Technology and Multimedia in Online Learning

   Distance learning has evolved through the use technology to become an accepted and respected form of quality education.  Making it possible for more people to advance in their education. Without technology there would be no online learning opportunities.

   With the collaborative tools available an online learning environment becomes a community of cooperative learners.  Multimedia allows the instructor to create differentiated learning lessons more effective for all learners.

The most important considerations an online instructor should make before implementing technology are:

Ø    Engaged

Ø    Presence – social, cognitive, and teaching

Ø    Participating

Ø    Learners get to know each other

Ø    Set personal and learning goals

Ø    Instructor makes course requirements clear

Ø    Instructor leads the way for the course learning community

Ø    Assure that students have the required content resources

(Boettcher & Conrad, 2010)

   The instructor needs to become familiar with the Course Management System (CMS) that the institution he or she is associated.  Also, the instructor needs to be familiar with the tools that will be used in the course (2010). 

   Implications of usability and accessibility of technology tools have for online teaching are many.  The instructor must know the students and where they are located.  There are many areas of the country which does not have accessibility to computers except by traveling a long distance to get to a college center with a library where they can use the computers there which are connected to the internet.  Due to the lack of internet access whether it is because of no service or the expense is not feasible for many families.  Many technology tools are useless as well as cell phones are common, but there are too few towers and most areas cannot get service.

   As I go forward in my career in instructional design the most appealing technology tools  that I would use are the CMS and aggregator.

   A good CMS is probably the most important tool to make teaching and learning go smoother.  I have used Moodle and found it acceptable; what I can not believe I am saying is that I really like using Blackboard now that I have used it for a few semesters.  Blackboard is easy to use and as a part of it you have many useful applications. 

   I hope to teach online kindergarten to 12^th grade, depending on what I am teaching and at what level will determine the tools that I use in my instruction.  I would also like to work on developing online learning material for students with special needs, if I am in this position I will use many more tools.  One of my goals is to become more familiar with and how to use more technology. 

   An aggregator is a web2.0 tool which creates a list of all blogs, wickis, etc.. As an instructor you can type in a name and get a list of what the student is working on.  In other words you would get be able t see if a blog or wiki is being used. The aggregator would save a lot of time looking up wha the student is working on and even then some could be overlooked (Palloff & Pratt, nd).

References:

Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (nd). Enhancing the online experience. Walden University class resources.  Video

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide, simple and practical pedagogical tips. Jossey-Bass.