leading the student ... to web based courses

Not a speaker phone, but similar

Throughout my academic history I've taken four distance courses for various reasons. In high school, I was considering applying to university in Ontario around the same time that that province was phasing out OAC. In order to increase my chance of being accepted, I took a paper-based course in Calculus that was centered around a speaker-phone call once a week in the schools library.

Later during my undergrad I was unable to fit a required course into my schedule, but was quite thankful that a distance course was an option. Finally last fall, after finding out that one of my teachables was no longer accepted at Brandon University, I was able to meet the Education Faculties requirements for a second teachable via two web-based courses at the University of Manitoba as a visiting student. 

In each of these courses, I had a need for a course credit, but was unable to wait or travel to a regular classroom. So in that sense Distance Learning was a great fit for me and satisfied the prerequisites I needed... 

However, I have learned that I do not perform very well in a distance learning environment. While I obtained passing grades on all of these courses, even today I'm struggling to recall anything particularly relevant.

So it is with some experience in distance learning that we listened in on Sophia & Donald's presentation on their work with the Distance Learning unit from Manitoba Education. As a preservice teacher, knowing that their are optional courses out there for my future students and course resources for myself, is a true benefit. Additionally, as Prof. Mike Nantais was keen to point out, the BlackBoard webware provides an alternative to public blogging and internet usage that some conservative communities may be unease with. 

One of the more interesting statements from the presenters was Sophia's emphasis on pedagogy first, rather than focusing on creating a course because the tools are there. Thinking of the students learning needs, including whether a distance course fits an individual students learning style, should be at the forefront of every teachers mind. From my own experiences it is clear to me that there is a demand for distance learning, but I wonder that if some differentiation had been built into the course content that the (and my own) outcomes could be greatly improved.