HOW HAVE DISTANCE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES, SUCH AS WEB CONFERENCING AND ONLINE CLASSES, IMPACTED YOUR OWN LEARNING EXPERIENCE?
This change in access to educational programs is near and dear to my heart. I can think of no better way to illustrate the benefits of distance learning than to share the story of my daughters and me getting our master's degrees. I know that there are drawbacks to distance learning and it doesn't fit everyone's style of learning but in many cases, it is a huge asset. I lived in a very isolated area and worked in a small school district. This had a huge impact on the salary scale. The only way for me to earn more money was to complete my master's degree. As a widow, raising 3 daughters, every penny counted. It took 2 hours to reach any university with a master's program in education. Beginning in 1983 for eight years, I drove the four hour round trip one night a week, after teaching all day, to attend a 3 hour class. In the summers, I drove it every day for three weeks because I didn't want to stay on campus and leave my little girls for three whole weeks. The day I received my diploma was one of the proudest days of my life. My daughters were sitting front and center in the audience screaming like banshees as I walked across the stage. All three of my daughters now have their master's degrees. One went the traditional on-campus route before getting tied down to a full-time job. My twin daughters lived in a small rural community without a university nearby and had full-time jobs right out of college. One's an elementary teacher and one an athletic trainer. Both completed their master's degrees through distance learning options with colleges in neighboring states. They never stepped foot on campus until the end of their programs. They attended on-line classes, video conference classes, watched tapes, and used discussion boards on the Internet to interact with other distance learning students. They completed their degrees in 2 years and never logged a single mile on the road. At their respective graduations, I was sitting front and center in the audience and I screamed like a banshee as they walked across the stage. How I wished I had had the opportunity to use distance learning options for my degree!
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5 comments:
That is an awesome story that encompasses so many of the themes of our flattening world. You saved time, money, and energy while still being able to interact with other humans. That takes all of the good things about flattening and pours them into one bucket. As Friedman says, technology can be used for good or ill - it's our choice as to how it is applied.
What a great story! I would like to share a story about one of my children as well. My oldest son is a student at a medical school in Boston, pursuing a medical degree and a master's in public health concurrently. The summer after his first year of med school he traveled to a medical school in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as part of a project for his master's degree. His task was to deliver two computer servers, and help the school link with his college's distance learning program, so that students at the school in Tanzania could gain access to the coursework at his own university. He spent five weeks there, getting to know faculty, students, the cafeteria manager and anyone else who would talk with him. The program is up and running, and the experience has been one of the high points of his student career so far. I like to think that my son helped flatten the world just a bit, and helped facilitate better medical education for students in another part of the world. It is a very small world!
Another great story! Has anyone seen the video on YouTube called Shift Happens? It puts it all in perspective very well.
The topic of Distance Learning is of great interest to me as well. As a College Librarian I have found serving the needs of our online students to be an exciting opportunity. I have learned new technologies that have enabled me to adapt traditional reference service practices to the online platform. I have also returned to school myself this past year, taking classes online which could only come to fruition with an online program. Connecting with classmates who are near and far has been most enjoyable.
As an adjunct professor at Syracuse University, I have had the opportunity to teach two Information Studies courses, one FTF (face to face) and the other completely online using WebCT/Blackboard. The two processes were completely different. I would say that the online course, while labor intensive both from an instructor and student perspective, provided many opportunities that otherwise might not have been possible. The first obvious one is the ability to engage in a learning experience that is not limited by geography or, to a certain extent, time. The learning and process takes place both synchronously and asynchronously. The more subtle opportunity is to read and engage in intellectual discourse without prejudice based on stereotypes due to appearance, race, etc. The pleasantly surprising thing, though, was that personalities came through very clearly. Additionally, certain trusts needed to occur (i.e., that the work submitted was that of the student, that the technology was not an impediment to learning). The online teaching process was one I loved and I think helped many people take part in a process that they might not have had the opportunity to engage in otherwise.
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