Learning Module 1

Hi Class,

My name is Melissa Sakoonphong and I am a second year graduate student in the Educational Counseling and Guidance program at CSUSB.  In addition to being a graduate student, I also work at Chaffey Community College as a Counselor Apprentice.  My hopes and educational goals for this class is to learn as much as possible about e-learning, earn an e-learning certificate, work towards a M.A in Instructional Technology and/or Ed.D. More importantly, my professional goals for this course is to use the knowledge from this course and apply it to online guidance instruction, train new competent counselors, and ultimately develop a tool that will help counselors track and quantify one-on-one student sessions so community colleges can adequately allocate resources to increase graduation rates.   

My prior experiences with e-learning have been limited to online and hybrid courses at the community college level from an end-user’s perspective, and one E-Learning Design and Development course,  so I still have quite a way to go in terms of learning the basics of an e-learning course from an instructor’s point-of-view. Because I am comfortable with learning new technologies and desire an asynchronous type of interaction(s), I prefer online learning as opposed to face-to-face.  Whether the online course utilizes familiar technologies or not I am confident in my ability to learn new things, which is why I am super excited to be a part of this class and hope this course will take me one step closer to helping students achieve their goals.

Definitions for interchangeable terms in E-learning are:

·         Online Learning: is described by Seaman (2011) and Garrison (2011) as content driven and were at least 80% of the course’s content is delivered online.

·         Blending Learning: is also described by Seaman (2011) and Garrison (2011) as a hybrid course that integrates the advantages of face-to-face learning and the strengths of online learning by delivering 30%-79% of the course content online.

·         Distance Learning: is defined as learning at a distance, where teacher and student(s) are separated by time and space and knowledge/skills are mediated by technology at a distance.

The sector I am most interested in is higher education and here are my two articles:

 

O'Neill, K., Singh, G., & O'Donoghue, J. (2004). Implementing elearning programmes for higher education: A review of the literature. Journal of Information

Technology Education, 3(2).

 

Tu, C. H., & Corry, M. (2002). eLearning communities. The Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(2), 207-218.

 

References:

Frederick B. King, M. F.-R. (n.d). Defining Distance Learning and Distance Education. Educational Technology Review, 1-14.

Garrison, D. R. (2011). E-Learning In The 21st Century: A Framework For Research and Practice. New York: Routledge.

Seaman, J. (2011). Online Learning Trends in Private-Sector Colleges and Universities. Pearson and Babson Survey Research Group, 1-20.

Wikipedia. Retrieved April 10, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distance_learning