WK5AssignRocourtI

Application: Blog—The Impact of Open Source

http://izziandidt.blogspot.com/

Blog Post:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Open Course: Romantic Poetry

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-476-romantic-poetry-spring-2005/

            Open Course sites provide the opportunity of learning and interaction with others regarding a particular subject matter by allowing people to come together and participate in a course provided by various institutions and organizations. The course site I choose to analyze is under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This site provides access to MIT courses that have been provided to students during prior semesters but through allowing the public to access the course, it provides the professor with the opportunity to improve and make any revisions necessary on the course based on the feedback provided by the participant. One course that I viewed through the MIT course is Romantic Poetry, under the subject of Literature. The course provides the date of Spring 2005, which is the format of what it is following.

            The courses design for Romantic Poetry is very simplistic and easy to maneuver. Students are able to purchase the five textbooks required for the course, access the assignments for the course and download material which includes an electronic copy of the syllabus, reading assignments and assessment assignments. The course is separated into fourteen weeks and each week contains two sets of readings for review per week which in total provide twenty four different topics to follow for the subject of Romantic Poetry. There is an essay assignment in the middle of the session during week six and another during week fourteen.

Many of the links found throughout the course are downloadable via pdf format. Video and audio presentations are accessible for audio and visual presentation and learners. Many of the assignments are expected to be returned via an electronic format, which falls into the format of distance learning. The courses provide a link to the same material provided in the course and they provide the date of when the course was implemented. These forms of activities do promote learning within each course. Though courses are free, they do follow along the rule of “balance variety with economy” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvachk, 2012) extremely well. For a free course, it seems as though these sites are very under utilized but at the same time, it is understandable because in taking courses one can gain a lot of knowledge. Many of the students that may participate in the courses will not receive credit for it and this may hinder the idea of participation.

Due to the large amount of courses with the various subjects provided, I feel that they provide more than enough information and tools for success with the courses at hand. A recommendation in online instruction found is through the instructor feedback through the course projects and assignments. “Instructors need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgement feedback.” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvachk, 2012) The students are provided with assignments and most of the courses state that there will be an agreed upon date of submission and completion for the final project but the assignments throughout the middle of the course would be submitted on various days. My course chosen provide the requirement of submitting two essays; the first one at the midpoint of the course of 5 – 7 pages in length and one at the end of the course at 8 – 10 pages in length. This promotes the idea of active learning between the professor and the student but with course sites it takes away from the interaction of other students. Depending on the subject the course falls under, one course may provide a sense of independent learning while another would have a more interactive online learning format participating in discussions or forums. The course I choose with Romantic Comedy did not provide the opportunity for discussion forums.

Course sites are very beneficial in providing the opportunity for education to people all around the world. Without the time and contributions provided by these various organizations, many students and peers may never have the opportunity to experience what it is like to participate in a distance learning course. In using course sites, other students or peers that have had the opportunity to participate may use these sites to find more information on the different subjects that they may be researching on or they may have the opportunity to participate and learn about a subject from a different perspective.

Reference:

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.