The Impact of Open Source
Open Yale course provide free access to a variety of introductory
courses for anyone who wishes to learn.
All of these courses are taught by teacher and scholars at Yale
University. The goal is to extend access
to materials for anyone who is interested in learning. These courses are designed for a wide range
of people around the world. The courses
they offer cover topics such as: liberal arts, humanities, social sciences,
physical and biological sciences. Each
course includes class lectures that are produced in high quality videos
accompanied by a syllabus and suggested readings (Yale University, 2013).
Was the Course Pre-Planned for Distance Learning?
The course that I chose was the history course instructed by Keith
Wrightson. This course covers the
development of English society between the late fifteenth and early eighteenth
centuries. This course has two sessions
a week offered through the open course website or iTunes and YouTube. The materials that this course supplies are
a syllabus, which provides the expectations of the course and the course
description, several textbooks and articles that apply to development of
English society. There are two papers
learners are required to submit as well as complete a final exam. This course is self-paced and like other
courses taught through distance learning.
The instructor’s role is to supply students with content covering the
English society and not guide the students throughout the course. However, if a learner is interested in
submitting any questions or concerns they have the ability to, which the
instructor will respond with their own feedback.
Even though Open Yale does not provide many of the components as a
credited distance course does at Walden University, it does facilitate learning
and includes many different formats for the learner to be successful. So this course is pre-planned and designed
for distance learners in my own opinion.
Does the Course Follow
On-line Instruction Recommendations?
The history course that
is offered through Open Yale follows some of the recommendations for online
instruction that is listed in the course textbook. Some of the advantages of Keith Wrightson’s
class are: the course provides asynchronous learning, which content is available 24 hours a day, at
the learners convenience, and are time zone independent (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright & Zvacek, 2012, p. 125). He also has learners work at their own pace
and offers materials and activities that are available through the web and
accessed through different platforms.
There are some limitations of this history course that doesn’t allow
learners to fully immerse in a distance learning environment. This course is offered at no expense, but the
availability and guidance of the instructor is not readily available for online
learners. Learners may fill out a
feedback form with questions or concerns, but as far as participating in
discussions with other online learners or the instructor is not extended to
these learners, which is essential.
Also, learners may access any of the sessions through YouTube, iTunes
and the website, but they “dump” the information and do not provide much
support. “Online activities for students
should have specific pedagogical or course management purposes” (Simonson et
al, 2012, p. 134).
Were the Course
Activities Designed to Maximize Activate Learning?
There was no
indication of any activities that maximized active learning. On the course syllabus, it specifies that
part of the learners’ grade is based on participation through discussions, but
they did not provide any online discussion threads that an online learner can
access to participate in these forums. There are reading assignments he assigns
to his students to complete that are aligned with the video he posts, but there doesn't seem to be any forum for students to reply to questions about the
readings. He does require students to
write two papers and complete a final exam by the end of the course, but there
is no link for students to submit their work or complete an exam. If they added a few more links and a
discussion forum for online learners, this site would be more effective and
students would feel more successful.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed
looking through the different courses that Yale offers to learners free of
charge. I had no idea that universities
actually provide these courses at a distance for anyone who is interested. Since I was so impressed with all of these
different programs, I may take this opportunity to explore different history
programs in the future. Open course is a
distance learning program that provides opportunity for anyone to complete a
course without the burden of leaving their home to commute to a campus or the
high cost of tuition. I think that this
is a step in the right direction for distance learning and I think that they
still need to improve on a few things within the program to make it more
successful for learners. With constant
refinement, open courses can provide information to learners at a distance
productively.
References:
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek,
S. (2012). Teaching and
learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
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