Distance Learning in an Open Environment
March 7th, 2008 | by programming |Words like “Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)” “wiki” and “blog” were no more part of our vocabulary 10 years ago than they were part of our daily lives. Spare a thought for academics in this new world.
They have not only to keep up with their ever-expanding disciplines but they also have to keep pace with technology — or at least that technology which facilitates and improves the learning experience.
Never before have we been in a situation where the learners (especially young learners) may be better versed in the technology than their teachers — and, moreover, able to surf the net and find discipline-specific teaching material that could be better than that on offer at any one university.
Outlets for Expression
If the student is less than satisfied he or she will find many ways of expressing that dissatisfaction by logging on to sites like RateMyProfessors.com that allow students to exercise their rights, if not their responsibilities. They may even video a teacher’s performance and post it on YouTube Latest News about YouTube for the entire world to see. Tough stuff.
The Open University is no stranger to using technology to optimize the learning experience and this month sees the rolling out of its new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), a platform which enables the use of technology in such a way that it brings distance learners and their teachers closer together.
Distance education students need the sense of community that technology, and the Internet, in particular, with all its social networking tools, provides.
Tools for Distance Learning
These tools include blogs, which can enable students to keep learning diaries, and wikis, where learners can carry out collaborative project work. More and more course material is stored on the VLE; some can be downloaded onto iPods and students who learn through audio rather than reading, or want to be able to learn on the move (mobile learning), can use the alternative resources on offer.
Life has changed in such dramatic ways that large amounts of course content can be found on sites like OpenLearn where The Open University has placed material free to use for browsing, learning and finding particular disciplines which students may like to pursue.
The Open Educational Resource movement is gathering pace all over the world as universities put more and more material on the web. And indeed it is not only material which is susceptible to openness.
Moodle Powered
Our VLE platform has been developed using Moodle, an open source VLE where the code is available for all users to examine — and add to or change if they wish — the idea being that the users share their knowledge and understanding, and everyone benefits. This is a highly intelligent response to this complicated and fast-changing landscape.
In such a universe no one should be surprised that students are no longer limited by geographical boundaries, either within one country or beyond. As we grow our digital, online offerings we find more students coming from an ever-increasing number of countries and we should expect (and even encourage) our students to explore the possibilities that other universities, maybe in other countries, provide.
The OU is generous in recognizing study credits that students bring to us and the system as a whole needs to improve its flexibility if we are to enjoy all that cyberspace has brought us.