Hybrid Online Courses & Virtual Reality Programs

What has been your experience with hybrid online or MOOC classes? 

My experience with hybrid or Massive Open Online Classes (MOOC) classes has been a decent one. If anything, the experience made me wonder why are there no fully dedicated online courses. I did hybrid online courses during my time in City Tech. We would meet only half the time, one day in class, the other day to appear at the designated time. Because the level of difficulty wasn’t hard, it was enjoyable for the most part. The experience gave me greater flexibility and freedom with my time.

How might using virtual reality programs or online simulations enhance this learning process both online and in class?

Virtual reality or online simulations can enhance and improve learning in certain ways, but the technology is still limited. VR programs are still limited and only advanced medical facilities may have such technology to teach and simulate medical practices. The power of this technology gives people the ability to see and experience things beyond their reality and it can open to new possibilities in education. However, nothing beats real life experience. While certain simulations can replace the need for teachers, others are too complicated to be fully appreciated unless it’s done for real. There are already online courses that are either interactive or simulated, but nothing close to VR. The simulations can make the experience more realistic, make the user experience a more inclusive environment. As for classes, it could possibly remove the need for an actual class. In a VR world, we can be in a virtual class, don’t need to physically show up to be part of one. All of this is conjecture as the technology is not ready to be a complete educational tool.

Last semester I had a hybrid class in Public Speaking course and I liked that. The advantages of a hybrid class are I could do my homework and other assignments from my home computer; I had the opportunity to meet my professor in class. This is a kind of combination between old school and new school kind of learning experience. Although it is a great experience, I would not prefer to have online classes for my degree, I want to have more human interactions.

Now I want to share you a success story about online learning.

Students learning from video conferences

A teacher from Dhaka conducting a class

 

The JAAGO Foundation is a civil society organization established in April 2007 in Bangladesh to work towards the betterment of people living below the poverty line. In 2007, the JAAGO Foundation started its school with 17 children on a piece of carpet and a whiteboard. It has now expanded to 13 fully functional branches and over 3,000 students. In September 2011, JAAGO Foundation began its first online school as a pilot program. Now out of the 13 existing schools 10 are 'Online Schools.The JAAGO Foundation currently has schools spread all over Bangladesh catering free of cost 

The mechanism of JAAGO online school is fairly simple. A rural classroom is connected to a teacher in capital city Dhaka via video conferencing technology and Internet. The classes are operated with a teachers from JAAGO Foundation’s Teaching Center in Dhaka and two local classroom teachers in the rural areas. Online teachers are responsible for designing and managing the Audio and Visual clips, charts, graphs needed for teaching. The class room teachers are responsible for operating all  the equipment, maintaining students records, helping children individually, and in groups to understand the lesson given by the online teachers.

https://jaago.com.bd/online-school/

MOOC analysis in the article,"MOOC Visual Analytics: Empowering Students, Teachers, Researchers, and Platform Developers of Massively Open Online Courses"

This definition elaborates the purpose and goal of a Massive Open Online Courses and the results of using this type of learning system,"Along with significant opportunities, Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide major challenges to students (keeping track of course materials and effectively interacting with teachers and fellow students), teachers (managing thousands of students and supporting their learning progress), researchers (understanding how students interact with materials and each other), and MOOC platform developers (supporting effective course design and delivery in a scalable way)."With these types of courses I wonder if it could benefit student learning process or negatively impact them. This can be difficult for someone as myself who requires an extra brain and person to open my mind and help me understand complex subjects like calculus, and chemistry. In this article you will learn the different areas of research demographically, and an analysis on the effective nature of these courses. This article was fascinating considering the large amount of students that were enrolled in these course was higher than expected. the level of success directly correlated with the students dedication towards the program. Emmons research included many variable like, How many times a student watch the video lessons, the hours of study and how many times they repeated the videos..etc. Researchers wanted to cover all grounds of how much MOOC effected students learning; whether it was positive or negative. 

Hybrid Classes

Hybrid Classes

The approach, typically called blended or hybrid learning, generally refers to an educational program delivered partly online and partly on campus. The purpose of a hybrid course is to take advantage of the best features of both face-to-face and online learning. In-person meeting dates, times, locations, and other relevant factors vary from course to course and are made available to students prior to registration. Determining whether a hybrid course is a good fit is important. If students feel they need some face-to-face interaction with their instructors and classmates but do not have the desire to attend a traditional seated classroom, a hybrid course could be a great option. Other reasons students may choose hybrid courses include that hybrids offer the 'best of both worlds,' often satisfying the needs of people with other obligations, transportation challenges, or who just have a curiosity about online courses - all without the commitment of going fully online.

Advantages:

1) Support "Green" moment

As Hybrid classes is composed of both online and in class interaction there is less use of paper as we send and receive assignments, syllabus and resources online. This will decrease use of paper and save the "Go green" moment.

2) Providing rapid feedback   

Assignments, quizzes, and exam scores can be posted via the course grade book. Students no longer need to wait for their next class to view grades – they simply run a grade report to view their up-to-date status.

3)  Time management

Most of the people want to study and learn but due to hectic daily life schedule of works and responsibility not all of the people are able to learn. However, Hybrid class gives you a better options for time management. This way students can give their own free time to study and having an in-person interaction gives student opportunities to understand course materials better and efficiently.

Disadvantage:

1) Access to the computer and Internet

Students with least access to computers and internet will be in direct disadvantage by the hybrid classes as they won't be able to access the course materials and study online.

2) The plagiarism and credibility problem

Naturally, once your class is officially Internet-friendly, it’s hard to withstand the temptation of looking up things on the web or getting instant tips from fellow students. This may affect fair assessment and quality of course work. Besides, the teacher needs to make learners aware of the perils of unverified online resources, such as bias, distortion and misrepresentation of facts. 

Online Classes

      An online class is an educational lecture designed to be posted online. Lectures are recorded to video, audio or both, then uploaded and made view-able on a designated site. Students may go to a certain designated site to view the lecture online at a time which is convenient for them. Online classes are usually provided by most of the college but there are also many other online website where we can get online class. For example: EDX, Udemy, Coursera etc. Some of the online courses provided are even accredited to many universities like Harvard, MIT, UCLA, and others. As online classes are easy to register for there are some pros and cons of taking online classes. 

Advantages:

1) Cheaper and affordable

       Compared to the traditional in class interaction on campus, Online classes are cheaper and affordable. In most of the cases we can always take an online classes but to make it accredited to the universities and get certificate we have to pay certain amount which is actually cheaper than paying to the college for in class interaction.

2) Flexible time and environment

       One can learn anytime and anywhere through online class. All you need is a laptop and environment. As there will not be any specific time that you have to take a class it makes our time flexible. And most importantly we can learn by staying at any corner of the world. All we need is a zeal to study.

3) More interaction 

       There is some contradictory evidence about this. Some investigators say that traditional courses are better for interaction and some say the other way around. But studies have proven that it improves interaction with certain persons. Online courses offer shy or more reticent students the opportunity to participate in chats more than they do in a traditional class.

4) Flexibility to learn anything you want

       One of the perks of taking online courses is that we can literally learn anything we want. Any subject matters that interest you can be taken online and we can learn a lot and work on like every other students. 

Disadvantages:

1) Needs self-Discipline

    The worst case scenario of taking online classes is that students often stop taking classes because there is no one to control you and to motivate you. The main idea is we need to be self motivated. Any students who often find hard to keep up deadline by themselves can have really hard time in online classes and may end up not completing the classes.

2) Impersonal and lesser social interaction to real world

    As we are basically taking online classes on our own and we do not really meet people and talk to them the social interaction, which we need in our life as a social animal, decreases and this might be harmful to our social norms, values and environment. Moreover,  Interacting with other people is not something which stands central with an online course. Some people absolutely need an educator to learn successfully.

To conclude as there are most of the people doing an online classes there are always many people who prefers doing an traditional classes and real interaction with students and professors. Online courses are not made for every person or study. Traditional education will still exist, but online course will be something you see more and more.