John Silva Blog

What have I learned about managing e-learning programs? Quite honestly nothing new.

Much of what was covered in this course has been addressed effectively in previous courses. If I learned anything it was about the Illinois Virtual High School through my research. It reinforced what I suspected that for high school students, a hybrid program for online learning is more effective that a pure online course.

It is very difficult for me to write this since I know I will be graded on it but this course has been a huge disappointment. I have been hoping against hope that successive courses in this program would become more challenging. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. With this course, there was so very little that was new. I am starting to feel that much of what is researched and written about e-learning is repetitive on a small range of subjects.

I think my other issue is that at a fundamental level, e-teaching is no different that classroom teaching. Yes the methods of communication and delivery of course materials are different, but its still teaching and learning. I’m by no means a master teacher, but I have studied and practiced these issues for over 8 years. I have taught in low-performing neighborhood schools and selective enrollment, college prep classrooms. I have mentored student teachers, participated in course and program evaluation teams, designed new courses and curriculum, and implemented an incredible array of assessments for my students.

I guess I don’t really know what I was expecting out of this course. The program as a whole has shown me that I’m probably a nightmare of a student since I do have such high expectations and the belief that I could probably do it better. Part of that is my urban teacher arrogance I know but it’s there and I recognize it.

I guess if someone had managed my expectations earlier, some of this could have been avoided.

I believe the role of the program manager is implied in the title; the role is to manage. By that I mean that program managers must make sure that assessment happens at the right time by the right people and that they have the requisite tools to get the job done. Program managers, as I understand the term, are not teachers. The are more like administrators so their job is to supervise and manage. If they do take part in assessment, it should be from more of a macro level relating to the organization as a whole and not to individual courses or programs.

Faculty who are skeptical about cheating are exactly the teachers you want. What I would do is ask them, “what would make you comfortable that we are preventing students from cheating?” We would then explore technologies, software, and services to see which we can implement easiest and most effectively to increase the teacher’s comfort level. I would show them the types of assessment commonly used and the measures most teachers use to prevent cheating and see what else needs to be done. Some teachers may not be swayed easily but the best I can do is show them real-life examples of how we prevent cheating in an e-learning environment.

Cultural and geographical diversity can be a thorny issue. One thing I remember reading about cultural differences is the challenge of the constructivist nature of online learning and some cultures views of teaching. Some countries prefer teachers to be the focus as subject-matter experts delivering information to students. E-learning programs might be in conflict. E-learning might also bridge some cultural gaps. In a culture where genders or social classes might not mix in person, e-leanring may allow it.

As for geographic diversity you run into communications issues such as time differences, language differences, and possibly software/hardware differences. A person in one part of the country might not have access to high-speed Internet access for example. A person in Hawaii is obviously on a different schedule than someone in Virginia.

As to how it would affect my managerial style, it simply means I need to be more aware of the differences of all of my students. I need to ensure my program has the necessary flexibility to identify and deal with these differences.

Having a technology plan is absolutely important. Does it need to be a 3-year plan? No but it does need to be a long-term felxible plan.

Technology changes at a dizzying pace. Internet technologies are constantly evolving as are communications technologies. Technology plans that are not flexible will fail. Organizations that do not have a lomg-term tech plan will not be able to adapt to changes or expand as they grow.

I think one of the most important aspects from the survey is the combination of security and identity/access management. Keeping information secure is just one aspect. As e-learning continues to grow, ensuring the person answering the exam questions or completing the activities is the actual student. E-learning already has a certain stigma attached to it in some respects so preventing fraud and cheating can be a huge issue.

I think another issue will be portals. With technology constantly evolving, e-learning programs need to be able to handle new ways of accessing course content such as through smartphones, netbooks, or even Amazon’s Kindle device. I believe more students will be e-learning in new ways in the near future.

My first reaction to this as I was reading is that the things the author was describing as “learner support” I would simply call, “good teaching”. The other thing that kept popping up was, “what kind of support is she talking about?” Finally on page 6 she discusses institutional support and instructional support.

From what I got out of this, learners need to be supported by people. Learners need to be able to interact with people who can help them and guide them through challenges when necessary. Courses that facilitate greater interaction can be more beneficial and effective than independent study courses.

No kiddin’

I got towards the last third of this article and had to force myself to keep reading. I found myself a little annoyed that this author wrote 13 pages about something that is glaringly obvious in an overly academic style. If online programs don’t offer effective support, then of course they’re not going to succeed. If we view online learning as structured and scripted independent learning, then its just a fancy correspondence course. It boggles the mind that this was such a unique concept that it needed to be over-written about.

As for requiring interaction I don’t necessarily agree. You have to find a balance between learning styles and preferences with desired outcomes. Yes interaction is important but what about learners who prefer to work independently? Having some aspects of a course require interaction would e fine but the entire course? That’s an unrealistic expectation. You run the risk of making the mistake of creating learning activities that force interaction simply for the sake of making students interact.

Why do academic articles like these need to be written like the author got paid by the syllable?

Technology issues in an e-learning program

The combination of hardware, software, network, online, and communications technologies that are available for e-learning are mind-boggling. Keeping them working together is likely a huge challenge. One of the more simple issues I feel involves the browser and I’ve seen some problems with this program.

I have both Internet Explorer and Firefox installed on my computers. I generally use Firefox to access my online courses. I used to use IE all the time until it started freezing when I logged in. You see, sometime IE freezes when a site opens a link in a new window like accessing D2L. So to avoid that problem I switched. Firefox however cannot display some types of streaming media such as videos. When that happens, I have to switch back to IE and cross my fingers. Here is a quick list of software I use with this program.

•    Internet Explorer
•    Firefox
•    Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
•    Camtasia
•    Coffee cup HTML editor
•    PBWiki
•    Edublogs/Wordpress
•    Elluminate
•    Adobe Acrobat Reader

In addition to software, I need to be able to use a webcam, have a broadband Internet connection, use e-mail, bulletin boards, and chat rooms, know how to upload files to the server, access and find relevant information in online databases, and keep track of my files between multiple computers. All of these skills just to be able to complete my online coursework!

I can only imagine what it must be like working in tech support for an online educational program. Not only that, but ensuring instructors and students are aware of technology requirements and ensuring the technology works across operating systems and browsers must be a daunting task. Managing all of this must be an enormous undertaking.

Having worked in both the corporate tech sector and public education I have a good sense of the requirements of an e-learning program. I think one of the biggest challenges is ensuring you have the right technology tools on day one of the classes. One of the basic rules of e-learning is that you have to choose the technology to fit the learning objectives. In e-learning there are numerous types of technology including hardware, communications, online apps, software apps, and more. These can be fixed at the e-learning center, hosted off site, and be entirely online. The technology coordinator for an e-learning program must be able to communicate well with the course developers and instructors to ensure that he provides the right technologies and the right training to meet the educational and learning objectives. Additionally, the technology coordinator needs to ensure the students have the correct technologies as well as provide ongoing technical support for everyone involved in the e-learning program. I think, by far, the technology department has the most complex challenge in e-learning.

I believe one of the most crucial challenges of a successful e-learning program is having the right people in three key areas, instruction, tech support, and counselor/admissions. The task of designing and managing the educational programs is crucial and is the responsibility of the instructor staff. The instructor is the backbone of the whole operation. Supporting the program is tech support. If the technology doesn’t work then the learning doesn’t happen. A strong tech support staff must be able to troubleshoot and solve problems remotely. Finally, the counselors/admissions needs to ensure that students are properly screened and provided with support as they enter and progress in the e-learning program. Finally, all three of these groups need to be able to communicate with and support one another towards the goal of a successful e-learning program for everyone involved.

I think overall the interview had some very enlightening information. I believe it showed the “behind the scenes” difficulties of online education in a way that case studies or surveys cannot. One thing I found most interesting was the portion about instructors, specifically qualifications and compensation.

I had not really thought about this issue in great detail beyond simply knowing if the instructor has either training or experience in e-learning. Being an online instructor requires very specific skill sets that can be very different than classroom instructors. I think instructor quality is one of the most important indicators of whether or not an online program will succeed.

The compensation issue also raised some questions for me. Should the salary of an online instructor be significantly different than a classroom instructor? What about those who design a course but don’t later teach it? Depending on the type of program, I think you can have a wide range of answers to those questions. I would be very interested in finding out how institutions deal with these issues, particularly in higher education.

Another issue that jumped out relates to my experiences in Global Campus – how long should courses be? With our program, we seem to be following the UIUC calendar but with two 8-week courses instead of one 16 week. This raises the issue of whether or not a program like UIGC should be on its own independent calendar or be tied to the university. Having a structured calendar somewhat contradicts one of the main benefits of online education, flexibility.

This interview certainly put the topic of this course into clear perspective. I have a better idea of the things we will be studying now and am more than a little intrigued by the challenges.

What is e-learning management?

If e-learning is technology-based education using online communication, collaboration, and interaction, then e-learning management is both the process of making sure all of the technology used to facilitate e-learning supports the learning objectives and the process of designing and implementing curriculum for the e-learning environment.

E-learning management begins with designing curriculum for the online environment. Teachers must make sure their learning activities are designed to encourage and achieve the learning objectives. Once the curriculum is in place, the teacher must ensure he has the proper communication and collaboration tools for the learning activities.

Once those goals have been achieved, the teacher must then ensure that both the curriculum and technology work together and that students are able to complete the learning activities to meet education objectives.