After reading Chapter 1 on "Real World Enquiry, I thought about topics that would be easy to evaluate. I work in a medical library where students are engaging in online learning and direct instruction in the traditional class room setting. Sometimes I see students confused or stressed out about learning how to use Blackboard, Web CT, or Tegrity. Tegrity is a technology program that is offered at MUSC where professors record there lectures making it possible for students to view the recordings to study key points in the lectures. Library staff members and faculty members at MUSC were given special training in Tegrity to see how it works. Some of the professors were unsure about TEgrity because they were used to teaching their lectures the old traditional way by having the students sit in the classroom. Some of the faculty members at MUSC did not know how to adapt or what to expect from this online technology version of Blackboard or Tegrity.
I am taking online distance education courses in Library Science, so there have been many things I have experienced such as the advantages in taking online classes verses the traditional classroom setting. One idea I had to do a research proposal on was the following:
Evaluation of Online Learning Verses Direct Instruction In the Classroom
I think that a focus on distance learning tools at MUSC would be interesting as well as useful. I can 'see' a variety of possible questions in what you have written, perhaps related to Tegrity and from there you could focus on students, faculty, staff, or some combination of the above. What you need to work on would be a statement/question(s) that you could then use to build your proposal around.
ReplyDelete