24-04-2012, 10:00 AM
Support systems for distance education, e –learning, blended learning
Support systems for distance education, e –learning, blended learning.docx (Size: 245.03 KB / Downloads: 51)
Abstract:
In Distance Learning end users need to access different e-learning platforms daily to gain the knowledge. E-learning platforms implement authentication system to handle the authentication and authorization processes. As the number of directory stores grows the development overhead of user’s authentication process in e-learning platforms against those directories increases. Also as the number of e-learning platforms grows, the number of user’s IDs and passwords users have to memorize grows as well. So users make passwords not strong enough to ease memorization, and write passwords in clear text in insecure places, which compromise the security. An outline of various aspects of design and implementation of web services based authentication system for e-learning platforms (WSAS) is presented in this paper. The architecture provides e-learning platforms users with a single sign-on solution for the problem of memorizing many user IDs and passwords, provides organizations with a centralized, simple, and efficient directory stores access mechanism to simplify the process of integrating multiple directory stores, and provides the e-learning platforms developers with a standard solution to minimize the development overhead of the authentication process against multiple directory stores, the presented prototype architecture designed based on the existing web services technology, so that clients need not be modified, and servers may have a little modifications.
Introduction
The first generation of e-learning or Web-based learning programs focused on presenting physical classroom-based instructional content over the Internet. Furthermore, firstgeneration e-learning (digitally delivered learning) programs tended to be a repetition or compilation of online versions of classroom-based courses. The experience gained from the first-generation of e-learning, often riddled with long sequences of ‘page-turner’ content and pointand- click quizzes, is giving rise to the realization that a
single mode of instructional delivery may not provide sufficient choices, engagement, social contact, relevance, and context needed to facilitate successful learning and performance. In the second wave of e-learning, increasing numbers of learning designers are experimenting with blended learning models that combine various delivery modes. Anecdotal evidence indicates that blended learning not only offers more choices but also is more effective.
Distance education:
Distance education is seen by some theorists as an entirely separate form of education, by others merely as taking a place on a continuum of types of education which has at one end the totally supportive one to one face to face situation and at the other end a process of learning from materials which is devoid of human interaction. I tend to favour this latter view, although I accept that there is a wide variation on the continuum of education. My own involvement in the oversight of a large distance education student support system (the UK Open University) leads me to believe that I am not doing anything generically different than my counterparts in traditional education systems. What do I mean by this? Let me look back briefly at the origins of distance education. Most people see the origins in this century. It is widely viewed as an industrialised form of teaching and learning which is reliant on good and swift communications over distance, in particular the rail and postal services which were developed in the nineteenth century, and it draws upon the processes of industry to break down complex operations into constituent parts and to carry these out with considerable savings in efficiency without any loss of
effectiveness.
The description of distance education as an industrialised form of teaching and learning was first made by Otto Peters' in his seminal work. The importance of his definition is now widely accepted and he highlighted the relevant characteristics of distance education as follows:
• the division of labour in the teaching process itself which allows a rationalisation of the elements of the teaching process;
• the use of technical equipment to ensure a product of constant quality in theoretically unlimited volumes;
• the application of organisational principles to cut down unnecessary effort on the part of those teaching and those learning;
• the use of technical media such as television and radio to replace teachers and cater for volume;
• the testing of the product, the teaching package, to eliminate mistakes and guarantee a standard.
• the monitoring of the teaching system by scientific methods to maintain quality and standards.
E-Learning:
E-Learning means "electronic learning" — it refers to a wide range of applications and processes designed to deliver instruction through electronic means. Usually this means over the Web, however it also can include CD-ROM or video-conferencing through satellite transmission. The definition of E-learning is broader than, but includes, "online learning," "Web-based training," and "computer-based training." Most importantly, it signals the paradigm shift in education and training that is in progress.
The following list is a quick summary of E-Learning modalities currently in use:
1. Use of technology to enrich classroom/workplace learning (Internet, CD-ROM,, interactive multimedia, games/simulations, social networks)
2. Online instruction for distance learning cost savings (no face-to-face meetings)
3. Blended instruction (combining online and face-to-face learning events)
4. Synchronous: real-time, multiple students online, instructor-led
5. Asynchronous: students and instructor in intermittent interaction
6. Instructor-led group work (combining both synchronous and asynchronous events)
7. Self-study (online tutorials, research and discovery learning events)
8. Self-study with subject matter expert (tutoring, mentoring, coaching)
9. Web-based tutorials (individual or group using self-paced online resources)
10. Computer-based tutorials (individual or group using CD-ROM resources)
11. Video and audio resources (distributed by tape, CD, DVD, online streaming, download, or pod-cast, etc.)
The power of E-Learning is more than technology — it is the social dynamics of networking. The revolutionary impact of E-Learning lies not simply in having a multimedia platform on a single desktop. It is the combined power of a world-wide network of such computers — that connects authors, instructors and learners globally — with the immediacy of text, graphics, audio and video, as well as interactivity and collaborative sharing.
Technology-based instruction offers leverage to make both the planning/ development process and the delivery/ learning process more efficient. The tools augment the instructional capacity of teachers and learning activity of students.
• Instructors and curriculum developers can now share resources more easily and together build learning-object repositories.
• Multimedia and expanded resources from the network can enhance the traditional classroom experience dramatically.
• Online synchronous tools create a new kind of cyber-classroom, connecting distance learners from many locals ("any where") in peer-to-peer engagement.
• Online self-paced tutorials create enriched interactive and exploratory learning experiences that are accessible on-demand ("any time") when a learner is ready.