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I advocate modularizing courses for several reasons. The two most important reasons for building your course in a modular format are [1] It simplifies evaluation and the
process of course revision and improvement, and
In this essay, Downes argues that the module will become the primary
unity of instruction.
Modularity is the idea that an entity we consider to be a single unit is in fact composed of separate and independent parts. For example, computers are to a large degree modular. Various components can be plugged in, switched, swapped, or replaced with better parts. In the same manner, online courses will be modular. A course - especially from the designer level - will no longer be seen as a single unit, but rather, as a collection of component parts, each of which may be replaced or upgraded as the need arises. Machine analogy. The predominant model for course design will resemble the architecture of contemporary computers. There will be a backbone, analogous to the computer's motherboard, which establishes the basic structure of the course. Into the backbone will be plugged in various learning modules, communication tools, and student information systems. Customized courses will be the first major application of a modular approach to course design. In the first instance, customized courses will be designed to meet the needs of particular clients. For example, a college offering a selection of business and computer courses may assemble a customized package for a corporate training client. Suppose a Business course consists of modules on Business Writing, Financial Accounting, and Customer Service. And support a computer course consists of modules on Word Processing, Email, and HTML Design. A new course could be constructed by selecting desired course modules, say, a Corporate Communications course consisting of modules on Business Writing, Customer Service, Word Processing and Email. As custom course design hits its stride, the demand for individual courses will arise. Students may need supplementary material in areas where they are week, or additional material matching their interests or aptitudes. Abridged courses may be offered to people with strong backgrounds in the field. Variations on the same course may be used for students working in different disciplines. Menuization, a concept today employed primarily in the area of course selection, will in the future be employed in the area of course construction. Students or other training clients, perhaps working with an educational consultant or designer, will assemble courses, and programs of courses, from a menu of course components. Indeed, the concept of the course itself will gradually be seen as an arbitrary division. The primary unit of instruction will be the module, and programs will be seen as large collections of modules. Viewed in this way, it may be seen how a program could be highly individualized. Modules themselves will be modular. A learning module will essentially consist of a collection of educational materials, mechanisms for communication and interaction, and an assignment or evaluation component. Module design will consist of two major tasks: the selection of module components, and the ordering of module components. The idea here is that a module is best thought of as the assembly of a sequence of educational activities. For example, a student may be required to read some material, engage in a simulation, write a report, participate in a discussion and complete a quiz. Each of these activities in turn requires the support of some educational materials. The task of the module designer will be to select those materials, and then to present them in a sequence. Distributed design. Because the internet will support high speed data transfer, there will be no requirement that instructional components reside on the same computer - or, for that matter, in the same country - as the course being offered. For example, suppose there exists a high quality multimedia dissection of a business letter at an educational web site in Singapore. The module designer will have the option of plugging that resource into the online course. This is already happening. Educational resource sites are springing up across the internet. The best example of this is Canada's Schoolnet, which provides a comprehensive set of media resources. Virtual Frog, a pioneering internet effort, is used in biology classes worldwide. My own Guide to the Logical Fallacies is widely used in logic and rhetoric courses. Not only content based sites are employed in online courses. Companies such as Hotmail offer free email addresses, which are used by students worldwide. Online communities such as Geocities, Anglefire, and Fortune City provide free web space, most of which is used by students. Egroups provides free hosting of discussion groups. Chat servers, bulletin boards, personal pagers: all of these are available from suppliers who willingly allow their use in online courses. What has not yet happened - but which will, in the future - is that these resources will be added to online courses in a formal manner. By that, I mean they will satisfy educational object protocols. Educational Object Protocols are the rules which govern how educational objects will interact with each other. The development of these protocols is already under way, led by the Educom/NLII IMS (Instructional Management System). Of interest for course and module developers are two major components. First, all educational resources will be accompanied by metadata. Metadata is data about the data. For example, an article about Saturn would contain data about Saturn - it has rings, it is a gas giant, and so on. Metadata would be data about the article - it was written by Fred Jones, it is located at saturn.com, and so on. Second, educational resources will be written in XML (eXtensible Markup Language). XML is similar to HTML, but while HTML concerns itself mostly with how a document is formatted and displayed, XML is used to indicate the role of document components. Thus, authors, for example, will use XML to identify questions, asides, definitions, or any of a variety of other structural definitions. Metadata and XML will be enormously useful for intelligent search agents, and these agents will be used increasingly for a variety of purposes: assembling specialized data, compensating authors, monitoring student progress - in short, anything which requires a structured retrieval of data from a variety of online sources. Of concern to educational software developers will be the standard set of function or object protocols. These will determine what information an educational object requires in order to be invoked by a remote system, and what information that object will return to the remote system. Consider, for example, how a user logs into the educational system. A student login would be handled by a login object, which expects as input (from the student) a user name and password, and returns (to the system and to the student) a user object. The user object, in turn, based on student or system input, interacts with other system objects to produce on screen displays, update student records, send messages, and a variety of other educational tasks. The way in which these objects
communicate with each other will be standardized. This means that online
learning systems of the future will be composed of separate, interchangeable
objects, each dedicated to a specific task. And what will happen in practise
is that various software vendors will market programs consisting essentially
of sets of these objects. Thus, for example, Web Crossing will market an
online conferencing system which interacts with the remainder of an online
course in a predetermined and structured manner.
Two different schools of thought dominate discussion on the economics of online learning. On the one hand, there is the hope that online learning will reduce costs by increasing the number of students an instructor can manage. This would be accomplished by such means as auto-marking and automized record keeping. Additionally, on this view, online learning would eliminate the need for expensive classrooms and infrastructure. On the other hand, there is the empirical data, which suggests that online learning is more labour intensive than traditional classroom learning, which drives costs up. Online students typically interact to a much greater degree than traditional students, and they tend to expect more detailed and individualized comments. Additionally, the cost of developing online courses is high; it is not uncommon to see course development costs in the range of $50,000 to $100,000. These appear to be contradictory trends, however, the resolution of that contradiction may be found in the following observations: first, while online learning will be more expensive in the short term, it will be cheaper in the long term, and second, while educational institutions will realize some savings by offering courses online, the greater share of the saving will be realized by students. Triad Model The triad model identifies three key players in online learning: the student, the instructor, and the facilitator. The existence of a new player - the facilitator - is necessitated by the distance between instructor and student, and the need for a peer based community as well as an online topic based community. Many of the tasks assumed by instructors in traditional education devolve to the facilitator in online education. The Instructor in online learning may be located anywhere. In most instances, the instructor will be located at some distance from the student. Working with the ED system and communicating directly with the student online, the instructor plays three major roles: (a) as a facilitator of learning, (b) as a content-area specialist, and (c) as an evaluator. As a facilitator of learning, the instructor provides instruction and guidance on the use of learning materials. For the most part, this involves the sequencing of learning materials and activities, monitoring pacing, and where appropriate, communicating directly with the student, the on site facilitator, or parents. The instructor also fosters student interaction and supports the development of the online community which will arise surrounding his or her instructional content. The instructor's primary role is as a content-area specialist. It is expected that an instructor in a given field will have possess qualifications and credentials in that subject area. The instructor is not expected to provide lectures - this sort of instruction is provided in the course materials. But the instructor is expected to respond to student queries in an informed manner or to offer new or additional information in the subject area. As an evaluator, the instructor tracks student progress and receives student assignments and exams. These assignments are either graded by the system or graded by the instructor, with the results in all cases returned to the student online and entered into the student's ED records. The Facilitator is located in or near the student's home community, generally based in a community learning centre or school. While the instructor communicates with a student from a distance, the facilitator will generally communicate with a student in person. The facilitator is responsible for the provision of technical support in the use of computers, internet, on-line course materials, multimedia materials, and other technology. He or she also acts as a mentor, provides study skills and time management training, if required, and supports and encourages the student, and acts as an advocate for students, helping them navigate through the admissions process, course registration, and other administrative functions. The facilitator is not expected to be a content-area specialist. The facilitator does not teach course materials and does not grade or evaluate students in any way. Rather, just as the instructor is xpected to foster the interest based community, the facilitator is expected to foster the peer based community. For this reason, facilitators will most likely be drawn from, and hired by, communities rather than institutions. The Online Learning Host/Provider Framework describes the institutional support for the triad model. In traditional education, the host and the provider are the same institution. That is to say, the same institution which produces the instruction is also the institution attended by the student. For example, if I say I am taking a course from the University of Calgary, what I mean is that the course instruction is being delivered by the University of Calgary, and also that the University of Calgary provides the facilities where I receive that course instruction. In the future, host and provider institutions will increasingly be different institutions. One example of this is course brokering, wherein the course I am taking may have been developed by, and even instructed by, a University of Calgary instructor, but is being delivered at Red Deer College. Thus, when I take the course, I use Red Deer's classrooms, computers, and facilities even though the course is a University of Calgary course. Host institutions will be by necessity geographically - and community - based. They will be the small, specialized schools described above, staffed by facilitators, and housing meeting rooms, laboratories, virtual reality simulators, and other tools too specialized or too expensive to be purchased by individual students. Provider institutions, by contrast, may be located anywhere. With no time or location constraints, it will become increasingly common for provider institutions to service a global audience. We are seeing this trend develop already. Even today, I see course announcements posted almost daily on distance learning list servers such as DEOS or WWWDEV. It is now possible to take a course on almost anything from almost anywhere in the world. And although such course offerings are not always attractive, because of bandwidth limitations and pedagogical factors, these limitations will disappear as the field matures and the technology evolves. Potential students will shortly be faced with a dizzying array of educational opportunities. Indeed, one of the primary tasks for host institutions will be to select and menuize course offerings. Typically, a host institution will support only a small subset of available educational opportunities, selected primarily by political and economic considerations. For example, government funded host institutions in Manitoba, such as schools or employment centres, are more likely to support courses and programs offered by Manitoba schools, colleges and universities. But there will be a general fuzzing of traditional boundaries, especially in jurisdictions where the host and provider institutions are not governed, or at least associated, under an umbrella organization. For example, if host institutions in Manitoba developed onsite support facilities independently of the colleges and universities in that province, then they are far more likely to offer a menu of courses and programs from national and international institutions, and not primarily Manitoba institutions. Provider institutions will find it essential to develop and nurture networks of host institutions, if only to secure a long term market for their course offerings.
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