Greetings Educators,

Online virtual education, today’s hot topic in education, is one that continues to grow and gain legitimacy.

I’m a 58 year old educator and my early impression of distance education was that it was just a poor substitute for a traditional classroom. Later, with the advent of technology, my thinking changed a bit but I thought the computer only automated a poor substitute for traditional learning. But keep in mind that my first memories of distance education programs (more than 40 years ago) were those advertised inside matchbook covers; art, locksmithing, gun repair, and auto mechanics.

However, my impressions and understandings of distance education were just plain wrong. Over the past 15 years I’ve learned that correspondence and distance study has been an educational mainstay throughout most of the 20th century and now into the 21st century. Interestingly, one of the first modes of delivery for distance learning, and a high tech solution at the time, was radio. When the radio was first introduced in the early 1920s it began bringing education opportunities to many who lived in rural and remote areas. Since that time, many new technologies have improved the delivery of education including the telephone, television, video recorders, and computers. And with the advent of the Internet in 1969 the world of distance learning was changed forever. Today, with well over one billion people using the Internet, the opportunities for online education are expanding exponentially.

My first real experience with distance learning was around 1990 when I took a class “online” as part of my graduate study. The instructor emailed me my assignments and I emailed back my papers. If I had any questions I either emailed or called her. To me it seemed to be more of an automated correspondence class than a virtual education experience.

So, you may wonder where I’m going with this… As you know, we at MSU have been creating virtual classes for both our certificate program and for our masters program in educational technology. The world of virtual online education has been evolving over the past few years and has now arrived in a big way. Enrollments in our virtual certificate program have been skyrocketing and our challenge is now to meet that new demand with both a quality program and well trained instructors.

The need for highly trained and highly qualified (does that term ring a bell?) teachers and instructors is the newest issue for online education. At the university level we must train faculty on how to teach in the virtual world. And, with Michigan’s newest change to the Michigan Merit Curriculum requiring graduating seniors to have an “online experience,” we must prepare and train our state’s teachers for teaching online.

Teaching online is a skill that requires more than a basic understanding of teaching, technology, and the Internet. Teachers must know and understand how technology is used for the delivery of distance education, they must know and understand the appropriate pedagogical issues and instructional strategies required for teaching online, and they must know and understand how to design and develop online courses.

Michigan is taking a lead role nationwide in the field of virtual and online learning by creating new standards and programs for certifying that Michigan teachers are qualified to teach online. Michigan’s 7th Standard for entry level teachers is being reviewed and the NP Endorsement in educational technology is being revised to incorporate online teaching and learning. So the critical issue facing us now is training and preparing teachers who will be our state’s online educators. We cannot assume that a teacher who knows how to use a computer and is a regular Internet user will be an effective online instructor. Teaching online requires a new skill set and institutions such as MSU are creating programs that will provide both pre- and in-service teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary for being a successful online teacher.

I am very interested in hearing from you about this important topic. What do you think about online education, taking classes online and teaching online? Do you support this new wave to online education and do you plan to take classes online or someday teach online? And, if so, what do you think the greatest challenges are?

PS: I’m off to Dubai next. As you may have been reading, MSU is opening a new campus in Dubai and we’re exploring the possibility of offering both our ed tech certificate program and our masters program. Watch this newsletter for updates and stories.

Best Regards,

Joseph Codde
Professor and Director
Educational Technology Certificate Program

Contact us at: 517-432-9259
http://edutech.msu.edu

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 9:09 pm and is filed under Directors' Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.