Session 3

Session 3 - Interactions

A. Download the interactionsmatrix.doc file. Note that this is a table listing the three types of interactions at the top, with some sample activities on the left. Place an X in the cells to indicate which activities correspond to which interactions. Add some additional activities of your own and mark the cells appropriate to the types of interactions each represents.

Response: 

B. Discuss of the types of interactions that are most often used in the content area for which you expect to design instruction. Be sure to explain the content area, the types of students and types of objectives with which you will be working.

Response:

My intention is to design a basic accounting course. The type of interactions most often used in an accounting course varies. Video presentation, PowerPoint presentation, and eBooks are used to present students with content that include definitions of accounting terms along with explanations and demonstrations of the preparation of the Income Statement, Balance Sheet and the Statement of Owner’s Equity. Games and online quizzes are used to support the content material with immediate feedback to the student on areas to review.

Ideal students are those that are motivated to work in accounting or business. They are familiar with computers and communication software enough so that they are confident in accessing online presentations and working with little supervision.

Instructors should be well acquainted will the principals of accounting and also the use of spreadsheet applications use as Excel.

 

C. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 of the Horton text discuss three categories of activities: Absorb, Do, and Connect. After reading these chapters you are to locate one or more online classes and identify one Absorb, one Do and one Connect activity. Present your findings using this format:

URL:

Course Content:
Intended Students/Probable Student Characteristics:
Instructor Characteristics:
Identify the Type of Activity: Absorb - Do - Connect
Identify and Discuss the Interactions in the Activity:

Response:

Accounting Coach

URL: http://www.accountingcoach.com/accounting-basics/explanation

Course Content: Accounting: This Basic of Accounting course contains an introduction to accounting basics with definitions of accounting terms, explanations and demonstration of the preparation of the Income Statement, Balance Sheet – Assets, Balance Sheet – Liabilities and Stockholders' Equity, and Statement of Cash Flows. It explains the double entry system and journal entry preparation and posting.

Intended Students/Probable Student Characteristics: Student must be comfortable with reading online presentations and taking quizzes at the end of each part of the lecture.

Instructor Characteristics: Instructors need not to be well versed in the topic nor have experience in the field of accounting.

Identify the Type of Activity: Accounting Coach: Basic Accounting is an Absorb-type activity. This lecture activity consists of several chapters explaining accounting basics.

Identify and Discuss the Interactions in the Activity: Accounting Coach: Basic Accounting is an online story of a small business startup. As the business purchases assets, incurs expensing, and generates revenue the story explains the why and how to record each business activity. Student can take an online quiz and complete an online crossword puzzle to measure what they have retain of the subject matter.  

Bean Counter Bookkeeping Games.

URL: http://www.dwmbeancounter.com/tutorial/Games/Games.html#games

Course Content: Accounting: Basic accounting concepts including the effect of debits and credit transactions on different types of accounts, definition of journal and financial statements, definitions of assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity.

Intended Students/Probable Student Characteristics: Student have become familiar with accounting terms and basic concepts. They are not discouraged by losing a game but motivated to keep playing until they win.

Instructor Characteristics: Instructor must have knowledge of the subject matter. Accounting subjects can be boring and instructors need to be aware that learning while having fun is still learning.

Identify the Type of Activity: Bean Counter Bookkeeping Games is a Do-type activity  

Identify and Discuss the Interactions in the Activity: Several games are available where the solutions are based on accounting terms and basic accounting concepts. At first they seem somewhat childish but the questions and solutions are moderately difficult where students need to be knowledgeable to be successful.

 

Excel Income Statement - Simple #1

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kd_lQ-emxc

Course Content: Electronic Spreadsheets: This demonstrations on how to create an income statement using Microsoft Excel.

Intended Students/Probable Student Characteristics: Student must have some basic experience with Excel and be able to acquire additional skills through demonstration. 

Instructor Characteristics: Instructor must be have knowledge of the subject matter and be able to comfortable maneuvering through Excel.

Identify the Type of Activity: Excel Income Statement - Simple #1 is a Connect-type activity.

Identify and Discuss the Interactions in the Activity: Although this activity does not address accounting concept directly, Excel and other spreadsheet programs are useful job tools in accounting. Student learn how to create financial statements in Excel utilizing the accounting concepts they learned previously.

 

 

Session 2

Session 2 - Content, Instructor and Student Characteristics
 

Our blog post assignment this week was to address each of the following three scenarios in light of the information presented in the podcast and then discuss our instructional design process described in chapter 1 of our text. Then we were asked to reflect on a development project of our own and identify the steps in an instructional design process presented in the text.

1. Scenarios

To address these scenarios, identify the major characteristics or issues that would impact or influence the design of the described online class. Be sure to indicate which of the characteristics you identify would be your prime concern. Also be sure to indicate how each of the major issues you identify would influence your design of the online class.

You have been asked to lead the team that is developing a series of courses for an online University. Explain some design decisions or issues that you would have to deal with for each class given the characteristics of the content, instructors and students as presented. Note: Pick the most salient characteristics and issues and explain why the ones you have chosen are key. Don’t try to cover every possible issue in each scenario!

Course A

Content: This course will cover beginning college algebra.

Instructor(s): This course is taught by various adjunct and full time professors who are very familiar with the content who have differing degrees of tech skills and online teaching experience. The same class has to serve for all instructors.

Students: All students in this course are college freshman and sophomores with good technology skills and each has successfully taken an online orientation to online learning course.

Response

Content: Algebra is a branch of mathematic that describes the relationship between numbers or patterns. Its course content is normally convergent, meaning that there are defined methods and solutions to algebraic expressions.  For a course content that is convergent, topics can be presented in a sound progressive structure starting and at beginning topic such as ‘Defining Real Numbers to advance topics such as ‘Factoring’. The use of prepared forms and templates would work well in lesson plans.

Instructors: As the same class serves for all instructors we want to make sure that learning and using the instructional technology matches the capabilities of all the instructors. The instructors seem to have adequate technical skills the introduction of new technologies should not be an issue.

Students: Since the students have good technology skills the introduction of new technologies should not be an issue. The students have past involvement with online classes and to keep their experience consistent, we may want to review what technologies were used in these previous courses and borrow from those.

Course B

Content: The course is a philosophy of leadership class.

Instructor(s): The instructor is an experienced face-to-face instructor with good tech skills and prior online teaching experience. This instructor prefers lecture and discussion classes.

Students: Graduate students who are well motivated and with a broad range of technology skills, from average to very advanced.

Response

Content: Since the answers to philosophy questions can vary and can have no wrong answers the content would be divergent. This is where a logical presentation of topics may not be successful. In this course a strict structure including, forms and template, could reduce the creative abilities the students possess.

Instructor: Since the instructor is skilled at face-to-face presentation of the subject matter and has previously online teaching experience, there should be an attempt to capitalize on this experience. Media technology should be made available to allow the instructor to create visual of voice lectures. Additional technology should be available allowing students to communicate with each other and the rest of the class to promote class discussion.

Students – Since these graduate students are well enthused and have with a comprehensive assortment of technology skills, introduction of new or advanced technologies would work well for them in this course. Addition communication technology such as Skype and Google Docs can be utilized to assist students with group projects.

Course C

Content: This course is an introduction to college success. It teaches study skills, communication skills, and tries to help students learn how to fit into the college community.

Instructor(s): This course will be taught by various instructors all with good tech skills and prior online teaching experience but who have never taught this content before.

Students: Students are incoming freshman who have been identified by advisors as high risk for drop out.

Response

Content: The content of this course could be defined as divergent since there are many paths that a student can take to succeed at college. However, this course offers information on what to expect in the community college environment along with technics in studying, time management, and finding academic and personal support.  The presentation of topics should be structured and in a logical order similar to a convergent content.

Instructors: The fixed structure of topic presentations supports teaching although instructors may not have prior exposure to the subject matter. They need to be able to interact with students fielding a variety of questions.

Students: Since students are identified as high risk, lesson plans must be developed to generate an environment that increases the desire of students to participate in classroom activity. Group activities and peer support can be an excellent method to increase student success.

 

2. Now, think about an online learning experience that you might someday create. Describe in detail the content, instructor and student characteristics. What are the design issues or features that these suggest? Explain your answers.

Response
 

Having twenty years of experience in accounting and financial management the online experience that I might create someday would be a series of online courses teaching the principle of accounting.

Content: For a principles of accounting course the content is convergent presenting topics in a sound progressive structure. Student start with introduction to accounting learning the basic definition of assets, liabilities and equity. Students then progress to journalizing various financial transactions. Since the subject of accounting is vast, a series of three course would be offered on the accounting methods for three type of businesses - service, merchandising, and corporations. Although manufacturing business may be discussed this business in better taught in a cost accounting course.

Instructors: Instructors need to be well versed in the topic and if possible have experience in the field of accounting. They must be experienced with various accounting software and since the content can be very detail the ability to respond to student question in a timely manner is vital. Because at times the content may be confusing to students instructors must be able to interact with students and give then real-life examples.

Students: The typical student needs to be highly motivated and have confidence with using various technologies. An advantage to success is to have goals focused on a career in one the business disciplines.

 

 

3. List the 11 instructional design steps presented in Chapter 1 of the text (Design Quickly and Reliably).

Response

1)     Identify your underline goals

2)     Analyze learner’ needs and abilities

3)     Identity what to teach

4)     Set learning objective

5)     Identify prerequisites

6)     Pick the approach to meet each objective

7)     Decide the teaching sequence of your objectives

8)     Create objects to accomplish objectives

9)     Create tests

10)  Select learning activities

11)  Choose media

 

Session 1

Session 1 - Introduction

My name is William Norris and I am enrolled in the M.A. Degree in Career and Technical Studies program at California State University San Bernardino. After working a number of years as an accountant and a financial manager I set my career goals towards education. I taught computerized accounting for several private vocational institutions and then moved to vocational education administration. My technical experience started years ago as a computerized cost analyst utilizing the IBM System/370 and later the IBM PC. As the technology advanced I have always tried to utilize the technical tools available in practical applications. I have taken many online classes but have never taught an online class. My current training goal is adapt the various accounting and business courses I have taught in a traditional classroom setting for an eLearning environment.

Session 1 - Response to Prompts

Respond to the following questions based on your interaction with the session 1 podcast:

1. Explain the relationship between distance learning and online learning.

Distant learning, also called distance educational, takes place when instructor and student are separated by a physical distance. There is no minimum or maximum distance requirement.  This distance may be as little as from one side of a campus to another or as great as one side of the world to the opposite side. However, there is a requirement that the instructor and student must have some form of interaction. For communication to succeed there must be a sender, a receiver, and a message. Interaction is when the message travels back and the receiver becomes the sender. In the classroom the sender is the instructor, the receiver is the student, and the message is the lesson. Distant learning expands the learning environment beyond the physical constraints of a schoolroom to anywhere the communication can travel.  Online learning is the modernization of distant learning facilitating the Internet as a means of communication and interaction.

 2. Discuss the main difference between distance learning and online learning.

Today the terms distant learning and online learning are in most cases interchangeable. However, distance education refers to all methods in which education can be distributed to students in separate locations. Although the most widely used, online learning is only one of these methods. In the early days, distant learning was initially accomplished by the instructor sending lessons my mail which were completed by the student and mailed back to the instructor. This type of distant learning was referred to as the correspondence model.  As technology advance, distant learning providers adopted new avenues of communication such as television and radio to deliver learning content, while the postal system was still used by student to return lessons.  Advances in computer technology and the development of the Internet made online learning possible.  The adaptation of these technologies to distant learning allows the instructor and student to communicate instantaneously over great distances though a variety of media with text, voice, and images.

 3. List the three types of interaction proposed by Moore (1989) and explain each type of interaction in your own words.

Learner – content Interaction is the interaction between the student and the subject matter. It can be in the form of a text, video, lecture, etc. This is where the student is exposed to and develops an understanding of the course subject. 

Learner – instructor interaction is the interaction between the student and instructor. Using this interaction, the instructor can stimulate the student’s interest, support the student learning goals, and councils the student on how best to organize assignments

Learner – learner interaction is the peer group interaction supporting the learning goals of the student by exposing the student to different skill sets of other students. This fellowship helps the student navigate through the subject matter. This camaraderie can also provide additional support in an environment absence of the instructor.  

4. Discuss some of the differences between the early days of online learning and today. Then make some predictions about the future of eLearning. Please include at least one good article/website/citation for this item. For example:  http://tinyurl.com/8zkvedh.

Early days of online learning was limited to text messages on institutional bulletin boards and in emails. Today numerous technologies support online learning by producing more engaging environment. Classes can now be fully synchronous requiring that all student are online at the same time or asynchronous where student work independently. However, along with the advance eLearning tools comes more expense and increased complexities.

Views regarding the future of eLearning have been mixed. Some studies suggest that students become overwhelmed with being constantly online and in front of a computer. Other views are that eLearning classes will increase due to possibility of larger enrollment in an online class as opposed to a class that is physically restricted by the space of a classroom (Caruth & Caruth, 2013). Another incentive for adopting the less costly eLearning is that the reduction in cost can be applied to a reduction in student tuition. Although the future of online learning is not clear the advancement of distant learning will be proportionate to the advancement in technology.

References

Caruth, G. D., & Caruth, D. L. (2013, April). Distance Education in the United States: From correspondence courses to the internet. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE, 14(2), 141 - 149. Accessed from ERIC on April 9, 2012. http://eric.ed.gov/?q=From+Correspondence+Courses+to+the+Internet&id=EJ1013772