Another oversimplified, reactionary critique of online learning

Francisco Dao writes, “If you listen to the advocates of online learning, MOOCs and Internet-based courses will cure all of our education problems. Just hand out some Android tablets, stream some courses in Python, and sit back and watch as everyone magically becomes a highly productive knowledge worker propelling the United States to new heights of economic prosperity. But this vision of online learning is so ridiculous I’m waiting for Ricardo Montalban to show up in a white suit and welcome these people to Fantasy Island.”

I have no idea what wretched organization he’s referring to, or what e-learning professional would ever recommend handing out toys and expect results. 

I’ve written time and time again the critical need for, at the very least, the ADDIE model when considering any new learning initiative (academic or industry).  There is an incredible level of upfront analysis that Dao seems to have never experienced.  The modality of instruction is merely one of the questions an e-learning practitioner considers when designing and developing instruction – and any practitioner who only sees the bells and whistles of a tablet PC is in the wrong field.

There’s Trouble With Online College, But the NYT Misses the Mark

Thanks to my former colleague Ben Miller for tweeting this article.  You can look at the original article from The New York Times here.

There is trouble with online college, certainly, and as a relatively new method of education (including fully-online degrees), there are significant obstacles through which the education community needs to break.   It’s not had the pedagogical study that decades of face-to-face, traditional university settings have had.  And pedagogical methods are changing as rapidly as the latest iPad lands in a freshman dorm.  So let’s take a look at where the NYT oversimplifies and misses the mark on its criticism of online college.

By opening with Stanford’s much-lauded Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), it fails to distinguish the significant differences between those low-risk courses and enrolling in an online course as a fee-paying student.  90% attrition isn’t surprising, considering:

• Students enrolled in a MOOC have very little incentive to succeed; there is no “punishment” like a poor grade, being forced to repeat a course, or pay back financial aid.
• Rarely do students enroll in a MOOC for anything other than professional development or personal interest.
• Many hiring, employment, and business experts discourage including non-credit courses on a resume.

Don’t get me wrong – I love TED as much as the next gal.  But I wouldn’t consider myself a “student” when I’m watching an instructional video or free lecture.

Let’s turn to actual, high-stakes online courses.  The article goes on to rightly point out the serious barriers that factor into being a true online student.  “The research has shown over and over again that community college students who enroll in online courses are significantly more likely to fail or withdraw than those in traditional classes, which means that they spend hard-earned tuition dollars and get nothing in return. Worse still, low-performing students who may be just barely hanging on in traditional classes tend to fall even further behind in online courses.”

These retention figures are a norm across the country.  But universities and small community colleges have tools and research to institute policies and help students achieve.  Students who can simply sign up for an online class, get an instructor who is not prepared for the online environment, and fail because they lack technological capabilities is a tragedy.  At a minimum, all online programs should offer the following basics:

• Rigorous frontloading and required training for faculty who want to teach online.  An instructor should go through a comprehensive training program that includes practice, mentoring, and, if unsuccessful, should not be allowed to teach online.
• Restriction on enrollment for students who lack online skills.  These skills could be tested in an assessment center prior to enrollment.  It should test advanced technical skills; time management; and understanding of differences between online and face-to-face environments as starting points.  Further, students should be required to have a modern, well-functioning computer with several “back-ups” in case of hardware failure (such as the library).  Equipment failure is not an option for the online student.
• Continuing education and development for both faculty and students as technology changes.

Instructors should be trained on the concept of online presence.  Managing students through weekly e-mails isn’t enough.  Video, VoIP, imagery, discussion boards, and journals are all simple and easy-to-use tools that move the instructor away from an anonymous facilitator and back into the role of professor.  (And this just scratches the surface in terms of what instructors should and should not be doing to instruct a successful online course).

Certainly, online courses are a cash cow for many institutions (especially the for-profits who pre-package dry course material that can be cycled through dozens of instructors without changing).  The initial expense of training instructors and preparing students for the online environment would be easily overcome with a highly successful online program that attracts students globally.  What it takes is significant planning, analysis, and administrative support – which not all colleges are, unfortunately, willing to do.

Here Comes the Future: Teaching Social Media

Check out my old friend Dustin Verburg’s piece on Teaching Social Media.  You can find the blog post here.

Just have to share this

I’ve very recently moved from private industry instructional design to higher education.  So to give you an idea of what we’re up against, take a look at this fact sheet from Educause Center for Applied Research: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERS1208/EIG1208.pdf

Guest Blog: How Can Higher Education Become More Efficient?

By Kevin Taylor

This is something I have been pondering since I accepted a position at Temple University. As a student, I was never really attuned to Boise State University’s administration. It was always there in the background, helped me register for classes a few times, but for the most part they were the invisible hand behind my academic experience. After being the member of the administration at a nationally ranked university, I can see the wizardry conducted behind the curtain. What I see are a large number of very talented and hardworking people trying adapting to an ever-changing and evolving landscape. There are many struggles facing higher education; increased tuition costs, a dire tax situation, and student loan mechanisms that are commonly seen as broken and misaligned. There are some problems the university can’t fix, but there are other challenges that it can.

Process Design

One of the biggest areas of improvement I can see is process design. Universities are notoriously siloed, and oftentimes what occurs on a functional team doesn’t always align with the goal of a cross functional process. Identifying critical processes around fundraising, admissions, financial aid, housing, and scheduling could help find much-needed efficiencies. The ability to reliably conduct university operations in a manner consistent with Lean, Six Sigma, and TQM best practices could yield tremendous gains and reduced costs for universities with savings that could be used to help expand services, create jobs, and invest in university talent.

Knowledge Management

When processes and procedures change and evolve, there needs to be documentation. “Why do we need to document stuff?” you might hear stakeholders ask, secretly terrified that a loss of transparency in their work may result a loss of control or employment. What I find so funny about this is that it’s typically very difficult to get released from a university. There are ways that this happens, but even poor performance is not usually enough to get you dismissed. However, there is turn over, promotions, and the lucky ones get to retire to a tropical island to enjoy tasty drinks with little umbrellas. This means that all the knowledge they have about their processes, procedures, and where “the bodies are buried” leaves with them, and others must reinvent the wheel. Instilling a culture of knowledge management, providing tools and the training to use them (e.g., in-house wikis, Microsoft OneNote, etc.) and re-enforcing this culture through including knowledge management in job descriptions is critical.

Leadership Development

Process Design and Knowledge Management are business disciplines that require a high degree of leadership to help cut across the silos, agendas, and administrative fiefdoms common higher education. According to Wikipedia, Sayre’s Law states, “In any dispute[,] the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.” Wallace Stanley Sayre, former political science professor of Columbia University, also added that, “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics because the stakes are so low.” Now, while not all university leaders fall prey to this trap, there are some that do. Personality politics, personal agendas, and other sources of organizational toxicity notwithstanding, there are some truly brilliant leaders in academia that would benefit from leadership development in the form of meeting facilitation skills, project management (in all its various forms), employee engagement, and so on. Without the basic self-awareness, interpersonal skills, and organizational best practices needed to support the first two opportunities, it’s just going to be business as usual.

How Can Instructional & Performance Technologists Help?

The value we can add as Instructional & Performance Technologists is threefold. First, we can help leaders identify opportunities for organizational performance improvement by conducting the qualitative research needed to identify issues at the ground level. We are good at talking, listening, and putting together the puzzle pieces to help identify the current state and help leaders articulate a clear future state. Second, we have the ability to help articulate the Knowledge Management strategy and professional development plans needed by the organization. With Knowledge Management (including the more grass-roots variety), there needs to be a formal training program to support new talent. Finally, we are in a position to build the leadership development programs needed to support these first two components. Pulling these three components together, higher education has the opportunity to excel at what they have done since time immemorial, work to make the world a better place to work, live, and play.

 Kevin is a Training and Performance Improvement professional in the Philadelphia area.  He can be reached on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/kct1981.

The Future of Mobile Learning – In a Handy Infographic

Couldn’t help but share this – visualizing mLearning’s future with a chuckle!

10 Colleges Most Creatively Using Mobile Technology

I stumbled across this blog from a retweet.

I’ll admit, I thought the whole mobile thing was going to be a passing fad. I didn’t even have a cell phone in high school, nor did I start texting until after college. (My 17-year-old niece probably thinks I’m a dinosaur.) It wasn’t too long ago that I picked up an iPad and an iPhone, and the designer in me became enamored with the possibilities.

The universities in this blog piece were focusing more on small steps to move into the mobile sphere. Accessing courses and grades on your phone and mobile newspapers are definitely innovative. But what Bangladesh Open University is doing is phenomenal: “One method utilized in its classrooms blends SMS with TV and/or radio for a multimedia experience encouraging digital discussion while soaking up recorded lessons.”

More and more universities are realizing the benefits of moving classes online. These 10 universities have demonstrated the value of adding mobile into the mix.

Why one startup prefers coworking to remote collaboration

Reblogged from GigaOM:

Last week we pointed out a recent Wall Street Journal article reporting a trend towards larger startups sticking with coworking as they grow. Various experts warned there could be downsides, from the community aspect of the space inhibiting the formation of a company culture to other coworking companies poaching your talent or ideas. But not everyone it seems sees eye to eye with the WSJ's experts.

Read more… 427 more words

I'd never heard the term 'coworking' as opposed to 'working' until I read this article. Interesting viewpoint.

Get Yammer working for you

News: Yammer has just been acquired by Microsoft.  Interesting development!

It hasn’t just been one client who’s mentioned that their internal social media site is a dying wasteland.  After the initial excitement of creating a profile, following others, and making a first post, sites like Yammer peter out.  Why?

• You already communicate with coworkers daily via e-mail.
• There’s rarely enough time during the workweek to research and post interesting new insight about your industry.
• You can’t chat about dramatic topics like you do on Facebook.
• If nobody else uses it, why should I?

These issues are similar to any workplace adoption difficulty.  If you want your internal social media site to flourish, it’s going to take the same steps used to manage a procedural or cultural change in the office.  Try these tips on for size:

• Post company announcements on the site.  Send a company e-mail with a link to the internal site.
• Ask for weekly volunteers to post industry news (and give them a headstart by providing some topics).
• Post monthly pictures from around the office, such as company parties, conference presentations, and everyday interaction.
• Encourage employees to post project success stories as well as lessons learned with difficult clients.
• Ensure that department managers are commenting on posts at least weekly.  Buy-in from leadership is critical.
• For minor company decisions, consider using the polling functionality.  (Where should we move the vending machine?)
• Let employees use the site as a professional sounding board. Don’t discourage participation by heavy moderation, within reason.

If you try any of these tips, I’m eager to hear the results.

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