What impact does technology and multimedia have on online learning environments? Technology and multimedia supports the students with communicating and understanding the course materials. It provides a way for learners to create, find, display information, and present their ideas. Technology can improve the learner’s social, cognitive and teaching by providing images, video, and audio. The essential to technology tools is the way a learner can intergrade it into their own learning environment. The techniques can increase the community social networking.
What are the most important considerations an online instructor should make before implementing technology?
I think the most significant part to consider for an online instructor is to implement technology that best suits for the course being taught. There is not just one type of technology that is best suited for online learning. It is important not use technology just because it is there (Dr. Palloff and Dr. Pratt). One way for an instructor to find what technology is right for their learners prior to the course is meeting the learners in their community. The community’s feedback is a great way to offer a clear and outside of the box ideas. The community can share their understanding, “knowledge of one another, and mutual support, even if values are not shared, are elements of community” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010).
What implications do usability and accessibility of technology tools have for online teaching?
A good way to implicated online technology is making it easily usability and accessibility for the learner. There are people who have issues with technology not be accessible like learning disability and the elderly. An instructional designer needs to design the course to meet all the needs from the learners. One way to design a course is to meet the need for the learner is including font size, colors, layout, and transcript.
What technology tools are most appealing to me for online teaching as you move forward in your career in instructional design?
Technology provides instructional designers an appealing tool to move forward in their career. I think videos and audios are useful technology tools to demonstrate the skills. Video provides the learner a great way to visual understand the course materials. These tools allow instructors to enhance their career to be efficient and meaning toward the students.
References:
Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R.-M. (2010). The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (n.d.). Enhancing the Online Experience [video]. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live/ecollege.com.
Great post Katie! You and I agree on mostly the same points. What are some other tools that you would like to use? Are there any that you are using now in your current field?
ReplyDeleteThanks Chauna! One of my job duties is to be a government contractor to be an advisory for an online training course. I use the tools I learn in this program like flash, video, audio, and hands on activities. The learner will be able to be an activity in the course with the use of discussion post and online chat.
DeleteTypically when a person hears the terms accessibility and usability it is assumed that it refers to people with disabilities. And in fact this is true, but what about those people who do not have high-speed Internet connections? As a result, using streaming video and audio tools will not be accessible to this student.
ReplyDeleteAn instructional designer needs to be aware of accessibility and usability issues and challenges. If we do not consider accessibility and usability then we have lost the meaning of online learning, which is flexibility and accessible to everyone.
Katie – Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI agree that technology and multimedia resources help learners to understand the course material. Animation and EFT’s can often bring alive concepts that are difficult to grasp. Electronic Field trip and re-enactment can allow the learner to go places they could not go before. Animation of complex concepts can also help to support learning.
I think the main thing to consider when deciding on a technology tool is does it lend itself in meeting the objectives and goals. (Boettcher & Conrad, 2011)
I am glad to hear that audio/video resources are appealing to you. Much of what I do is creating video based resources for teacher professional development and classroom instruction.
References
Boettcher, J., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco: CA, Jossey-Bass.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post!
I completely agree with your first two sentences regarding technology and multimedia supporting students, in addition to offer a means for them to “create, find, display information, and present their ideas”. Boettcher and Conrad (2010) indicate the content of the course to be at the forefront for learners to “actively” explore and learn about new information. Could this “active” exploration really occur when a minimal amount of technology and multimedia are incorporated? That is, in a text driven online environment, wouldn’t there be obvious limitations regarding the extent to which instructors can offer content, and the extent to which learners could actively interact? You clearly identified images, video, and audio as important components of the learning environment.
You also indicate the importance of considering the course content when deciding which technologies to implement. For example, blogs can be used to continued discussion opportunities throughout a course, and a wiki can offer a collaborative opportunity for learners to build projects asymmetrically, and actually generate content (Palloff & Pratt, 2012). I really like you pointing out the concept of knowledge of one another. With such a variety of learners, again how could the use of various, appropriate technologies and multimedia not be beneficial?
Its quite interesting to consider the “once-upon-a-time” tradition classroom environment an instructor once had, in that there was a chalkboard, chairs, students, and the instructor. Fast forward to 2012. Even in a face-to-face classroom, there are so many opportunities for an instructor to be so much more than a lecturer at a podium, not that a lecturer is a bad thing … most certainly! Challenges exist in the selection and application of so many great technology and multimedia tools!
Resources
Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2012). Enhancing the Online Experience. Lecture presented for Laureate Education, Inc. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=6290533&Survey=1&47=7270808&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1.