MDDE 610: Introduction to Current Distance Education Technologies

Télé-Université credit:  EDU 6012 |  TELUQ

Delivery mode: Online course with collaborative group study

Credits: 3 - Elective

Prerequisites: None

Instructor Winter 2012: Craig Montgomerie

Overview

This course will give you hands on experience with, and allow you to make a critical evaluation of a number of the computer-based technologies that are currently used in distance education. This course "walks the talk" and as you progress through the course, a number of different technologies will be used to present material, to notify you of upcoming course-related activities, and to allow you to communicate with your classmates and the instructor in a number of different ways.

The following are some of the technologies examined during the course.

1. Electronic portfolios
2. Asynchronous tools
3. Synchronous tools
   
4. Social software educational tools
   
5. Computer assisted instruction
   
6. Web 2.0 applications
   
7. Mobile applications
8. Cloud computing, virtualization and green computing

We will address criteria for the selection of technologies appropriate to the students' particular situations.

Course Objectives

1. To gain hands-on experience with, and undertake a critical evaluation of a variety of educational technologies.
2. To learn to apply media attribute schema and Bates ACTIONS/SECTIONS criteria to various media.
3. To apply adoption theories to a particular technology that could be used in your own local teaching/learning context.

Course Requirements & Evaluation

Electronic Portfolio - 15%
Prepare an electronic portfolio that demonstrates your facility with each of the technologies covered in this course.

Assignment 1 - 15%
Identify a course you believe would benefit from the inclusion of one or more distance education technologies. Write a short paper that describes the course you propose to change and the program in which this course is offered.

Assignment 2 - 15%
Prepare a SECTIONS analysis table that examines how each of the technologies covered in this course might be used in the course you proposed to modify in Assignment #2.

Assignment 3 - 15%
Learn "something" using a computer assisted instruction (CAI) program. Develop a section of your electronic portfolio that demonstrates what you learned. As part of your electronic portfolio, provide an evaluation of the specific CAI program and CAI in general.

Assignment 4 - 15%
Write a short proposal to modify the course you identified in Assignment 2 so that it includes one or more of the technologies covered in this course.

Group Project - 15%
In small groups, students will select one technology that particularly interests them. The group will prepare a short demonstration of that technology for the rest of the class.

Participation - 10%
Students’ critical, reflective participation in the blogs and conferences is essential to the success of the course.

The instructor will apply the following criteria in assessing the students' contributions to the conferences, social media postings and written assignments:

• engagement and commitment;
• evidence of wide reading beyond the course texts;
• capacity for intellectual reasoning, and openness to new ideas;
• ability to synthesize thinking and to link theory and empirical findings to practice; and
• efficient communication skills.

All assignments are to be submitted through the course assignment dropbox in Moodle.

[NOTE: Referencing format must follow the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th Edition).]

 

Get Started Early

Access to the Learning Management System, Moodle, begins one week before the official start date of your course.

 

CDE - Last updated by MM October 24, 2011