Blog Week 9 EDET674
Virtual Teaching and Learning
Essential Question:
What lessons can we take from Global Distance Learning Efforts?
Online
courses are adopted all over the world in order to support a wider range of
students just like in the United States. Sometimes technology is not strong
enough to support online courses therefore materials are needed to provide
distance education. Distance courses might look like high-quality videos and
materials that can be given to a trainee to become an administer of the course
to other students even though they have never taught the course like
PROFORMACAO program has provided in Brazil (Moore & Kearsley, 2012).
Distance courses could look like an organized and structured distance education
system that China has put together by providing millions of students distance
courses using satellite, cable and broadcast television, radio, Internet,
computer programs and printed materials. (2012) Distance courses can even look
like Pakistan’s Allama Iqbal University who provides distance education “as a
means of opening access and diminishing inequality” from education. (2012)
I am
interested in what distance education programs have come from India and how I
could learn from these programs for best practices of teaching online courses. The
Global South is very populated and there is a high demand for education and
training for middle and low economic classes. Therefore, in India, the
education demand is being found in online courses or in open online courses for
little to absolutely no fee. Alcorn et al. explain that MOOCs are becoming
highly popular for professional training but there comes a few concerns of
using open education courses the main way to become educated. The four concerns
are reliability of access to internet and a device to take the course, a strong
and adequate k-12 education, strong English, and having enough free time.
(2015) Being able to provide education through free online courses are
important but it is important to keep in mind the complications and obstacles
for each community which is true for all teachers of online courses.
At Indira
Gandhi National Open University students are able to register and take online
courses for a low fee. It seems that students complete assignments on somewhat
of a self-paced time with the given assignments at the beginning of the course.
Students will then go into a testing center to take their final examination of
the course. All courses have materials in either Hindi or English. This can be
hindering for many Indian people because less than half speak Hindi and about
10% speak English. I think that having a University this large is okay for the
Indian people but focus needs to be individual areas so that courses can be
connected to that area of India. (IGNOU, 2016)
Alcorn, B.,
Christensen, G., & Kapur, D. (2015). Higher Education and MOOCs in India
and the Global South. Change, 47(3), 42-49.
IGNOU The Peoples
University. Indira Gandhi National Open University. Retrieved from http://www.ignou.ac.in/
Moore, M. G.
& Kearsley, G. (2012). Distance Education: A system view of online
learning. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Mariah,
ReplyDeleteI was surprised an glad to learn that more women are being educated in Pakistan and it's possible through distance education. That's a huge progression for the women's rights. Years ago we had a family from Pakistan who moved here because the mother was teaching high school math. They said in their country women weren't able to be educated and work outside the home. They wanted opportunities for their kids and especially their daughters, which their oldest daughter is now a doctor here in the US.
The idea of open education is really interesting. This would really create opportunities for economically disadvantaged people across the country. It's scary to think though, that if the system didn't produce strong candidates for employment academically and socially, what impact this would have on society.