Readings, Week 2 (Online Learning)

I'd like to start out by acknowledging that my response to this week's readings will almost certainly be influenced by a tragic event in my personal life: namely, the attempted murder of my beloved laptop. Infected by a malicious virus this weekend, it has gone into a coma and can only be awoken by the kiss of an IT professional. Anyway, the upshot is, I'm typing this entry on an XP computer running Internet Explorer in the middle of the undergraduate library. Its noisy, crowded, and, I suspect, not entirely sanitary here at the Shapiro, and the atmosphere significantly impacts my attitude towards online learning. Not only has my self-esteem suffered from my inability to first diagnose and then cure this malady, but has reawakened a particularly hidebound love of learning through physical books. Furthermore, this incident has made real to me the difficulty of ensuring consistent access to internet-based teaching modules. With face-to-face and textbook learning, the only requirements are time and space--the ability to be in the right place at a specified time. Teaching via the web requires not only a secure uplink but an expensive, fractious, and incredibly complex piece of technology to process the connection. Take away either one--the computer or the high-speed connection--and you're pretty much out of luck. The argument expressed by Johnston that long-distance learners experience a greater net benefit from these tactics is not without its detractors as well. Even in modern-day first-world countries, it can still be difficult for rural dwellers to get an affordable high-speed connection. My parents' ongoing battle with HughesNet--the only provider in their area-- provides a prime example of this, and while I could describe the history and substance of their dispute in depth, suffice to say that HughesNet knows they have a monopoly and are not afraid to charge exorbitant fees for even the most basic service. Of course, the flipside to this, and the point that Johnston was undoubtedly getting at, is that long-distance learners (including people living in rural areas) are by definition going to have to go through a lot more in order to be in the right place at the right time-- in other words, to participate in a traditional learning experience.


For this reason, online learning presents a viable--if not perfect--alternative. Apart from the "gee whiz" factor of new technology and methods of communication, which information professionals should be wary of, pod- and screencasting can prove useful in these scenarios. The availability of free software, such as Jing, Trailfire, Wink, and Slideshare, makes it possible for even the most cash-strapped of libraries to provide learning modules for their patrons based solely on the investment of human capital. Were these librarians to use the ADDIE model in developing their lessons, these could subsequently be repurposed and customized for years to come, allowing for them to be taught by even inexperienced library personnel. Several case studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of these tools in teaching computer literacy as well. As the Johnston and Yelnick et al. readings demonstrate, self-paced modules for both college and high school students have proved successful in the past.

I would contend, however, that these scenarios were not the unadulterated successes that their chroniclers have suggested. The product that Yelnik et al. created using Captivate MenuBuilder for the SusQ-Cyber Charter School met with less-than-glowing feedback and in evaluative testing, 20% of the focus group answered more than 35% of questions incorrectly. Yelnik and colleagues later made adjustments to the contents of the tutorial, and even I can agree that it was better than the system previously in place to orient students to courses. The small size of the group of students tested on the tutorial makes the evaluation somewhat problematic, however, and this trend is only magnified in Johnston's study. Of the 100 social work students who took  the internet searching skills module, only a quarter reported back. Of these, over half responded with "neutral" when asked whether they had gained an "improved understanding of information literacy". Both studies admitted that students often performed better and preferred being taught face-to-face. In my opinion, online learning of this sort can best be deployed when supplementing classroom instruction but shouldn't replace it all together. Information professionals such as librarians would definitely benefit from learning how to create modules like these, if only so that they might decide for themselves if and when to implement them.