I enjoyed reading both articles this week but I felt neither one went into much depth explaining Quantitative methods. Lowenthal and Leech's article covered mostly the difficulties of doing mixed research. The guest lecture from Martha Cleveland-Innes was much more focused on her research as well as using quantitative method. I remember her posing the question if online learning was better than face to face. Most of the class was quiet with that answer because it is based more on people preferences on learning styles. I have taken making online classes since high school and throughout my undergraduate studies and I have enjoyed them immensely. Just like with face to face learning, it depends on the ability of the professor to make it an enjoyable class or not. I have had both good and bad teachers in a physical classroom as well as online. I look forward to Martha's future research on this subject and what changes may arise from it.
I had never heard of or used SPSS before the lab given by Ester Appelgren. SPSS stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences and is a software for statistical analysis. Ester explained that software like this comes in handy for journalists who don't like working with numbers and statistics (neither do I). We played around with the data, made comparisons of variables, made charts, etc. I don't feel that this small lab taught me enough on the subject but it was a nice introduction to a software that I may possibly have to use in the future.
I feel this week's readings, lecture, and lab was only dipping a toe into a much larger pond of information but has given me tools and direction to seek this topic out more.
Nicole, you made me think about online learning more, than Martha Cleveland-Innes!
ReplyDeleteI don't have much experience with e-learning, and personally I always thought that the only one advantage of it that one can do distance learning, no need to be in the right time/place, that's all.
But you cannot get a proper *Lecture* feeling if you are sitting next to the computer at home, do you? How does it work with the involvement, serious atmosphere, or the dialog with the teacher? In my opinion, it must be a bit less productive, ...or the lecturer must be a genius!
I've had different teachers use different methods of teaching for each online class I've taken. I even took a physical education class on-line because I was not capable of taking it at school. I've had teachers that just download powerpoint slides and readings but I've also had teachers who record audio lectures and youtube videos. So I think each experience was different in terms of involvement and dialog.
DeleteNicole, Katya,
ReplyDeleteI personally tried e-learning on Coursera and Stanford Online platform and I came to the conclusion that its good to mix online and offline environments. It's not enough just to sit in front of your laptop or iPad and listen to the lectures online but to be involved in the community. Of course, you can get it online I mean forming FB groups to discuss some stuff related to your course but its better to meet with people studying the same course offline.
I started to actually decline taking online classes because of the new rule in the US that mandates that you must spend a small amount of time in the classroom. I choose online classes to make myself more available for other things since you can almost make your own pace and adding mandatory classroom time, to me, took away the attractiveness of e-learning.
DeleteI think it also depends if you more an autodidactic person or not. I like to learn on my own. Of course, as Marina mentioned, if you got some questions it’s sometimes better to have somebody to interact with. But I have to disagree that you always have to meet offline for that. Today, with all the technology, it seems to be less necessary to have a face-to-face discussion. I prefer to give somebody a call if I have a question. The reason for this is that it’s a fast way of communication. And I can save time which I would lose if I have to meet somebody face-to-face. With tools like Skype you are also able to share files so everybody of the discussion is able to talk about the same topic without confusion.
ReplyDeleteThat is totally correct. In my experience of on-line learning, my teachers always made themselves available for phone calls and I think they were actually more attentive to your needs than a face-to-face teacher.
DeleteHello Nicole, it is nice that you actually can give an answer to Martha’s question, I have to say that I was quite confused.. I read an article about e learning written by Selma Vonderwell and one of her conclusions was that during an online course, students do not feel an intimate connection with their instructors; what do you think about that?
ReplyDeleteFor many of my online instructors I felt I had an intimate connection with them. They always gave feedback on each assignment and were always open and quick to respond to emails and even phones calls. In many of my classes it was actually mandatory to have a phone interview with them at least once during the course.
Delete"I have taken online classes since high school and throughout my undergraduate studies and I have enjoyed them immensely". Part of my bachelor thesis was on the topic back-channel systems in a physical classroom and how these could also be used in online courses (since they are getting more and more popular in our digital society) and so I'm really curious about what you more specifically enjoyed with them, because I haven't attended as many online courses that I can determine this myself.
ReplyDelete