{"id":1668,"date":"2020-03-13T18:48:52","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T16:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/personalbloggen\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2020-03-14T09:16:10","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T07:16:10","slug":"the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-distance-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.abo.fi\/personalbloggen\/2020\/03\/13\/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-distance-education\/","title":{"rendered":"The good, the bad and the ugly of distance education"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Charlotta<\/a>\u00c5bo Akademi University decided to move all teaching online until further notice. Most higher education institutions have made the same decision over the past weeks. Several distance education experts have written down their tips to support staff and students. Donald Clark made <\/span>ten good suggestions<\/span><\/a> if you\u2019re new to online teaching. Tony Bates narrowed his list down to <\/span>eight suggestions<\/span><\/a> and he also added useful links at the end of his post. Here are some of my thoughts as a distance education researcher and teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n

Distance education is suddenly the number one teaching method around the world. Research tells us that there is good distance education – better than face-to-face alternatives. There are bad distance courses that people try their best to forget. And there is the ugly side to it, a lack of resources, no support for students or teachers and lacking infrastructure. It takes time to develop distance education, but now time\u2019s up. We are going online, whether we want to or not.<\/span><\/p>\n

A clear structure is half the workload<\/b><\/h4>\n

Generally when planning distance courses you need to have the course outline ready when it starts. Simply because students need to be able to plan ahead. They need to know the assignments, the workload and the deadlines. Or, the What? When? How? Where?<\/em> questions of didactics. Remember that the bigger the group of students the more important this is. The workload quickly becomes overwhelming if you have several assignments that need grading throughout the course.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bad news is it takes time to design a well-structured course, if you are in a rush, my suggestion would be to start by cutting down the content to make the overview of the course and workload manageable for you and for the students. A lot of distance teachers choose to share weekly assignments<\/em> which also helps students divide the course into smaller parts. <\/span><\/p>\n

Gilly Salmon has developed <\/span>e-tivities<\/span><\/a> as a way for teachers to plan their online assignments to make them interesting and informative. It is also a good way to keep the focus and the overall structure of the course in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=24&v=yHw-Gt28Ol4&feature=emb_logo<\/a><\/p>\n

Diana Laurillard<\/a> has introduced her ABC model to help teachers identify what kind of learning they are after in their classes, for example, acqusition, discussion, inquiry or production. This is another way to rethink your course(s).<\/p>\n