Talking about presence
One theme popping up all the time is the comparability of F2F and online learning and teaching. Shouldn't we be past that by now? And move towards understanding the uniqueness of the differences? Why do their have to be compared? Is this a question of digital nativeness versus digital immigrants' understanding of life online? The presentations by the Virtual strand team and Maria Lindgren and Therese Örnberg Berglund (see picture) raised this issue as an interesting research question and chgallenged us to move forward and find ways, tools and methods to enhance presence and interaction for learning online.
posted by Peppi Taalas at 12:28 pm
2 Comments:
I agree with you Peppi; we definitely should be passed that by now. Uschi Felix also provided us with some really inspiring guidelines as to what type of focus research areas there are to be investigated.
Isn't it essentially a question of "horses for courses"? Thinking back to my wife Sally's experience as an Open University student in the 1970s/80s, it was obvious that some materials lent themselves to presentation in printed form, others worked better on TV or on the radio (which the OU used a lot in those days) and certain things could only be done by means of telephone conversations with tutors, tutorials with other students at local colleges and, of course, the famous (or “infamous”) summer schools. The end result was a very successful blend. As new technologies have been introduced into education we have often been swayed by the “gee whiz!” factor rather than thinking how we could utilise the technologies effectively. There is one school of thought that says everything should be online – and this is coupled with a belief that there is a lot of money to be made out of online learning. The spectacular collapse of the UK e-University (UkeU) a couple of years ago shows us that this thinking was wrong and teaches us a lesson or two.
The key question regarding online learning is: “Who is our target audience?” I doubt that the average 18-20 year-old would choose an online degree course in preference to attending university. When I was 19 I wanted to get away from home, study at university with like-minded people, go to parties, get drunk, travel the world and fall in love – all of which I did, and all of which still sounds more attractive to me at 64. That said, shouldn’t we be targeting the same kinds of students that my wife Sally met in the OU? These included busy mums like herself in their early 30s, who were more than grateful to get away from the kids for a few hours. She also met business people and teachers topping up their qualifications, people with various handicaps that would have prevented them (at that time) attending university and retired people (like myself, a “silver surfer” in modern parlance). Her tutor was also responsible for supervising a couple of prisoners in gaol, one of whom ended up with a PhD and on his release began to earn a good living as a lecturer.
By the way, Sally graduated at the same time as the film "Educating Rita" was released. She featured in the national press as a real-life example of a Rita, i.e. a woman who got a degree having entered the OU with no formal qualifications and whose life changed totally as a result. But there the similarity ends: I didn't burn her books and we remain happly married.
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