I was very impressed with the presentation by Alex Couros. Even though he was one province over, he was able to keep everyone involved and interested. This is no easy task even in person, especially with our class, as I'm sure that Mike can attest to. I have to say though, I don't really think that distance education is such a great thing. I do understand that there are certain situations that render it as the best option, and sometimes the only option, but I think that much greater success would be had with real human contact in a teacher-student classroom. I was student teaching in Deloraine in my second placement and had the chance to teach a couple lesson in Pre-calc 40S over IITV, a form of distance education. The class had four students in my classroom in Deloraine, two girls in Waskada, and one guy in Pierson. The course is not offered in those two towns, and without the IITV system these students would have to drive a fair distance everyday just for one class. This is a big concern if these students want to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree, and therefore need the course credit. It is great that these students now have an opportunity like this, but I feel that they are not getting the same caliber of instruction as they would in a regular classroom setting. There is very little interaction over IITV and students are expected to do a lot more independant work. This is ok for a course like Pre-calc 40s because students are expected to be very self-motivated anyway, but I don't think it would have the same success rate in other areas of study.
This was just a very small side note from Alex's very well done presentation. Let me know what you think!
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Dan, you pose some really good concerns about distance ed. i agree with you that you dont get alot of interaction this way and that is one thing i know alot of kids need, the one on one time with the teacher to learn better. that being said, i do like the fact that i can have aguest speaker that is half way around the world talk to my students about a geographic issue that works well with my lesson plan that day. with your comment on the fact that students would have to drive a far distance to persue the proper education because thier schools dont offer that class, this bothers me a bit because we need to help the students out not limit them to what they can learn, yes IITV is a great tool but we need to look into getting more teachers in all the schools not just in one that is equiped with IITV. Great BLOG RIP dan
ReplyDeleteFinally, I get to read your blog, that's okay. I like your ideas on how you dislike distance education. Anywho, nice blog. Later.
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