released their Horizon Report: 2013 Higher Education. Highlighted were 6 significant challenges in technology adoption in higher education.

1. Faculty training still does not acknowledge the fact that digital media literacy continues its rise in importance as a key skill in every discipline and profession.
2. The emergence of new scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and researching outpace sufficient and scalable modes of assessment.
3. Too often it is education’s own processes and practices that limit broader uptake of new technologies.
4. The demand for personalized learning is not adequately supported by current technology or practices.
5. New models of education are bringing unprecedented competition to the traditional models of higher education.
6. Most academics are not using new technologies for learning and teaching, nor for organizing their own research.

I am going to explore Challenge 6 further; most academics are not using new technologies for learning and teaching, nor for organizing their own research.

I  work in the Continuing Education department, in the Open Learning Centre. The Open Learning Centre offers online Continuing Education courses. Based on the fact that all our classes are online, one would assume that we would know everything about new technology and be on the cusp of anything trending and new. In reality, we are being pushed so hard to develop X amount of courses each semester that we are hiring unqualified people to develop the courses and the instructors that teach them are just as unqualified. The instructors have years of experience in the classroom, but very few of the have taken classes about teaching online or are unwilling to admit they might just need some help. Classroom and online teaching are not interchangeable, there are many factors to consider and more training needs to be provided to all our instructors that are expected to teach with us.

To help prepare all instructors that teach online courses, I have noted some important ideas and questions that need to be be answered to make sure that proper training is given before they set foot in the online classroom. These ideas will be presented to the involved parties so that proper screenings of candidates for online instructors is created in addition to requiring online training and support are given before the instructor is given the permission to teach an online course.

Based on an excellent presentation given by Greg Kearsley and Robert Blomeyer at the NCREL Conference in Technology.  Below are a few questions and/or statements that need to be considered before an instructor is hired to teach an online class.

Can anyone teach online? Not necessarily, instructors need to be prepared to sit for long periods of time, responding to student questions, grading assignments, etc. A lot of writing and typing is involved. They need to be comfortable with one-on-one interaction with the students and answer all student questions in a timely manner. They also need to be willing to address all the different learning styles of each student. Each class will need to be tailored for different interactions with different learning styles.

What competencies do online teachers need? Ideally they need to have extensive online experience, possibility having taken a online course themselves and/or prior classes or experience with online learning. Experience with email, threaded discussions, online chats. Be able to know what a online student needs to succeed and know techniques for effective online teaching and learning. Know how to evaluate is the class is quality for online learning and identify any accessibility issues that might need to be considered.

Online teaching effectiveness. To be a successful online instructor you need to possess the following qualities. Provide timely and meaningful feedback and be able to keep the online student engaged throughout the duration of the course. You also need to be able to keep the student motivated and eager to interact with other students in an effective manner. Also encouraging students along the way to be critical and reflective of their work, this could be accomplished by creating blogs or other reflective practices throughout the course.

Online teachers need a lot of support. Instructors that teach online course cannot just be thrown to the wolves without guidance and follow up. They will need technical assistance, administrative assistance, instructional design help if the course needs to be updated and specific help for special needs.

Completion of online training. Once an online training program has been set up possible online instructions might discover that online instruction is not what they expected and this is something they are not up for. They might realize that the workload is not manageable for their current life and feel they do not have the proper tools to succeed. They are not technically inclined to be able to participate in the class fully.

A true successful online class is one that has collaboration between the instructor and students.

Reflection

This was an exciting assignment to me. I was able to find excellent resources that I will be able to share with my Associate Dean and other parties at the college, backing up the notion that we do need a specialized training/technology for all our online instructors. When we have proper training I know that our courses quality and student satisfaction will improve and instructors will have a sense of pride for a job well done each semester.

References
Fuller, D., Norby, R.  Pearce, K.  & Strand, S. (2000). Internet teaching by style: profiling the online professor. Educational Technology & Society, 3(2). Available at http://ifets.ieee.org/periodical/vol_2_2000/pearce.html

Herring, D., Friery, K., Barnes, J., Notar, C., & Fox, N. (2009). Preparing K-12 teachers to teach online. Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 9(1), 4186-4186.

Johnson, L., Adams, B., Cummings, M.,Estrada, V., Freeman A., & Ludgate, H. (2013). The NMC horizon report: 2013 higher education edition. New Media Consortium.

Xtranormal was used to create the video. http://www.xtranormal.com

AECT Standards:3.1 Media Utilization. 3.2 Diffusion of Innovations. Involves a discussion of improving the educational technology and teaching for online classes. 3.3 Implementation and Institutionalization. Used examples from Horizon Report to create a solution for online instruction.