Abstract:
Closed campuses, working remotely, and physical distancing have changed the way we work, teach, learn, shop, attend conferences, and interact with family and friends. But the Covid-19 pandemic has not changed what we know about creating high-end online education. Two decades of research has shown that online education often fails to fulfill its promise, and the emergency shift to remote instruction has, for many, justified their distrust and dislike of online learning. Low interactivity remains a widely recognized short-coming of current online offerings. Low interactivity results, in part, from many faculty not feeling comfortable being themselves online. The long-advocated for era of authentic assessments is needed now more than ever. Finally, greater support is needed for both underrepresented students and for faculty to move beyond basic online instruction to create a strong continuum of care between the teaching and learning environment and the student support infrastructure. For those who have been long-term champions of online education, it has never been more important to confront the three biggest challenges that continue to haunt online education – interactivity, authenticity, and support. Only by confronting these challenges squarely can instructors, educational developers, and their institutions take huge steps towards better online instruction in the midst of a pandemic and make widespread, high-quality online education permanently part of the “new normal.”
"In Stephen’s account, connections are defined as a kind of relationship between entities. However, I have never read a connectivist account of where entities come from, or a connectivist description of their nature. And defining an undefined word exclusively in terms of a second undefined word kicks the semantic can down the road. And building a learning theory on a term with such a definition seems “risky.”
But as I said above, this is not a critique of what has been written about connectivism – I’ve found that writing to be quite persuasive. This is simply a statement about what remains to be considered and written about before connectivism can be considered sufficiently complete."