Wetland Wednesday
March 18, 2020
On Monday we started our discussion of online education. We covered distance learning and some tips and ticks to run a successful real-time workshop. Today we are going to discuss the other two types of online programs, online learning and virtual workshops.
Online learning is a bit of a catch all, but within the digital learning community it has a specific meaning. It is the original type of digital learning and is still used by many large companies to train employees in specific skill sets. It generally does not involve a human instructor and may or may not be offered remotely. A lot of Human Resource departments use this for employee orientation.
Online learning involves a static lesson with a quiz at the end to demonstrate mastery of the topic. There may or may not be any video and oftentimes just involves reading text on a computer screen and answering questions to move on. A lot of health and safety training is offered this way and give the employer a way to verify attendance and results. However, this type of training pretty boring.
Most of the online learning packages are produced by a software product called Adobe Captivate. The software produces a standalone lesson that can be run on a desktop or put online. It gives the learning manager the ability to publish slides or videos in a very graphical interface that is easy to use. There is even the ability to animate the slides to make the lesson a bit more engaging.
Generally, there is no instructor with online learning. The learning manager will often hire a subject management expert (SME) to prepare a Power Point slide deck with notes. Once they are done, the SME is only consulted for updates to the system and does not interact with the students. The learning manager may or may not have any detailed knowledge of the topics being presented and may direct some student questions to the SME for a brief time after a new lesson is launched. Once the lesson is been in use for a time, the SME is out of the picture.
Virtual learning is by far the most effective type of online instruction. The idea is to simulate a classroom environment in an online setting. This requires the most interaction with the instructor and students of the three types we have discussed. It is also the most expensive to run but it has the greatest learner success of the three. If run properly, student success can even exceed traditional classroom environments. It is also the type we offer at The Swamp School.
A virtual environment has four components. These are instructor presentations, class assignments, student discussions and questions, quizzes and tests. These are usually grouped into weekly modules. There is also a method to contact the instructor directly for questions and technical help.
A virtual workshop requires the use of a learning management system (LMS). There are a number of good one and not so good ones in the marketplace. The most popular with Universities are Moodle and Blackboard. Many K-12 schools favor Schoology and Socrative. At issue is the degree of complexity associated with the setup and ongoing management of the LMS. Some are self-hosted like Moodle. Moodle is PHP based and requires a server setup on something like Amazon AWS. This is my other life.
The managed hosted LMS software like Blackboard and Schoology provide the setup and management for you. These seem more expensive however self-hosting is not free and can be very expensive. The advantage to the managed systems is that they are just a matter of creating a user account and you are up and running. The downside is that you have less control over updates and are at the mercy of your provider for keeping the site up and running. We outsource some of this work and have been pretty happy with the result.
The biggest advantage of virtual learning is the instructor. The students need to know that they have a person available to them to help and guide them through their learning journey. This is especially true for complicated topics like wetland design or delineation.
One major success or failure aspect of virtual learning is instructor response time. Poor programs rely on email exchanges. This can result in days or weeks between student question and instructor answer. This is frustrating for the student and affords little opportunity for follow-up questions.
To solve this problem, better virtual learning environments include an in-class discussion board and an instructor messaging system. Both can tie to email alerts, but they are within the LMS so nothing gets lost to spam filters. Scheduled chat sessions can also be offered to simulate instructor office hours.
We have been teaching online for over 15 years and have learned many dos and don’ts along the way. Our LMS is state of the art, robust, scalable and always being updated. We invite you to contact us if you would like to take a virtual tour of our school. Send us a chat message below to set up a time.
Please stay safe and healthy during this difficult time. If we can be of any help to you or your fellow staff with your learning needs, please let us know.
All the best, Marc