TRANSCRIPT
mod1.mov
as transcribed by PSU World Campus staff

In Front of the Classroom with Michael G. Moore, Ph.D.
ADTED 470: Introduction to Distance Education
Module 1
(recorded May 12, 2004)

Hello: My name is Michael Moore and I'm here to welcome you to the course, Introduction to Distance Education.

Distance education has been the subject of my study and teaching for many years, before—to quote the words of our Department Head—it was “cool” to study distance education.

As part of those years of study and practice, I designed this course, originally for teaching by audio and video conferencing, and now for teaching on the World Wide Web.

Besides designing the course, that means choosing the content and the structure for studying it, sometimes I will be the instructor of the course. On other occasions one of my current doctoral students or a recent graduate of our Program will be the instructor. But I will be available to support that person if and when needed.

The course has been offered about a dozen times in several years. And has been studied by over 300 students.

The course now that you are to take is a revision of the first iteration and has a number of changes and upgrades. I hope you will enjoy it and find it gives you as meaningful a learning experience as your predecessors.

The course is structured into four modules, each of which consists of three weekly units of study. You need to plan on spending about 12 to 15 hours each week for reading, writing, and discussing issues online with other students.

Before each of the remaining three modules of the course I will say a few words about the Module on a video clip like this one.

For each of the three weeks of this Module and others you will read a chapter from the textbook that was prepared especially for this course and you will read some other articles we've selected for some of the units.

For many of the units we have recorded a short audio commentary from one of the leaders of the field of distance education.

For each Module there will be a question for you to discuss together online in a dialogue with other students in what we call a Message Board. This discussion is not in “real time.” You read and make your responses at times that are convenient for you.

In each Module there will also be a written assignment question. This gives you the chance to do some research on some aspect of the topics in that Module. You will post your assignment on another Message Board.

By researching your assignment and then reading the results of the research of other students you will play an active part in creating your own knowledge, and the knowledge of the class. And based on feedback from previous students this is one of the most valuable features of the course.

I would like to make one general point about the assignments and discussions. Unlike everyday conversation, in this academic setting, it is not enough to simply express an opinion. Opinions are fine, but you have to support your opinions by reference to authorities; what that means is you need to cite research data and to quote recognized theorists or researchers, other authors, journals and books. This applies particularly to the written assignments and to the final term paper of the course.

Think of the challenge here as not so much like a typical coffee shop conversation and more like a case presented in court. The strongest argument is the one that most skillfully draws on references and builds a case by quoting findings of research. These are skills that many of you wont have developed yet, but you need to consciously set out to develop and practice these skills.

So are you ready to begin to study Module One? In my opinion this is the most important Module of the whole course, especially the first unit of the first module.

Unit One introduces basic concepts of distance education, and the reason I say it is the most important Unit is because throughout the United States there is a lot of muddled and confused thinking about the nature of distance education, and I believe it is important that our students, you, have a clear understanding of concepts and that you will be able to recognize what publications and other literature are really worth paying attention to. And let me warn you there is a lot of material online that is not worth paying attention to. As well as of course there's a lot of material that is important and worth paying attention to and that's the problem, you have to learn how to discriminate one from the other. And that's one of the things you will get by the time you have completed this course.

So understanding concepts is very important. It's important for those of you who are practitioners, as I think most of you are. Again, a lot of current practice is NOT based on the best practice. One of my objectives is that you will develop enough understanding of “good practice” to be empowered as consumers of distance education as well as become good providers of distance education.

Unit One is important also because the whole of the rest of the course is an expansion of the basic concepts that are introduced in that Unit.

In closing let me point out one other thing that is important and unique to this course. Because this course is about distance education, and because it is provided through distance education the process is part of the course.

What that means is that you need to develop the habit of peering behind the scenes or reading between the lines, whatever kind of expression you can think of to describe the habit of being reflective about the very experience you are engaged in. For example, when we are studying the attitudes of distance learners, which comes up in Module Two, you have an excellent source of understanding about the attitudes of distance learners, don't you? YOUR feelings represent how distance learners feel. In the same way, you can step aside to look objectively at interactions with other students, or the role played by the instructor, or the structure of the course design. I think the point is fairly clear. Please remember, the process is also the content.

With those few words, I will leave you to get on with your work. I will be back to say a few words again in a few weeks when we move on to Module Two. Good luck and best wishes with your study of Module One.