Online Course Report

University: University of Maryland’s UniversityCollege

Program: Master’s in Distance Education

Course: OMDE630 Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Systems in Distance Education

Instructor: Dr. Stella Porto was my contact, she is the only full-time employee in the Distance Education department at UMUC and referred me to the course website. Dr. Porto forwarded the email to another instructor who is helping to revamp/design this course, they did not respond to our emails in the time provided. I also spoke with Deidra Smith, a Graduate Studies Liason to help answer questions regarding UMUC’s program.

Designation and Sponsor: The goal of the course OMDE630 [xxx1]is to provide the students with, “An examination of synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous (non-real-time) tools and technologies used in online education”. I found this very interesting, as I was drawn to this course because this topic was a debate for us in EME5457. The University of Maryland’s UniversityCollege and the instructors for this course, created this course to use a variety of media such as “text chats, audio/video conferencing, email threaded discussions and wikis.” The complete catalog of courses at UMUC has been redesigned for the Fall of 2007, so the majority of this interview involves information regarding the previous incarnation of this course. Dr, Stella Porto felt like a course exactly like this has never been taught at UMUC or anywhere else and that it is a unique offering.

Goal[xxx2]: As far as the program is concerned, specifically, UMUC is trying to direct the participants in their Master’s of Distance Education to find employment in the field of distance education. Whether that be, “within educational, business, government and non-profit organizations. UMUC feels like that with, “the multitude of new managers and future leaders needed in the field”, that they are meeting a educational need for these students. The uniqueness of OMDE630 is to provide the students information on how the various technologies and media types are used in distance education.

Audience[xxx3]: UMUC states on their website, that their program “is designed for working adults who want to complete their degree without interrupting their careers, and are keen on enhancing their professional skills and competencies within or moving into the Distance Education field. They also stated that students needed to have an ‘average’ level of computer ability. All the courses are conducted in English and students need to have a comfortable grasp of writing. UMUC offers several courses including some that are free to improve student’s skills in the area of writing in English, APA style and searching their library system.

Student Needs: Students are motivated to participate in order to receivepoints toward course completion. “Student are encouraged and expected to take part in all class assignments and discussions”. They have a website that contains a distance education learning guide that gives them advice and tips on organizing their courses. Access to these websites to improve their learning outcomes are free to the students, to help them in their studies. Tips included such as ideas as placing materials in binders [xxx4]and preparing a workspace at home to conduct coursework at while participating in the program. Their website also said that students are expected to participate in daily[xxx5] conferences, and stay motivated. The course website even states that procrastinators may not be successful in the Distance Education program!

Modes of Instruction[xxx6]: This particular course actually involves nearly all forms used in the distance education spectrum. During this course they will experience asynchronous discussions on WebTyco, which is an online environment not unlike Blackboard. WebTyco uses Macromedia’s Flash Player to provide audio and video content over the web. Discussions also take place over “threaded email discussions”. The students will also have the opportunity to participate in synchronous discussions and create wikis. Students are also encouraged to “enagage in study groups” on WebTyco which allows “students to work together, with or without, a faculty member.”

Success[xxx7]: Dr. Porto in an earlier interview stated that she felt like the Macromedia Flash components of the course went well. She created web-based components of the course and linked them to Flash objects, so when students clicked on the picture of an item, it started an audio-visual presentation that was designed to improve the understanding of the material for the student.

Challenges: AlsoIn the interview, Dr. Porto stated that she did not like the Whiteboard feature. There was no way to save a previously created sketch on the Whiteboard[xxx8] so that you had to create it from scratch each time you use it, and to paraphrase, “unless everything is just perfect” it is ultimately more trouble than it is worth, she feels.

Evaluation Procedures: Courses at UMUC tend to have several pieces to them which form the basis for the students[xxx9] grade in the course. There is a “weekly conference” on WebTyco and there is information[xxx10]such as articles and other material posted in Flash as well. With this course they will need to make synchronous posts for the course, but no mention was made on how many posts or the number of times. There are also course projects that are due based on a given due-date that are self-paced. Each course in the DE program at UMUC also has a collaborative project as part of the course design and grade. No exact proportion was given related to how much of the grade depended on collaborative projects versus individual participation, but again the website suggests around seventy percent individual and thirty percent collaborative participation[xxx11].

Student Perceptions: UMUC uses a weekly format but like many things in the revamp of their program offerings that might change. Unfortunately, the other instructor who was supposed to contact me did not, so I only have the information from the website and what I have from Dr. Porto. However they use ‘weekly conferences’ for the courses. This seems to be in line with our use of discussion boards for posting responses. This gives the students a variety of time management options to conducting their lessons. There is no specific amount of time required for each course. Yet based on the recommendations listed in the student resource guide for the program, it appears that it would be 1-2 hours per day at the minimum. Their website supports this with an estimation of between 10-15 hours per week. Again this is a reasonable amount for students to manage along with their regular work schedules. No specific mention can be made for the new revamped OMDE630 as it will not be offered until the spring of 2008. Students have access to the instructors virtually at any time if they have questions regarding the course or the program.

Future Plans: With a major overhaul of the entire Distance Education program going into effect now, this Fall of 2007, Dr. Porto is most likely completely overwhelmed but at the same time excited by the recent additions to the program and the revamp of the courses to better reflect current practices in Distance Education. They even have a inter-working relationship with OldenburgUniversity in Germany, with many course being taught by members of their staff. They also have a quite a plethora of “visiting experts” at UMUC. With heavy hitters like Dr. Borje Holmberg, Dr. Michael Moore, Dr. Hilary Perraton and Dr. Otto Peters [xxx12]listed as visiting experts to UMUC, it is like a who’s who of Distance Education theory! I presume that they will have a very active and successful program in distance education at UMUC.

Percent / Points
Points / Earned / Earned / Requirements
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Goal: What is the purpose/goals of the distance course/program?
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Designation & Sponsor: Describe its official designation (course, curriculum, resource, training event) and sponsoring institution/body.
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Audience: Describe the target audience; who are the students?
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Student Needs: What motivates individuals to participate? (advancement, compulsory attendance, convenience, etc.)
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Modes of Instruction: How are the course(s) structured (self paced, course duration, asynchronous/synchronous, technologies)?
10 / 85% / 8.50 / Success: What is the evidence (enrollment statistics, testimonials, awards, number of graduates) of success thus far?
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Challenges: What are the major frustrations/problems faced?
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Evaluation Procedures: What are the means of evaluating student learning and program/course effectiveness?
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Student Perceptions: How is the program perceived by students (e.g., degree of interaction, frequency and quality of feedback, resources availability, personal contact with instructor or participants, etc.)?
10 / 100% / 10.00 / Future Plans: What are their future plans for improving the program?
20 / 90% / 18.00 / Organization of Article: (see rubric below)
20 / 90% / 18.00 / Clarity in Writing: (see rubric below)
140 / 134.50 / Total points earned
96.1% / Percent Score(A = 93+, A = 90-92, B+ = 87-89, B = 93=87, B- = 80=83, etc.)
19.21 / Points toward course grade = (20 possible pts X Percent Score)
Writing Style:
- 30% / - 20% / - 10% / - 0%
Organi-zation / Random or weak organization / Lapses in focus and coherence / Logical organization / Careful, clear, suitable organization
Clarity / Incorrect and/or ineffective wording and/or sentence structure / Simplistic and/or imprecise language / Acceptable, effective language / Precise and rich language; variety of sentence structure and length.

Nice job on reporting your findings. It was written concisely and succinctly, and you found a few interesting nuances in the course design and structure compared to other courses taught online. I hope you find my comments helpful!  --Allan

[xxx1]I too find this to be a very interesting course.

[xxx2]I would insert a blank line between each paragraph or section for style/format.

[xxx3]Nice list of course prerequisiste

[xxx4]This is a very good idea!

[xxx5]Every day? Really?

[xxx6]As hinted above, are students really required to participate online everyday? Are the activities scheduled to run on a weekly basis? More details would be helpful here. What percent of the activities are real time and how are the schedule to ensure that all students are able to attend?

[xxx7]What about other aspects of the course. A little more details would be helpful here.

[xxx8]Blackboard does allow you to save your whiteboard sketches, but I don’t think you can revisit the whiteboard to make additional changes to the original sketch.

[xxx9]Student’s

[xxx10]Remove double space.

[xxx11]This info belongs in the instructional mode section

[xxx12]impressive