OMDE 601 - Foundations of Distance Education  

 Course Description:

 

 

The goals of the course are to provide the student with a foundation of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required by a competent practitioner of distance education. Students explore the critical concepts and issues identified in the distance education literature and critically examine the history and theories of the field.

 

Select the following link to view an example of my work from OMDE 601:

(Assignment - Typology of Distance Education) 

This assignment offered me a glimpse into the qualities of a major DE institution in terms of administration and structure, student support, Instructional design, technology and student demographics. A comparison was made between 10 distance education organizations from Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia using the same criteria. From this assignment I discovered the breadth of DE and the many different designs and attributes seen today and achieved a very good foundation on which to build upon.

As an introductory course and my first-ever Masters level course, there were times I felt as if I was in over my head, but in retrospect I received information in OMDE 601that I retrieved time and time again throughout the MDE program. However, if I was able to change one aspect of this course, it would be to allow students more time to absorb what's discussed and learned in this course and decrease the amount of reading required, although this, too, has a positive: The amount of reading I printed during this semester gave me the start of an excellent "library" for future use in other classes. I had not learned at this point to initially select those topics that most interest me, read those resources well, and then incorporate additional topics as able! (I felt as if I had to read everything and absorb everything!)

 

OMDE 603 - Technology in Distance Education  

Course Description: 

This course explores the role of technology in the design, development, and delivery of distance education. Students critically examine the relationship between technology and the goals of the educational / training organization. Various uses of technology are explored in the areas of course development, asynchronous and synchronous distance course delivery, and management / administration. The relationship of information technology and distance education is explored, and special emphasis is placed on computer based technologies. 

 

Select the following link to view an example of my work from OMDE 603:

 

(Assignment 3 - Use of Computer-Based Technologies in Hybrid Courses)

The goal of this assignment was to give the student the opportunity to select a technology appropriate to a to an education or training program at a specific organization/institution and apply Bates' S-E-C-T-I-O-N-S model in analyzing the specific features of a technology. The second goal of this assignment was to integrate materials into a coherent whole that demonstrates your grasp of all key concepts in the course. This, in turn, gives the opportunity to demonstrate a high level comprehension of the course materials, generalize principles across technologies, see commonalities, etc., all of which are critical elements of this course.

I enjoyed this course, although taking it in my first semester along with OMDE 601 contributed to the "in over my head" feeling. However, the synchronous technologies utilized in both the course assignments and course discussions (Skype) were interesting since to that point, I had never used any VoIP technology (unless you count a telephone!).