Distance Learning Report

May 24, 2006

It has been a busy and productive 2 months for our distance learning re-tooling initiative here at CCC. After presenting my goals and objectives for DL at the Faculty/Staff meeting in March, I have conducted seven mini-blackboard makeover sessions to faculty members from a variety of program areas, in addition to attending the Distance Learning Alliance Conference last week in Ashville. You can read my thoughts on the DL Conference on this Blog it is called Digital Terrain.

I also worked with Morgan Smith on an article for the Fall Beacon (see below) about the state of DL here at CCC. I am excited about the progress we are making and every faculty member I have worked with has been extremely receptive and excited about upgrading their courses with graphics, animations, video and adding better design and content continuity into them.

I plan on continuing to offer blackboard makeover workshops with our online faculty throughout the summer, in addition to moving forward with my plan to connect student services, academic support and our library into our distance learning initiative. My goal is to have this in place by Fall 2006 – at least the initial phase of it. I also see my DL work as an important marketing strategy so I am working on the Marketing Committee in order to use our Distance Learning faculty and blackboard upgrading / re-tooling as a way to market and recruit new students.

Distance Learning - Entering the Digital Terrain
Beacon Article Fall 2006

Much like the changes in our global society, education is not what it used to be. Thanks to technology, education also is undergoing a dramatic transformation in ‘how’ information and knowledge are transmitted and shared by students and users worldwide.

Today, students have other options than the traditional classroom setting to learn their lessons. The Internet and access to technology are changing everything. Carteret Community College is currently redesigning its distance learning courses for all curriculums. The effort will include adding more distance learning options to traditional classroom courses. “We know our students favor distance learning courses because this method gives them more flexibility to study when it fits into their busy lifestyles,” said Patrick Keough, coordinator of the college’s Distance Learning program. “That’s why we are adding more courses and options that include partial Internet, where some time is spent in the classroom and some time online.” Just as the world’s businesses and industries are harnessing the power of the Internet and digital technology, so are the instructors at CCC by incorporating new teaching strategies into their courses. “The technological revolution has already taken place,” Keough said, Distance Learning offers students more creative options for obtaining degrees and certifications without sacrificing quality. “Our goal is to harness these new digital technologies and incorporate them into the fiber of our programs,” Keough said. “We are building a digitally networked education system that is of the highest quality and uses the latest instructional delivery methods and technologies so our students learn on the tools of the 21st century. “We are living in a different world and we as students, educators and administrators at CCC will have to think ‘out of the box.’ We have evolved from a very linear industrial model to hopefully a more non-linear creative approach for imparting knowledge and information to our students.”

Patrick Keough
Director of Distance Learning

Into the Digital Terrain

The following are some thoughts generated from the Distance Learning Alliance Conference in Ashville this past week. I was particularly impressed and inspired by what David Warlick (The Landmark Project) had to say in his seminars.

I’m truly excited about how empowered I am as an educator and sophisticated computer / internet user. Teaching online for the past 10 years has given me some real insights into the direction of education in this country. I have developed the skills I need to make a real difference in education both at my college and hopefully on a larger scale. We are living in a different world and we as educators must be thinking differently – more ‘out of the box’ different than ever before. We have all these new digital tools and yet we are losing so many kids in our educational system. We have evolved from a very linear industrial model to hopefully a more non-linear creative approach to imparting knowledge and information to our children. I think we have to give our young students more credit for wanting to use technology to learn in a completely new and innovative/creative way. Like David Warlick said in his telling the new story presentation, “the age of children sitting in boxes lined up in rows is coming to an end, and it’s about time.” This era requires new ways of thinking, communicating and socializing. Our kids for the most part are ahead of the technological curve probably for the first time in human history and it’s our role as educators and parents to help channel their creative energy into positive and productive directions in addition to imparting a set of positive core values that will guide them on their digital / cyber journeys. That is what is going on in this culture. We as educators are embarking on our own digital journey. There are technological and interpersonal skills in addition to some basic moral values that we need to bring with us on our cyber sojourns. Our young people are already ahead of many of us traversing the digital terrain – it’s up to us as educators and parents to figure out creative and innovative ways to guide them in positive directions and not let them detour into the digital dark places where hate, pornography, and predators reside. We are still the adults – still the educators and must. We may no longer be the didactic talking heads that we once were, however we must maintain a leadership role as guides – mentors and scouts in the digital realm. I we don’t, the cyber landscape will continue to evolve into a dark and chaotic environment as it is already in some regions of the internet. When you think about it – intellectualize what is going on in the digital culture there reasons to be extremely excited and at the same time very scared and worried about some of the digital terrain that our young people are scaling, exploring and investigating. I’m enthusiastic about this awesome power of all this newly generated information, yet at the same time I’m fearful of some of the negative and harmful content out there in the cyber hinterlands. It up to us as educators, parents and fellow explorers to take a very positive mentoring role in teaching our fellow sojourners how to distinguish between the harmful negative and sometimes very dark and hurtful regions in this new digital world we live in and hopefully generate positive production and thoughtful content that will contribute to the ever growing sphere of new information that is contributing to the betterment of humanity and the human condition. For the most part I feel confident that this incredible digital adventure the human race is embarked on will bear great fruit. No one really has a true grasp on how all this new information will impact the human race. Diseases can be cured, poverty can be addressed and hopefully eradicated in new and creative ways that may not have been thought of yesterday and who knows, some 13 year old geek in New Jersey may have an answer to a tiny piece of a puzzle that is keeping the medical community from curing Cancer or Aids. We just don’t know, although we do know that the digital global community has the potential to explore, investigate and solve major issues in ways we never thought possible 10-20-30 years ago. So we as educators must ask ourselves…do we want to be followers on the digital journey or leaders?

Patrick Keough
Director of Distance Learning
Carteret Community College
Morehead City, NC 28557
pkeough@hotmail.com