Session 3: Technologies in Distance Education

There are several telecommunications used in distance education: streaming, podcasting, forums/bulletin board, threaded discussion, VOIP and chat/instant messaging. These types of telecommunications vary in the richness of the media and interactions as mentioned in one of Dr. Newberry’s articles: http://learngen.org/resources/module/lgend101_norm1/200/210/211_3.html.

First, streaming multimedia can be audio, video and/or slideshow presentations. You do not have to wait for it to completely download before it begins playing. Streaming media can be both live or on demand. On demand media streams are stored on servers and become available at a users' request (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media). An example of an on demand audio and video stream can be found here: http://www.imeem.com (audio and video) and http://youtube.com (video). Live streaming is real-time. For example http://www.air1.com (audio) and http://www.chris.pirillo.com/live (video). This type of interaction is instructor-student and is asynchronous because both parties do not have to interacting simultaneously.

I use streaming media daily at my work and home. I like listening to music while I work and I use imeem.com. You could find almost any song you could think of, make your own playlist and listen to it as much as you want. Also, it gives you the option to purchase the songs. I like going to youtube.com to watch tutorials for Photoshop (photo editing software) and Dreamweaver (website developing software).

The downside, as Dr. Newberry mentioned, it is not portable and cost efficient. On the other hand, podcasting (http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/07/20/WhatIsPodcasting.html), which is the next technology I am going to talk about, is portable. The types of media and interaction are similar to streaming. The only downside is you have to wait for it to completely download before you could hear or view it. Personally, I do not mind the wait because the benefit of its portability outweighs the negative side of podcasting. You could easily save and transfer the audio and/or video on to your mp3 player, giving you the ability to gain access to it anywhere and anytime. For purposes of learning, I think podcasting is a better choice than streaming because of portability and cost.

Forums/bulletin boards (http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2007/papers/1035.pdf) and threaded discussions (http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2005/papers/1062.pdf) are both text based media. It is asynchronous and involves instructor-student and student-student interaction. These text based discussion are made public; thus, allowing view for all students in the class. Advantages of forums/bulletin boards are the uploading of images (increasing media richness) and directly quoting other people (increasing personalization). A major disadvantage of forums/bulletin boards is many universities do not support them. The instructor will need to find the means to implement and maintain them. Threaded discussions' output structure is a disadvantage because it makes it difficult to follow. I had experience with both forums/bulletin boards and threaded discussions, mainly for educational purposes. I do prefer forums over threaded discussions. I took a WebCT class a year ago and we were required to participate on threaded discussions 2-3 times a week and it was really confusing and tedious.

Lastly, VoIP (http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~madl/voip.pdf) and chat/instant messaging (http://www.ncsu.edu/it/essentials/email_messaging/messaging/) are synchronous, very rich and personalized media. It allows for all parties to participate simultaneously; therefore, it reduces ambiguity on the subject at hand. The downfall to it is coordinating the time to talk or chat online and installation. In the past, I have used MSN and Yahoo Messenger and GoogleTalk for instant messaging. I found it useful for keeping in touch with friends and work purposes (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/iminwork.htm). VoIP (Skype - http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~salman/skype/Skype_Analysis_1_3.pdf), on the other hand, I have no previous experience with. I assume most would prefer this over instant messaging because you do not have to type. You just talk to each other through your computer instead of the telephone.

All in all, I feel these technologies are useful in an online environment. Although some are more difficult to implement than others, I think using it in class and gaining hands-on experience is good practice.