The Impact of Open Courses

David J. Malan

From time to time, various classes in the course I am taking at Walden University require me to write blog entries as a way to demonstrate my ability to apply what I am learning to a practical issue. In my current class,”Distance Learning,” I am required to write an evaluation of an open course website, which provides access to a college-level course free of charge, but without credit. (“Designing for Distance Learning: Part I - Application”)

Several options were offered for this week’s evaluation (verbatum):

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Course: A free and open educational resource for educators, students, and self-learners around the world.http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
• Stanford on iTunes U: A public site that includes courses and faculty lectures.http://itunes.stanford.edu/
• Open Yale Courses: A free open website offering a number of introductory courses taught by Yale University professors. http://oyc.yale.edu/
• Open Culture http://www.openculture.com/

(“Designing for Distance Learning: Part I – Resources”)

I looked over all of the options that were offered, and I found a number of the courses interesting. However, since I recently audited an open course online, I felt better prepared to write about the course I audited, “Building Dynamic Websites.” (Malan, 2009)

The course consisted of two one-hour video lectures over 12 weeks, with downloadable slides, three project assignments, and a Google discussion group (http://groups.google.com/group/cs75-discuss) for asynchronous discussion. This course can be taken free as an open course, or it may be taken as a graded distance learning course for credit through Harvard Exension School  (http://www.extension.harvard.edu/register/).

I found the course beneficial, but I deviated from the course activities quite a bit. I did not do any of the projects. I did read about the projects and I “lurked” in the Google discussion area. Because of the way I interacted with the course, I felt like an outsider (because I was an outsider). I watched some of the videos with other members of my family and I discussed ideas from the videos with them. I viewed the course videos in iTunes, taking notes, and stopping and starting the videos frequently as I looked up resources or tried out various ideas using the “try it yourself  editor” at http://www.w3schools.com/.  I found the combination of lecture videos and the hands-on activites from w3schools to be an effective way for me to update my own web-development skills.

Probably the most important benefit I gained from the course was an introduction to various open-source development and troubleshooting tools that were referenced in the course. During the course, I set up  my own website with which I could experiment with ideas in a “live” environment. My website (www.1loyd.com) was created as I tried out ideas discussed in these lecture videos.

I would have to say this course, while well-designed for a lecture hall, appears to have been developed as a standard face-to-face course. The syllabus was well-designed. It laid out the course schedule, resources, and learning objectives in a way that made it easy for learners to take charge of their own learning. Lectures at Harvard Hall were recorded and distributed online with downloadable notes, slides, and source code. However, offering this course online appears to have been an afterthought. No provision, other than the Google discussion group, was made for online learner evaluation and feedback from the instructor. It does not appear the course was altered in any way for use by distance learners, other than the addition of the Google discussion group, which certainly would have been a positive supplement for face-to-face learners, but was poorly implemented as a distance learning tool, because it was provided as a supplement, and not as a central part of the course. Two-way discussion providing learner feedback is a central feature of distance learning, especially in the absense of any other kind of formative evaluation. (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Susan, 2009)

The material in this course could be easily refactored as an online course. Much of the extraneous classroom discussion could occur in a dedicated classroom discussion forum. Video segments from lectures could be used in a series of videos, however those video clips should be very short, each introduced to the viewer an intimate studeo format. The clips should be three to ten minutes in length, (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009) and the total time for all lectures should be 20 to 30 minutes per week.

References:

EDUC-6135-2 Distance learning. (n.d.). Designing for Distance Learning: Part I - Application. Walden University. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4603379&Survey=1&47=6447422&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1&BrswrOK=1&PrevRef=http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn%3FCourseID%3D4603379%26Survey%3D1%2647%3D6447422%26ClientNodeID%3D984650%26coursenav%3D1&submit1=Continue

EDUC-6135-2 Distance learning. (n.d.). Designing for Distance Learning: Part I – Resources. Walden University. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4603379&Survey=1&47=6447422&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1&BrswrOK=1&PrevRef=http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn%3FCourseID%3D4603379%26Survey%3D1%2647%3D6447422%26ClientNodeID%3D984650%26coursenav%3D1&submit1=Continue

Malan, D. J. (2009). Computer science E-75: Building dynamic websites. Harvard Extension School. Retrieved from  http://cs75.tv/2009/fall/#l=lectures&r=about&v=lectures/0/lecture0

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Susan, Z. (2009). Instructional design for distance education. In Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.