MEDT 7475: Distance Education Professional

1. GVS Course Review

     For this project I reviewed an Epidemiology course in development at GAVS. First I had to critique the course using the QM rubric (instead of the iNACOL rubric used in my Intro to Distance Education class). After that my group and I collaborated online to create one master rubric with all of our individual notes. Finally we each chose an area/standard to cover in a short Jing video. My video covered accessibility issues within the course.
     I learned a great deal from the course review project. Using the QM rubric instead of the iNACOL gave me a different perspective as to what course designers feel is important. I appreciated the QM's greater emphasis on technology and accessibility, but I don't think the all-or-nothing scoring system is representative of the real world. My group and I worked well together when coming up with a consensus on the scores in the collaborative rubric, and knowing why they did or did not grant points for certain standards made me reflect on what I saw (or thought I saw.) One of my group members did not award any points for standard 8.3 "The course ensures screen readability." His rationale was so convincing and reasonable that we agreed that no points should be awarded, and I was inspired to research more into the area of web accessibility, hence my recommendation video.
     I would suggest that anyone working in the distance education field become acquainted with at least one, if not several, rubrics developed by professional organizations. At the most basic level, people can use the rubric to just learn what should be included in a course, and then later go back and assess the quality of those components. One potential obstacle to using the rubrics would be getting all of the players on the same field; as I learned in my mentorship project, the distance educator may not be able to do much, if anything, about certain components of the course (especially technical components), so truly assessing and revising a course would require the educator(s), instructional technologist(s), perhaps even administration. 

2. Virtual Mentorship Project

     The goal of the virtual mentorship project was to match those learning about distance education (like myself) with educators already working in the field. In this way we could get a better idea of the challenges, benefits, and general mechanics of being a distance educator. Over the course of 4-6 weeks we were to have at least 4 meetings (online, phone, or face to face) with our mentors, access their classes, observe, discuss, and record our thoughts in a journal. For the project, I worked with Mark Matthews from Impact Academy. I observed his biology, chemistry, and physics class during the months of March and April, 2013, although the students were on Spring break for one week and some had CRCT testing the next week. All three classes use the FVS curriculum. Since I do not teach in a classroom I was (I assume) randomly assigned to Matthews, but it worked out well because I enjoy the sciences and I reviewed the same biology course during my Intro to Distance Education class, so I was comfortable with the material. 
     The mentorship project was sometimes frustrating, sometimes confusing, but ultimately a good way to get an inside view of what it's like to be a practicing distance educator. I doubt I will ever work in distance education in the same manner as my mentor since I do not have a teaching certificate, but I would like to have a position where I’m providing technology support to distance educators. The one area where my mentor and I disagreed is the role of technology in distance education. I don’t think that logging into and using a LMS should be the extent of technology education within a course, so the challenge becomes creating a technology-rich environment in a course that is already online. Of course, this becomes more difficult if educators have little ability to alter their own courses (because of limitations of the LMS, having to rely on technology specialists to make the changes, and/or the educator’s own unfamiliarity with technology). Many technology tools increase discussion and interaction between students and instructors (such as my mentor’s use of Adobe Connect for review sessions, which was outside of the Impact LMS). Since distance education WILL continue to grow, students WILL need to be tech savvy, no matter where they learn, and courses WILL need quality interactions to be successful, one potential area of employment for me would be the techie behind the scenes, helping to make it all possible.

3. Online Professional Development Module

     For this project I create a short PD module covering iPad apps for special education, specifically apps for language, speech, and hearing difficulties. I also included information on the accessibility features of the iPad and additional resources for other iPad topics such as general usage, apps that support Bloom's Taxonomy, and rubrics used to evaluate apps. I used my needs assessment survey to determine the topic of my PD. I used a wiki as the platform to house my information. While I did not have as many people complete the modules as I had hoped, it was a great learning experience.
     Despite some setbacks and wrong turns (initial choice of platform, decisions about what material to present and how), I’m happy with how my final PD model turned out. I think it is the correct size (amount of information) for what I was trying to achieve – introduce special education teachers with new ipads to some of the better resources of special education apps. I very rarely create PD modules that use lists and links instead of step-by-step instructions, but an educational technology article I read recently gave a great analogy. Essentially, if you were given a new smart phone, would you like the gift-giver to explain all of the features for an hour or so, or hand over the phone and the manual so you can start to use it? With this PD module, I’ve chosen the second scenario – handed them “the manual” on special education apps, so to speak – so the teachers can figure out what works best for them without having to wade through tedious instructions. Eventually, I would like to create more of these bite-sized PD modules. Some will probably have step-by-step instructions, but I like the idea of creating something that encourages teachers to go play with their technology and see what works best for them.

4. Op-ed piece