Recently, someone I follow on Twitter tweeted the blog article linked above, saying it was an interesting comparison of online vs. F2F delivery. The blog is written by an Associate Prof at San Jose State U, and tells of her experiences in an online training vs training covering the same material but done f2f [face-to-face]. She determines that in order to meet their departmental needs, they will need to include more f2f training, because it is doing a better job than the online training.
NOT.
Not a comparison, or at least not a valid one. Two professionals have made the same mistake, again -- taking two different trainings/courses/lessons/whatever -- and thinking they are the same except for the delivery method. This means of course, that the delivery method must be responsible for any differences in learning. Sheesh. How long do we have to do this until folks pay attention to what really matters?
Now, both of these people [blogger and tweeter] are astute, educated people -- they should know better. But for some reason, people keep doing this over and over and over. If we go back to the earliest days of using any technology at all in learning, this same error pops up. So it's a common one, and I probably shouldn't be surprised.
Still, in reading the blog, look at the design differences the professor brings out:
| Online Delivery | F2F Delivery |
|
|
What do we see? The f2f training gets folks involved, gets them engaged in various ways, makes them use the material in activities/exercises. Well, no wonder it seems useful, and she felt like she learned more, anyone would.
But all of that can also be done online -- and done well. Create equally well-designed courses, and the delivery mode will not make such a great difference. I hope that at some point, we learn to look at the instructional design, and not at zero on what seems obvious -- but isn't.
Done with the soapbox for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment