November 11: Final Paper

This semester, I decided to take my first online course partly for the experience and partly to take more credits without further disrupting my worklife; I currently leave work early twice a week for school. Given that online learning/distance education has such potential, I am extremely disappointed to discover that I don’t really like taking classes online or at least I don’t like this particular online course.  My biggest issue by far has to do with the lack of true interaction and lack of community. It doesn’t feel very social. In fact, it feels a bit isolating. So, this has prompted me to take a deeper look at online learning.

I would like to write a literature review of the research that is available on online/distance learning.  Initially, I thought I would focus my review on effective online learning environments: what are the best practices?.  But now that I’ve started searching the databases, I’ve come across other aspects of online learning that I also find interesting that connect with effective online learning. These other aspects include: teacher preparation (are they prepared to use the technology effectively?), motivation (what motivates some students but not others in an online course?) , and student perceptions (how do students feel about online learning?). I would also like to review the literature around social presence theory, a  theoretical framework for awareness and communication in CMCs.
 
Sample Resources:
Allen, I. E., Seaman, J., Group, B. C. B. S. R., & Consortium, B. C. S. (2010). Learning on demand: Online education in the United States, 2009. Sloan Consortium.
ChanLin, L. J., & Chan, K. C. (2010). Group learning strategies for online course. Procedia-Social     and Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 397–401.
Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation to     students’ perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks,         7(1), 68–88.
Rovai, A. P. (2004). A constructivist approach to online college learning. The Internet and Higher Education, 7(2), 79–93.
Selvi, K. I. (2010). Motivating factors in online courses. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 819–824.
Shea, P. (2007). Bridges and barriers to teaching online college courses: A study of experienced online faculty in thirty-six colleges. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 73–128.

The Internet and Copyright...

We talked very briefly in class on Thursday about copyright issues. Truthfully,  I hadn't thought much about but then this happened on Friday: The Day the Internet Threw a Righteous Hissyfit about Copyright and Pie. It turns out that a magazine called Cooks Source occasionally gets its material from the web without seeking permission from the authors. This wasn't a problem in the past but this time, one of the author's contacted the editor and requested compensation of $130 to be donated to the Columbia School of Journalism. $130 -- that's it!! The editor's response was kind of obnoxious -- she basically said that a) the article was in the public domain so it's okay to use, and b) because of heavy re-writes, the author should pay the magazine. It was the latter comment that wreaked havoc on the Internet and basically ruined Cooks Source's reputation. Oops. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this all plays out....

November 4: Interactions & Communities in Cyberspace

I found the Hancock et al. article about deceptions in online dating very interesting, especially since I was at the height of my online "serial dating" when this team was conducting their research. So, of course, I have many thoughts about their study and findings. First, I was a little surprised to find out that I had never heard of two of the four dating sites. As a serial online dater, I knew about every online site but I have to say that I've never head of Webdate or American Singles.

I was also a little surprised that they used weight as one of the criteria since most dating sites don't actually ask people to list their weight. It's a pretty touchy question and the sites get around it by asking about body type or build. This is definitely true for match.com, the site with the largest number of study participants. So I don't think it's fair to say that people lied about their weight when it's not one of the profile questions. This does make me wonder how the researchers got any stats about weight from the profiles. I think the researchers should have just asked participants about whether or not they selected the most accurate body type. You know, did they pick "athletic", when they are actually "slightly overweight" or "very thin", because they hoped to be athletic by the time they met their future partner?

I am also surprised that they didn't factor in the profile pictures that people post. I think it would have been interesting to compare the real person with the photo they chose as their primary photo. Of course, maybe it wouldn't have mattered for this group of participants because they were self-selected but, in my experience, that's where the real deception occurred. People would post of photos of their younger and/or thinner selves or they would post these fantastically artsy photos that were really fun to look but didn't necessarily provide an accurate details.

Anyway, those are just some random thoughts I had as I was reading the article. It doesn't necessarily impact the types of issues I'm interested in exploring in this class, social presence in online learning, but I did make me think a little bit more about how truthful people are or aren't in unfamiliar online territory.