New Media Challenges and changes in learning

As I have learned more about open education and open learning I have asked myself.."What does this mean? How does this change learning? What are the challenges?" With that thought in mind I put pen to paper and started to jot down a few things. Learners will have plenty of information via the internet and other means but more this information will be also not be categorized. Further challenges will require that the learner has the skills to determine the validity of the information, but chances are he/she will at times suffer from "information overload, and will be challenged by determining the credibility of the learning resources.

The learner will have unprecedented opportunities for interaction with others; for learning and socializing but he/she will have to determine the legitimacy of this interaction for learning. These interactions go beyond the individual one to one interactions to the basic team interaction to social learning. In order to do this the learner will need to have the skills to evaluate the arguments and be able to objectively develop his/her own arguments. The learner will have to develop critical thinking skills to understand the diverse points of view and understand all sides of an argument to craft his/her own.

The advent of social networking may also be driven by the economy, not only will universities and colleges be looking at cost effective ways to communicate with learners the learners will also be make the same decisions. Social networking tools, most of which are free or basically free, are demonstrating a positive return on investment as more and more learners, faculty, and institutions turn to them in this economic downturn, to underpin communication in online classes and facilitate communication for classes. Not only are these tools free they are easy to access and use.

The formalization and acknowledgment that games are tools for learning. Learners will move away from the notion that using virtual worlds for learning, 3d environments, and immersive environments offer more to their learning experience than just "video games." These environments can be highly structured to meet the outcomes of the course or curriculum and provide the potential to engage a student in his/her learning experience. The learners will need to have the ability to evaluate what he or she is learning and how that applies to the course.

Learners will need to be able to critically self-evaluate in order to understand whether or not the learning experience was meaningful and applied to what they needed to learn. The informal learner will especially need to have this skill as he/she reviews the offerings of open course ware, for example in order to ensure that the course materials he/she is accessing are those that will lead him/her to the intended educational goal.

Finally the learner will have to have the skills to present the informal learning in such a way as to get credit or recognition for it, this could be through portfolios or other presentations. This is a critical skill, a review of univerisity or college course catalogs may indicated whether or not that institutions give credit for prior learning, challenge exams, or CLEP tests.

How Open Education may change how learners learn

Has the open education or open courseware movement changed how people learn? Without a doubt it already has...and will continue to do so.

What is open education or open courseware and why is this important to education today? According to Wikipedia entry the definition is as follows:

Open education is a collective term that refers to forms of education in which knowledge, ideas or important aspects of teaching methodology or infrastructure are shared freely over the internet.

It was inspired by related concepts like Creative Commons, Open source, Open data and Open Access, and expands them to include lectures and other courseware.
(retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_education, 7/28/09)

Open education resources provide for more avenues for a learned to learn informally, hwat is lacking a mean to measure this learning, to determine if it meets academic standards. Will there be a recognized method of evaluating learning in the future that gives a student credit for his/her informal learning? Perhaps.

Will movements such as open courseware and open education lead to changes in how people interact as they learn and interact with and access information. People are hungry to learn, this is evident by my interaction with others in Second Life. I have noted changes in how I access information, web searches are the rule of the day, however since 1995 when I first got on the internet those searches have changed dramatically, resources are more openly available on the web.

Initially you had to pay for access, have a library card or pin number, but now resources such as MIT's open scholarly journals, Google, etc., have all made that information freely available.

I, like many I know, stay current on new events, moment by moment accessing Google News, which I did during the financial meltdown on an almost hour by hour basis, watching trends. I now keep track of news trends and information through Twitter.

Hoe people interact with information, as it exists and as news breaks, and then use that information to create new knowledge is the most exciting and perhaps scariest trend that exists today. But most exciting is how we use the information to learn.

In Second Life I meet new people almost everyday, and many of those I meet, from other countries and the United States are there to learn, specifically to learn from others everything from history, to the English language, to science. Those I meet, who are there to learn are looking for universities, language labs and to visit different sites they have heard about. The potential of virtual worlds as a place to access inforamtion and to learn is only beginning to be realized.

Furthermore the potential of the open education movement is only beginning to be realized as a means to improve our world, give us a common ground and bring high quality education resources to everyone. The future is bright as this unfolds! I can't wait.

why I am passionate about distance education

Distance education,through a variety of modalities, has played a role in my life from high school to today. When I was in high school I lived in rural area that required that I travel 45 miles one way to high school or live in town. My parents and I opted that I live in town, making the trip on occasion. I soon tired of living in town with relatives, high school, and I was the normal impatient teenage anxious to get on with being an adult. I am not sure how I figured it out but I found out about correspondence courses and that the University of South Dakota offered correspondence courses at the high school level. So I urged my parents and the high school that I attended to accept two correspondence courses so that I could graduate from high school a year early. It is apparent, that even at this age I was not engaged in the social scene of high school at all! Well I was and I had some good friends that I am still friends with today but I was eager to get to college and get on with that next phase of adult life.


I went on to college and while there I met my husband and soon afterward got married, this also meant a halt to my college education. I finished out at technical school and we moved to Wyoming. Wyoming is a rural state with one university and seven community colleges. The University of Wyoming is located in one corner of the state and the community colleges are located throughout out the state. After having two kids I enrolled in community college to complete my associates degree. At that point it was fully my intention to complete my associates degree and get a job. Close to completion of my associates degree I learned that I could get a bachelor's degree from the University of Wyoming via a distance. The modalities used at point were face to face with instructors located at the outreach sites, video conferencing and teleconferencing. In addition to this I enrolled in correspondence courses from other universities.


I was able to complete my bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of WY via a distance using these modalities. It wasn't until the late 90's early 2000's that online learning was applied at UWY. Even though I had completed my master's in public administration I decided to take some online business courses from UWY. This was fortuitous it was after this time that I got a job at the local community college and decided to get a Ph. D. I found an online university, Touro College International, which offered an online Ph. D. in Business. I contacted them, worked out the details and started my Ph. D. Touro College International, (TUI now) was a perfect solution to a working parent like me. Accredited, fully online, and an easy to use course management system I quickly found success with this university. Not only that I was able to take advantage of the opportunity to teach online, as a graduate assistant with them. This truly made the experience a rewarding one as I interacted with students and I was able to reduce the costs of my tuition.

This is why I am passionate about online education, the opportunities that it provides to working adults and adults with children who may not otherwise be able to go to college. My experience as student, instructor and administrator in the online education/distance education realm has been a rewarding one. There is room for both avenues of getting an education, face to face or online..and there are students who need to have access to both or one or the other for various reasons. Franky my interactions in an online classroom have been richer in many ways than face to face...much of that depended upon the course design. For students who are pursuing online/distance education today, it should be more than a matter of convenience, it should be a matter of accessing a quality education.