What’s the Problem with Online Education?

Recent studies have demonstrated that online courses, properly handled, can meet and even exceed educational standards established by traditional face-to-face courses. So why aren’t more schools embracing this potentially powerful educational weapon?

Several barriers stand in the way of widespread use of online education. Some barriers relate to enrollment in distance education programs. Rezabek (as cited in Muilenburg & Berge, 2001) grouped these barriers into three broad categories. “Situational barriers result from an individual’s general situation or environment, and include such issues as transportation, age, time constraints, and family responsibilities. Institutional barriers are created by an institution’s programs, policies, and procedures, and include problems with admissions, registration, scheduling of courses, financial aid, and support services. Dispositional barriers result from an individual’ s personal background, attitude, motivation, learning style, and self-confidence.”

Also in the Muilenburg study, Leggett and Persichitte were cited as identifying five basic barrier categories to the implementation of technology in K12 classrooms: time, access, resources, expertise, and support. Muilenburg and Berg’s study, through the study of a myriad of other resources, developed their own list which ultimately identified a total of 64 categories of barriers which the authors used as survey questions for their study.

Berg (1998) identified multiple barriers to online education, including:

· "faceless" teaching

· fear of the imminent replacement of faculty by computers

· diffusion of value traditionally placed on getting a degree

· faculty culture

· lack of an adequate time-frame to implement online courses

· many distance learners who lack independent learning skills and local library resources

· lack of formalized agreements to sustain program commitment though difficulties and problems

· high cost of materials

· taxpayer ignorance of the efficacy of distance education

· lack of a national agenda, funding priority, and policy leadership

· increased time required for both online contacts and preparation of materials/activities

· the more technologically advanced the learning system, the more to go wrong

· non-educational considerations take precedence over educational priorities

· resistance to change

· lack of technological assistance

One definite barrier to online education is the attitude of the instructor toward technology. According to Christiea and Juradob (2009), educators have historically been slow to embrace emergent technology. “Older teachers required time to adapt to the use of overhead transparencies even when they instinctively knew that it was pedagogically smarter to show a picture of complicated equipment during a lecture than to try to describe it in words… It took time and a lot of trial and error before teachers made the next step to PowerPoint….” Christiea and Juradob went on to state that many teachers currently using PowerPoint technology were failing to use it for pedagogical reasons, but rather as speaker notes.  These users had not recognized the potential of the technology for illustration, engagement, or enhancement of their presentation. Similar problems exist with the current use of computer education.

Some might argue that it is fear of technology which impedes its general use more than any other barrier. “…the most critical obstacles reported in this survey appear related to persons' resistance to or fear of the many changes that must occur at the individual and organizational level. Add to these fears the lack of support for the changing roles of students and teachers and you have the ingredients that often lead to significant impediments to success in online education” (Berge, 1998).

Another key problem appears to be related to access. The best online program, if students are unable to access it, get it to work correctly on their home system or mobile device, or figure out how to use it, is worthless. This barrier is so pervasive, Lorenzo and Moore (2002) list access as one of the five pillars of quality online instruction. “One of the most comprehensive and experienced models of access-related issues can be found at the one of the oldest and largest providers of online education, UMUC… Merrily Stover, former Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Studies at UMUC, outlines the multifaceted structure of an institution focused on providing a full-range of services to make online learning easily accessible to students. For example, UMUC’s Student Success Center offers a full range of online orientations, 24-hour technical support, and easy web-based access to online courses and programs. The school’s Better Opportunities through Online Education Program helps low-income workers gain access to higher education.”

The good news is that educators are beginning to recognize the potential of the technology to provide high quality education to larger numbers of people. Institutes of higher education, public, private, and chartered K12 schools, and even state governments are beginning to offer, promote, and fund online education in vast numbers. Pedagogical changes are improving the quality of these programs, and organizations such as the Sloan Consortium are driving increased access and helping to overcome the digital divide. Unfortunately, it may take a generation for many of these barriers to be overcome. As digital natives graduate and join the ranks of educators and policy makers, I believe we will see a tremendous growth in online education and witness many of these barriers slipping away.

References

Berge, Z. L. (1998, Summer). Barriers To Online Teaching In Post-Secondary Institutions: Can Policy Changes Fix It? Retrieved May 3, 2012, from Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration: http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer12/berge12.html

Christiea, M., & Juradob, R. G. (2009). Barriers to innovation in online pedagogy. European Journal of Engineering Education, 273–279.

Lorenzo, G., & Moore, J. (2002, November). FIVE PILLARS OF QUALITY ONLINE EDUCATION. Retrieved May 3, 2012, from The Sloan Consortium: http://www.edtechpolicy.orgwww.edtechpolicy.org/ArchivedWebsites/Articles/FivePillarsOnlineEducation.pdf

Muilenburg, L., & Berge, Z. (2001). Barriers to Distance Education: A Factor-Analytic Study. The American Journal of Distance Education, 7-22.

Playing Games in the Classroom – the Role of Simulations and Game Play in K12

I have long been a proponent of the use of video-games in education. As a mother of students with learning challenges, I was often surprised at the intensity my sons applied to their video-game pursuits; failing and retrying a multitude of times without hint of frustration. This same intensity was absent from their school applications. My sons frequently failed to apply themselves to a school based assignment out of fear of failure no more threatening than that which they faced undauntingly during gaming. Seeing this contradictory behavior made me realize that something about the virtual environment of their games engaged them more deeply in the process while disengaging them from the stigma associated with failure. They approached the game with a determination to conquer it. I am convinced that this engagement and determination is what is missing from traditional educational approaches. If we can find a way to simulate that through educational use of game play in the classroom, I believe we can revolutionize education.

Few studies have been conducted on the effective use of video-based game play in the classroom. Part of the reason for this is the negative attitude toward game play by educators in general. “Many school leaders and teachers react negatively to video games and gaming culture, bashing video games as diversionary threats to the integrity of schooling or as destructive activities that corrupt moral capacity and create a sedentary, motivation-destroying lifestyle” (Halverson, 2005). Halverson goes on to say that the problem is exacerbated by the standards-driven environment we have embraced in the light of No Child Left Behind and other such legislation. “Standards specify what to teach; school leaders and teachers construct efficient pedagogies and learning environments to teach it.”

An and Bonk (2009) discuss the components necessary for developing educational games that will engage student in learning. They are proponents of a context-based rather than content-based approach. By this the authors mean that learning needs to be authentic and meaningful, surrounding a realistic situation or problem, rather than disconnected facts to be committed to rote memory. “Context is more important than content since learning is a process of ‘developing abilities to see, think, do and be in the world,’ rather than accumulating discrete facts (Squire, 2005b, p. 19).” This seems to be in direct opposition to the standards-based curriculum of the classroom, which demands a content-first approach. However, if approached correctly, I believe video-games and simulations can be used to teach directly to standards and can improve student retention and learning.

Steen (2008) cites research that demonstrates that learning increases proportionately with our interaction with the material. According to his example, a teacher utilizing visuals with lecture and textbook reading assignments might expect students to retain 50% of the materials being taught. This teacher can dramatically increase student retention to 70% by incorporating a class or small group discussion. Learning increases to 80% if students are allowed to experience the material. This is the realm of the video-game.

Part of the resistance to video-game use in the classroom is that there is not an efficient way to assess or measure learning, and in fact, students might learn at different rates or fail to apply what they have learned to school-related concepts. Halverson (2005) states that video games “provide inefficient and unpredictable environments for learning school-based material and have learning outcomes that are difficult to map onto curriculum standards. Learning in endogenous video games can be a protracted and indirect affair with a steep learning curve when compared with standard curriculum units on mathematical fractions, Egyptian history, or European expansion.”

Halverson (2005) goes on to explain that the cure for this lies in the way teachers facilitate the lesson. He feels that teachers can extract valuable lesson plans from existing commercial video games through several steps. His first suggestion involves mapping the learning potentials of commercial games to existing standards-based content. “Commercial endogenous games require an integrated lesson design that incorporates the depth of gaming insights into standards-based school environments.”

The second step outlined is to change the structure of the traditional classroom to allow for facilitation of learning from the game to derive the desired content. “The role of the learning environment in a traditional school setting is to provide a context to make structured content accessible to students; the role of the learning environment in an endogenous game-based setting is to scaffold prompts for helping students construct legitimate analogies between what can be learned in the game and what schools need to teach” (Halverson, 2005).

Next, Halverson (2005) suggests using the built-in risk-taking and controlled failure of the games as an authentic measurement for assessment of learning. “Designing environments to integrate games into schooling can thus draw on the assessment devices already built into games. The technology of multi-player gaming, for example, generates tangible records of prior game moves in the form of discussion threads that can be used to spark reflection on the assumptions behind earlier game moves (see, for example, the Rise of Nations Universe site). Learning environment designers can use these public representations of game-based information to discuss school-based learning outcomes. The arguments players develop online to defend in-game moves open valuable windows into the players' thinking processes. The outcomes of game-play also provide authentic artifacts of student learning that can be used as summative evaluations of learning.”

Halverson’s (2005) final suggestion may seem a bit over the top, but it makes sense if educators are to attend to the other suggestions. He proposes that in order to best learn how to use commercial games in education, educators need to play them. “…nowhere is the current generational gap in technology greater than in game literacy, and while asking school leaders and teachers to play commercial video games may be a stretch, integrating game-based learning experiences in their professional development may help them see the merits of gaming from the inside.”

I am convinced that educators need to devote some time to research the potential for use of commercially available video-games for education, and instructional designers need to become aware of the need for authentic game-based learning experiences and build games designed to meet standards-based instructional needs which are engaging for students to play.

References

An, Yun-Jo and Bonk, Curtis J. (2009). Finding that SPECIAL PLACE: Designing Digital Game-Based Learning Environments. TechTrends, Vol. 53, No. 3.

Halverson, Richard (2005). What Can K-12 School Leaders Learn from Video Games and Gaming? Innovate. Retrieved April 22, 2012 from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=81.

Steen, Henry L. (2008). Effective eLearning Design. Merlot Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 4, No. 4.

New Online Resource for Teachers and Administrators

I have just signed up for a new web service: eBackpack.com. This great resource provides teachers and administrators with secure cloud storage and file sharing in an environment especially designed for them. The website allows you to create sub-accounts under your own for your students, add classes and assign students to classes, upload files (handouts, notes, assignments) to share with students, provide a drop-box for students to submit work online, return graded submissions to students, create an online ePortfolio of student work, and more. This looks like it is going to be a great site with many possible uses. Be sure and check out the site and sign up for your free account today, and let me know what you think!