Eric's ramblings, experiences and random thoughts about e-Learning, distance education and Educational Technology.John Gedeon, an Educational Technologist from the University of the West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago), recently contacted me with a question about my opinion regarding the definitions for courses that have different degrees of web-involvement.
As he has discovered there is a great deal of overlap and confusion in the lexicon describing distance learning courses especially when technology is involved. In my mind, there are only 3 types of 'web courses':
1. Web-enhanced F2F. I define this as a face-to-face (F2F) classroom course with a web technology as a resources for it (typically a web-page or LMS). This web-page houses content and resources that support the F2F onsite course.
2. Web-based Online. I define this as an exclusively non-classroom course where some web technology (typically a website, email distribution system or LMS, etc.) fully supports all the infrastructure required for students to complete their work. Students never meet each other, or the instructor, F2F.
3. Hybrid F2F:Online. A mixture of both Web-enhanced F2F and Web-based Online such that at some point during the length of the term students must meet in class AND at some point during the the length of the term students must conduct their work online using some web technology.
What do you think about my three types? Can you think of a 4th type? Did I miss anything here? If so, please leave a comment by clicking 'comment' below.
1 comment:
I think it's useful to break category 2 (web-based online) into collaborative and self-paced online courses. Collaborative is a course where a lot of the learning occurs using online collaboration tools with a faciliator and other learners. Self-paced online is an asynchronous course where the learner progresses through online learning material on an individual basis, without the support of a facilitator or other learners.
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