Week 2: question 2

[edwige...@gmail.com]

According to you and based on what you read so far, what motivates the
push to develop online or hybrid foreign language courses? What are
important barriers to the implementation of such courses?

[Maggie McCullar]

I think the push for online or hybrid courses can stem from a need by
the students to have more flexible hours. For instance, when I taught
Continuing Education courses at night, most of my students had to
work full time during the day. The standard daytime course offerings
simply did not fit their schedules. The online learning option is
convenient for many non-traditional students and traditional students
who have to place work hours as a priority.
According to the reading, there are many students (and teachers) who
prefer fewer contact hours in the classroom, so the online or hybrid
course is a good fit. Economically, this option is a better solution
for departments looking to maximize their budget, allowing certain
schools to spend less on lecturers or teaching assistants.
A third reason for the push, as the reading suggests, is that online
courses supply a demand for those students who wish to study a foreign
language that is not offered in the local college or university.
As for the barriers, students who participate in online learning are
reticent to engage in cooperative learning assignments outside of the
class assignments (Blake 113). Personally, from my Continuing
Education experience, I think it would be harder to retain students in
an online format. From what I gather, many distance learning students,
much like my Continuing Education students, are nontraditional and
find it challenging to maintain regular participation and motivation.
They lead very busy, demanding lives that inhibit them from being in
class each week or even from studying as much as they would like.
Although they do take the course seriously, in the end, many withdraw
or fall short of the goals they set for themselves.

[Yoshie]

Convenience and students' needs.
As Maggie mentioned, online foreign language courses are economical,
offer flexibility in time and space, and can attract students who
would like to study a foreign language that is not offered in the
local high school, college, or university. I think the biggest
challenge would be keeping students motivated. That was my problem
with taking an online course, and if the course is big, organize in
the way that "interaction" doesn't overwhelm the students.

[Skyler]

I think that there is one huge point that is being missed both in our
discussion and in the article: the cost of education. Maggie touched
on it when she noted that DL allows departments to cut costs. I
suggest that we consider the other side of this. Education simply
costs too much. Students do not get enough bang for their buck. At
CU, out-of-state tuition is nearing $30,000, in-state is approaching
$10,000. For some families, this represents a significant percentage
of income. And for students who are working to put themselves through
school, the ever increasing tuition rates threatens their ability to
complete their degree. While I am most sympathetic and often times
militantly supportive of resistance to DL, I do not think that current
tuition rates are sustainable (or reasonable). Ultimately they make
this public institution increasingly less available to the public.
For me, the biggest motivation for implementing DL should be linked to
a reevaluation of how institutions will be able to serve a greater
student population at a more reasonable tuition rate.
Additionally, I must agree with what Yoshie and Maggie regarding the
out-reach ability of DL. As noted in the article, 51% of students in
two-year (less expensive!) institutions are involved with DL. This
type of learning can accommodate those living far away, even abroad.
It can aid full-time workers who are getting prereqs before switching
careers. It would be wonderful for student-parents who are motivated
to complete degrees, but who have ridiculously difficult schedules.
And it is part of a reduced-cost education.
The only real barriers I see are in a teacher's education/
preparedness and in teacher's emotional opposition to it. I am a
perfect example of each of these barriers.

[Edwige Simon]

I didn't know where to start to respond to your post. You raise a lot of important issues and concerns. 
Cost is actually a recurrent topic in DL research. Studying online can be cheaper but the cost of developing online curriculum can be extremely expensive. I recently read a study (you can read a portion of it online) investigating the spiraling costs of developing online courses. In the case of Cardean University MBA courses, some of them cost up to 1 million dollars to develop. Teams of up to 6 people designed the courses: faculty, IT, instructional designers, copyright lawyers, etc.  The good news is, the courses were really excellent.

Here are few cost-related issues and ideas often discussed in the literature:

1.    The disaggregation of faculty roles: to put certain courses online, teachers have to delegate some of the course design responsibilities to others. Not every teacher is comfortable with that.
2.    Who owns a course that was collaboratively developed?
3.    If good courses are expensive to develop, why not share them across partner institutions? I would love to be allowed to take a couple online courses with experts in my field at Indiana University for example. Or even do a DL independent study with a faculty there! This would help reduce course development costs and increase students' access to courses that are directly connected to their research interests.

Now, regarding the issue you raised at the end of your post: teacher preparedness to teach online and resistance to online education, this is precisely what I am interested in researching.  The research agenda for online learning is long. It's a very young field. A lot of research efforts are also needed in program evaluation...

[Petra]

I think that the cost-related data would almost be counter-
productive. If it is very expensive to design an online course, this
only makes sense, if at least a lot of the material can be reused.
For very contemporary topics that might not work. The ownership issue
is interesting too. What about the acceptability of a class that can
be widely shared to help toward someone getting tenure or a promotion?
I believe that as long as there are little rewards for teachers to get
involved in online-teaching not so many people will join the crowd
unless they are forced to. Another resistance might also still be
that people went into this profession to have face-to-face contact
with others and that this medium makes that less and less possible.
Still, for teachers who live in a remote location this might be a good
way to keep teaching too.

[Maggie McCullar]

I like Skyler's point about how DL can make education more affordable
and should, given the skyrocketing price tag of an education today.
The tuition for the Continuing Ed. class that I taught was even more
expensive than the classes offered during the day. It's almost as if
they were punishing people for having jobs or lives that don't
accommodate the typical university hours.

[Edwige Simon]

To give you an idea about the cost of DE, I paid about $850 per class for my MA in Education from Indiana University. All in all, the whole program cost me about $10 000. Note that prices vary tremendously from place to the next. I did extensive research before committing my time and $ to this program. I chose a DL program because my son was very little, the cost of child care was prohibitive and the same program at SUNY Albany cost a lot more and was less established than the IU prgram. One important aspect was the fact that upon completion of the program, I would get the same diploma as those who completed the same program onsite.
Now, let's assume that you want a drastic carreer change and that DL is the only option, how would you go about selecting a DL program?