The Impact of Open Source

The course that I chose was New Testament History and Literature from Open Culture.   This was based on a class taught at Yale with Dale Martin.  The website to access the course is http://www.youtube.com/user/YaleCourses#p/c/279CFA55C51E75E0/0/dtQ2TS1CiDY.  The version that I used was presented on YouTube in 26 parts.  This course was not designed for the distance learning environment.  It appears to be simply a video tape of the face to face classroom.  The instructor speaks to class and asks questions and receives feedback.  It does not make an effort to include the online learner.  As we learned in previous weeks the key is to create an environment that equivalent to the face to face environment but not exactly the same.  This course serves as a key example of what not to do in online learning.

One of the first things that our text says not to do is to dump a face to face course online.  This class may have been carefully to be taught in the traditional classroom, but it does not follow the recommendations for online instruction listed in the course text.  The term shovelware has evolved to describe the practice of dumping a face to face course online. (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). This class was not meant to be an online course.  This is simply a recording of a traditional face to face class.  It is the same as if you or I had gone into a classroom and used a video camera to record the lectures.  Then each class was simply made into different parts based on what was being discussed that day.  The only thing that they did manage to do properly was to organize the content of the course.

I found the class to be interesting.  This was only because I was interested in the topic that was being presented.  There were some active learning activities in the course but they were not meant for the online learner.  The instructor gave quick in class quizzes on information before presenting the information in order to find out what pre-conceived notions and experiences the learners are bringing to the table.  Most of the class is based on lecture which does not work as well for the only learner.  There were times when I felt myself not really paying attention because something else had distracted me.  This is a problem for an online course.  The instructor in an online course need to keep the learner engaged.  I would not recommend this course for anyone who was looking to be engaged as an online learner.