Online College Course Forum

I’ve been reading some reports about training in the IT industry. This industry is one that requires it’s participants to keep up to date in an environment when 6 months can change a whole technology landscape, and one year makes everything you know ancient history. It appears that the key to being able to function well is to have a firm and thorough education which gives you the basic elements of knowledge, plus the ability to learn how to teach yourself. You can then learn new skills and knowledge relatively easily, and with the minimum of time and effort.

Of course, learning online is also a vital part of this ability to keep updating your skills. Learning online means that you can avoid having to take whole days or blocks of days away from your work; you can select times when you can fit in learning into your working day. However, you do have to have time to devote to learning, and your workplace should help you to do this.
Life-long learning is a real issue in some industries, and online learning is one way of making sure that you can fit this into your everyday life.

I’ve been involved in testing some new online courses in the last two days. I volunteered because I have some responsibility for the distance learning unit, and I felt the need to be familiar with the kind of learning experience that this distance learning unit provides.

I spent time with the first year courses for a degree in IT. Now theoretically this is my area of expertise; I have a Masters in Computer Science, albeit awarded in the late 1980’s and therefore somewhat out of date in terms of the content delivered at that time. However I’ve been in both academia and in industry on a full time basis since, so I should understand the content that is delivered at this level. This means that I can concentrate on the means of delivery.

I really enjoyed working my way through the course. I have done a variety of online courses previously, but this was far more technical in nature than anything I have studied online before. The course is therefore very structured, and you have to tackle both theoretical and practical aspects of the subjects. There is some knowledge retention required, but also much of the testing uses analysis of the knowledge delivered, and your ability to apply this knowledge in a number of different situations. I particularly enjoyed the problem solving aspects of assessment, with a number of different alternatives to work through making this a very thorough examination of the knowledge gained and of the ability to use it correctly.

My scores were good, but not as good as I thought they should have been. I obviously need to study more – online of course!

Working with my new educational establishment’s distance learning unit is a real eye opener. They decided to design and write their own learning management software so that they could add the features they wanted to the system, and integrate it with their course materials databank that serves the needs of traditional classroom teachers as well as the delivery of courses online. This also allows them to combine different e-learning technologies relatively seamlessly, as they are intensive users of video conferencing, and they are beginning to use web broadcasting to serve their global clients.

Learning management systems are fairly complex systems, but they have had a pilot project running for 18 months now, using a simplified learning management system that allows clients access to online courses, including some simple interaction with tutors using messaging and email. They are in the middle of a major update, having designed a system that allows them to transparently access courses that are sourced outside their establishment and presented on different software, and to integrate the verification of academic standards on the software, thus allowing feedback to the student regarding progress on awards programs such as graduate and post graduate degrees.

Learning management software can influence the student’s learning experience almost as much as the quality and presentation of the learning material, so the design of this software is a major undertaking for the institution. However, they see this as being a part of the standards and quality that differentiate their online courses from other institutions, and therefore wish to be fully in control of all aspects of their products.