In the Module 3 conference we discussed the role of the instructor and the aspects of distance education (de) and face-to-face (f-t-f) learning; which, really made me think about many aspects of both educational methods. Eventually, it is inevitable that traditional courses will start to bend and add new methods to make the f-t-f courses more convenient and accessible to the students taking the courses (this can already be seen in the transitioning to hybrid courses and the use of de as an outside tool for f-t-f courses).
The roles of course instructors are continuously changing and adapting to new methods in both systems. In previous post, I had stated that the traditional instructor's role stay's primarily the same, as the head of the class, with pre-planned (scripted) material that is being read to students. However, this is untrue, as the f-t-f instructors are continuously changing methods of teaching by teaching online courses or adding online materials to the f-t-f course. One of the interesting aspects that differ between the modes of teaching is the design. One of the design differences mentioned by Bates & Poole (2003) is the use of one instructor to create a course (more beneficial when using other outside sources) for f-t-f, however, the DE course needs many different faculty members to create the course (p. 158). With many different faculty members being utilized to create a de course, how much more money does it cost to run the de course over a f-t-f course?
This concept is interesting as it shows the amount of work that is put into creating ease of education. It will be interesting in time to see how much of the f-t-f classroom is transitioned into the web. The explosion of de institutions and online programs has already occurred, and now it is almost a waiting game to see how much is left of the traditional classroom in a couple of years.
Reference
Bates & Poole, Chapter 7, "Approaches to the Design of Technology-Based Learning," pp. 153-179
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I agree that more f2f classes are using distance education elements in their classes, even if its just using an online LMS (like Blackboard) to post course documents. I think this is becoming more and more common. During my undergrad years taking all f2f classes from 2002-2006 more and more teachers were putting lectures, powerpoint slides, and handouts online for students to access at their leisure. This was more common in the more technology based classes, but was spreading throughout the university. One of my last classes was supposed to meet in class twice a week and one of the days was canceled to be an online meeting instead. In a couple weeks my youngest sister will be starting college and even though she is only 7 years younger than me I think her classes may be drastically different than mine, in that more online resources and distance educational tools will be used in her traditional f2f classes.
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