Quality Issues of Elearning

Quality Issues of Elearning

Hi guys, hope everyone’s final report is going great. I am still working on it and hopefully should complete it by this week. Very interesting report by Kay Lewis , I will be posting some comments in your blogs shortly. As per Bronwyn’s email – I guess I had also left out some of the requirements of part one of the assignment, so I thought I will just share a few thoughts of quality issues for eLearning and evaluation processes in my context and the wider tertiary sector.

My overall perspective for eLearning in our society today is not so positive. Elearning is used to enhance, not to substitute, traditional classroom teaching, and there so many people thinking it is trying replace the traditional face to face teaching. As Huffaker suggest – through active engagement by using interactive and entertaining media, collaborative and cooperative activities, real world context, continuous feedback and monitoring progress. All these ways enhance the learning rather than as people think it is replacing the traditional way of teaching (Huffaker D, 2003).

From the readings from Huffaker D (2003), many critics of Elearning envision it as an isolated learning environment –In the environment I am teaching there are majority Pacifika learners and the Pasifika people visions Elearning from the same perspective - being isolated from the peers and the teacher. I think it is not being isolated – but a different way of interacting and communication that people need to adopt to.

Looking at the tertiary sectors, it seems like the Budget to implement and maintain Elearning environment seems bit costly and that leads to a negative opinion. Elearning depends quite heavily on the tools and technology being used to enhance the eLearning. If the tertiary sectors are unable to accommodate these tools and technologies than it makes it really hard to introduce eLearning into the education environment.

My personal opinions – Elearning benefits a lot of people who are not able to study fulltime, or more of adult learners who only can manage to study part time due to many reasons, and these can be the only option available for them and by providing an option for courses being online – makes it so easier for this target group.

In the teaching environment I have experienced that a lot of time, when it comes to evaluation – for elearning courses – the needs analysis and formative evaluation are skipped or overlooked, whereas I personally think it is very important to conduct formative evaluation before moving to summative and integrative evaluation. These sorts of evaluations would not only provide a better option for learners, but as well as a quality eLearning course.

These are just my thoughts and ideas - comments are welcome :)

Hope you guys have a good week :)
Regards
Krishan

Reference
Huffaker, D. (2003). Reconnecting the classroom: E-learning pedagogy in US public high schools Australian Journal of Educational Technology. 19 (3), 356-370.