Scenario:

Example 2: Interactive Tours

A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?

When first approaching this topic the first thought was collaboration. “Students learn best when they are actively involved in the process” (Davis 1993). If students are not involved many do not learn or not engaged in learning.

Thinking of the tools available I came across the mashable website at: http://mashable.com/2007/07/22/online-collaboration/ Collaboration is a great resource and something all students need to experience. The realm in which they experience this is important. Due to the broad amount of tools, I chose just a few for collaboration.

WIKI:

For the group critique, I believe a wiki would make a great tool for these students. “A wiki can be an excellent tool for collaborative online writing assignments and group activities compling information in a single online resource” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012). The students could work together to collaboration ideas as well as post their thoughts. Wiki's also allow students to work at different times and also at the same time. As Irina Elgort suggests, wikis can be viewed as social networking but also as a great framework tool.

Live Documents:

After looking at wiki, the best site I viewed was Link Documents at http://www.live-documents.com/ . I was amazed at the simplicity of such a complex site. Documents can be work on simultaneously and then merged. I loved the idea of locking the document but still available for view. This is great for a student project as other groups can see the work but do not have access to changing the document.

To make sure these sites were the best solutions I signed up for accounts with both, as an instructional designer should do before suggesting anything. Both sites would be adequate and I would suggest both but suggest that I would make what it best for the class. Every class dynamic is different and their abilities to work, so I would make sure to emphasize this as well.

SKYPE – Video Conferencing.

Skype is also a great way to take a virtual tour. The students would have the ability to interact with the curator but also still be able to view the surroundings. Other programs besides Skype are available such as Google talk. Any video conferencing program is great.

As Paul Signorelli writes in his article, Skype can benefit not only for instructors in education but also for friends helping each other for an interview. Skype allows individuals that cannot meet face to face interact at a certain time. Video conferencing can enhance learning for distance learning course for students that need to see a demonstration or for one on one communications between students and instructors. “Tools such as Skype create extremely effective opportunities for virtual (and virtually) face-to-face learning if trainer-teacher-learners are willing to experiment and if those we help are willing to reach across the rapidly shrinking digital divide with our own equipment or through libraries and other gateways to Internet access' (Signorelli 2012).

The state of Iowa already promotes the use of video/audio conferencing (Simonson et al 2012). The base of the success is sharing for Iowa as schools can offer new options from other schools. (Simonson et al 2012). This is extremely beneficial for schools that do not have the room or other options for expanding to new classes for students.

As with any video or audio conference is it also important to emphasize that students will be seen and heard. Students need to be aware of this as well, so a practice session could be beneficial. 

References:

Aune, Sean P. (2012) Work together: 60+ collaborate tools for groups. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/2007/07/22/online-collaboration/

Davis, Barbara Gross (1993) Collaborative Learning: group work and study teams

Retrieved from:http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/collaborative.html

Elgort, Irina (2007) Using wikis as learning tools in higher education. Retrieved from: http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/elgort.pdf

Signorelli, Paul (2012) Skype Me: when learning is just a call away. Retrieved from: http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/636/skype-me-when-learning-is-just-a- call-away

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012).Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson