When looking at the different ways of communication that has came out recently and how it affects the learning of the students that we are working with affects the way that we teach and the students learn. It is important to understand when a type of teaching, communication, or collaboration method has become static and why. By keeping up with what the students are learning and how they are learning it, the instructor can make adaptations to the new methods that are being explored. Communication is very important in all levels of education and work, but when people are no longer able to visit face to face, it is important to have ways to getting the same material to different people and to have proper interaction with each other. Collaboration is the way that new ideas get used by people in the same industry.
Content generation is the means of gaining new information. Traditionally instructors have used podcasts, teacher websites, and text books to get the information to the students. Although the methods have been successful in the past and still may be successful it still requires a lot of the students to remember to watch, read, or listen to what is going on with the class. The instructor still layout the design but the students are still overly responsible for the knowledge gained. The traditional method of distance education can still be efficient and according to Elliott and McGreal (2010) streaming video “when implemented wisely, video can alleviate the page turning boredom of many online courses.” (p.148). Content generation using newer technology such as interactive online classrooms and web conferences allow the instructor to interact with the students more often and give quicker feedback when the students are in need of quality feedback.
Communication and collaboration can use a lot of the same tools to meet the same goal. Traditional communication required time to get responses to the questions or statements that students and instructors may have. E-mail when it came out was a key important new tool that people were able to use for quicker responses in the online learning environment, but e-mail also required time for the other person to respond. Another communication tool that is static is the classic telephone; teleconferences had been around for a long time and were effective tools when it came to the educational scene. The last static method that was first use as a distance education tool is the traditional mail. This takes even more time than the other two methods. By the time the students had gotten response to the question the question was either answered another way or it did not matter anymore to the student.
Dynamic communication often involves Skype or other internet based communication. This allows the students to be on the internet doing other things and still interact with the educators or other students. Internet based communication requires that the others who are involved with the class or program have the same tools on their own computers. Wikis and blogs allow the users to see what other people are seeing at the same time. They simply post a question or statement and get feedback from the other people who are reading or subscribing to their blogs or Wikis. Instant chat rooms allow the instructors as well to interact with the students who may need assistance or who can help with other issues that may been coming up in the program.
Collaboration as a whole is still a new skill that is being developed in both the traditional level and the online learning environment. According to Palloff and Pratt (2005) instructors continuously searching for ways to improve student-to-student interaction to create more personal and relevant learning experience” (p. 4) Collaboration is a tool that is always being refined. The traditional static method of collaboration is face to face, telephone, and leader is the decider. Face to face works well with the people who can physically meet but they do not always have the benefit of different views from different areas of the country. Telephone is a nice way to talk with each other but when deciding how to do something the telephone often gets cumbersome and costly as most collaboration take time and time is money when using the phone. The leader takes all concepts are not collaboration but a discussion making body.
Dynamic collaboration allows the team to have a place to express all of their ideas and work together using the material that are provided. Blogs, Wikis and Web conferences allow the team to use their own resources, to post them to a website and then to make comments about the topic that is being discussed.
Reference:
Anderson, T. (2010) The theory and pracutce of online learning. AU press, Edmonton, AB.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2004) Collaborating online Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
•StaticStatic
•content generation
•Podcasts
•teacher webpages
•lectures
•communication
•Telephone
•e-mail
•postal
•collaboration
•face to face interaction
•chat rooms
•leader decides all
•DDynamic
•Content generation
•interactive discussion boards
•Webconferences
•Online classrooms environments
•Communication
•Blogs
•Wikis
•Skype or web based communication
•Collaboration
•Blogs
•Wikis
•interactive social networks
•Web conferences
