A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the artwork on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?
Proposed Solution: Interactive Tours
The first distance learning technology I would recommend is Prezi a cloud-based presentation software that combines the functionality of slides with the convenience of a whiteboard. The tool allows the user to present electronic communications online or offline provides a collaborative meeting forum, allows users to import media, and include interactive storyboards. Prezi provides a collaborative environment for its user and many colleges and universities post their work for public review, “Prezi, which has since found favor in both K–12 and higher education, is used in various departments at institutions such as Stanford University, Drexel University, and Arizona State University” (Schiller, 2011, p.34).
The application offers a community hub for educators titled “PreziU” that allows educators to post and review articles detailing their results, use, and feedback (http://edu.prezi.com/articles). Prezi offers clearly written and presented tutorials to assist the user in creating effective presentations or resources, “When the professor who is designing online instruction selects the correct media, it maximizes efficiency and makes available more resources for other learning experiences”, (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek, 2012, p.116).Now that web applications are readily available, many institutions are able to offer virtual information to the public and/or educational institutions.
The Museum of Modern Art has several features educators may utilize to create interactive and presentational materials. MoMA Multimedia offers interactive links to various exhibits and learning forums (http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia) that educators and students may explore and utilize. The forum allows user to copy embedded links in order to incorporate them into their presentations, web pages, wiki pages, etc.
Google Talk and Google Groups are two additional technology tools distance learners will find useful to collaborate, communicate, and present any required information and/or assignments. The students can utilize these tools to communicate with group members. Google Talk is a downloadable chat application that provides users the ability to chat live, participate in instant messaging, transfer files or email other members. Google group is a service provided by Google that permits users to create discussion boards and post messages and other pertinent information. Both tools maybe used to communicate outside of the virtual classroom in order to organize ideals and required assignments. The teacher in this scenario could chose to have access to either tool to monitor student’s collaborative behavior. Google applications have assisted in enhancing the learners experience in many institutions. Google Apps for Education is a web site Google publishes to provide a forum for educators and institutions to post their success stories and experiences (http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/edu/customers.html).
After carefully weighing alternatives and reviewing vendor ratings with third-party analysts, Vanderbilt selected Google Apps Education Edition, a free version of Google Apps optimized for on-campus use. Within thirty days [sic] they were up and running an opt-in email solution for their undergraduate population, providing new email and collaboration tools that students welcomed and quickly put to use. (Google Apps, 2010)These tools will provide the educator with a variety of options for delivery, presentation, and communication.
References
Google Apps. (2010). Google Apps: Vanderbilt Case Study. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5AOHQcS-cAeM2Q5ZmE1ZGUtYTFkZS00OGEzLWFkZmMtOGNmMTIyNDJlODdm&hl=en_US
MoMA Multimedia. (n.d.) The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/188/videos-current-exhibitions
Prezi, Inc. (2012). Retrieved from http://edu.prezi.com/
Schiller, K. (2011). High-Tech Classrooms. Information Today, 28(8), 34-35. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&hid=15&sid=a0b515be-836b-43a5-8650-69ab4dcad7c7%40sessionmgr14
Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.
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