Distance Learning

While I do not think of myself as an expert in distance learning or distance education I have had a lot of experiences with this concept of education.  Let's generalize and clarify some terms first so that all of us are on the same page.  There is a teacher and that teacher has a subject to teach.  Then there is a medium, some form that the instructions and information are carried to the student or receiver.  This could be television, a book, audio or a host of other types of media.  Then there is the student or the receiver of the message.....someplace, sometime, somewhere.


We've always had distance learning if you consider the book as a medium of instruction. The author writes the book, the book then is transported somewhere and someone picks the book and reads it and learns something.  What seems to be missing here for the more purest of the distance learning camp is somehow testing the learner so see what they retained from the book.  However, for centuries we have had libraries (mostly privately owned) and learners who have had internal motivation to gain some information or learning(s).


If you can agree with my generalization that we need a teacher, a message and a learner who are not in the same room I think then we have some agreement on distance learning.


My first exposure to this form of education came when I was doing my "September Experience" in 1953, a procedure that I had to accomplish to be admitted to the School of Education at my undergraduate university.  It was to be a two week observation of a school getting underway for the year's classes.  I was fortunate to have had the privilege of doing this exercise at the Rye High School in Rye, New York.  A prestigious school, it is consistently in the lists of outstanding high schools in the United States.  It was then as well.


I was warmly welcomed and asked if I would help out for the first week or two by carrying a small box from classroom to classroom.  It was a two way speaker box that would allow a bed-ridden student at home to attend classes.  "Hey, no problem."  I would pick up the box at the office in the morning, plugging it in at selected classrooms and then return it to the office in the afternoon.  Generally when I got to the first classroom, I'd plug in the RCA jack and then ask, "Ellen, can you hear me?"  And Ellen would say, "Good morning, Mr. Blackwell.  Thank you for bringing me to class."  We did this all day long.  Much too soon the high school kids knew which room Ellen was supposed to be in and took over my job.  But I remember Ellen saying, "Mr. Blackwell."  No one had called me that before--I was becoming a teacher.  Distance learning--at its best.


My second experience with distance learning was in the US Army when I signed up for a course on Abnormal Psychology from the University of Wisconsin.  Someone had written a book detailing different types of Abnormal Personalities and at the end of each chapter were a series of questions and a designed paper to write detailing learnings from that chapter.  I remember doing about half of the book before I had to put it aside because of our work load at the base.  But I learned and I remember the professor writing on one of my papers that he was pleased with my work.  He didn't realize that I had more then one example in my unit in each chapter.  


My next exposure to distance learning was when I was teaching a course on Instructional Technology at my university and powers to be wanted me to do on a local television station.  Interesting problem.  Today we would call it reality television.  I had a class of educational students and once a week we taped two one hour shows on how to use instructional technology in the classroom. A product of the late 1970s, it covered film, overheads, transparencies 35 mm slide projectors and a host of things that are not available to today's classroom teacher.  


Once the tapes were made the local station then ran them at strange times throughout the week.  At that time KCTS, a television station on the campus of the University of Washington was also doing educational shows that were well done.  Their shows were beamed to school districts and teachers could turn on a television set and have the children watch the presentation.  It was well done.


Did I learn anything from doing the sixteen classroom presentation for the local television class?  Quite a bit.  There are a few people up at four in the morning who do watch.  We received two letters, both complementary but each had a complaint about something I had done.  I can't remember what they were.  I think I have mention before in this blog that this one class was the lowest ranking class in my evaluations that I had ever gotten.  The students hated the class.  Almost to a person they said they would never take a class like this again.  But this wasn't distance learning for these educational students--it was direct instruction and every time I ask a student a question a large camera would zoom in on them to record the answer.  They hated that.  And hated me for asking them.  But I was interested to see that the dress of the students improved from hippy style to pretty normal by the end of the class.  They were aware they were on television.  


I've already written in a previous blog about my experiences of teaching on a phone line.  Multiple phone lines to be exact.  The state of Washington in order to try to save time and money set up phone stations around the state, some at universities, some a community schools, one in the top floor of a department store.  People could gather at these sites and talk to each other without holding a phone to their ear.  Multiple sites could interact with relative ease.


Could we teach using audio only?  That was the test so I taught a class for experienced teachers across the state--about fifty students.  I think a lot of good came out of this experiment.  Although we couldn't SEE each other, we did get to "learn" each other's voices.  And I found that many of the students actually would call on regular phones to help each other after the class was done for the day. I was very impressed with the amount and the quality of work that was accomplished in that class over the telephone lines.


But let's clarify at this point some of the variables in distance learning.  As I have mentioned, you need a teacher and a subject to be learned.  Then you need a medium to communicate the objectives, the instructions, the nuances of that learning to the student.  Next we need the student--or students.  You could have one like the preverbal teacher on one end of the log and the student on the other end of the log or you can have a teacher in a medical school with students at hospitals all over this country.  


BUT....there is an important part here for the student component.  There has to be either internal motivation or external motivation or both.  What prompts a person to pick up a book and learn something?  There needs to be internal motivation for that to accrue. I once saw a wonderful example of external motivation at Boeings. The instructor stood up and said to a group of thirty students/workers, "You have two weeks to learn the following or you will be given pink slips."  


One thing that puzzles me in distance learning.  Do we need some form of a test to "prove" that the student has learned?  Indeed, does a student need some sort of a test to put that learning into some form of a recall?  It is a little like mixing a cake but you don't have the real thing until it comes out of the oven.  I suspect the answer to this lies within the internal and external ramifications.


In today's magical world of technology, the web, and all the magnifications of this phenomenon, we have the ability to do distance learning much easier then what I experienced earlier on.  But the quality of learning depends upon the learner.  Let me repeat myself, the quality of learning depends upon the learner.  As an example go to the Kahn Academy.  Over two thousand courses are available.  Some dealing with simple objectives, others are advanced courses.  But I suspect all of them are good--I haven't completed many of them yet.  But it is available and all those courses need is a motivated student.  See:  http://www.khanacademy.org/about


Given all this, I am a proponent of distance learning.  But all the pieces have to fit--the instructor, the message and the student.


If you've had a distance learning course and learned from it (notice I didn't ask if you enjoyed it), write a comment for the rest of us to learn from.  And for some of you who have taken a distance learning course, have you thanked your teacher?  I wish I had thanked that Wisconsin professor of Abnormal Psychology. He helped me get through the Army.

It takes a community to have a good school

First, my apologies. I took a small holiday and hoped that I could continue my blogging on the road as I went--but time and the use of an old fashion modem dictated other activities. My oh my is a modem slow when you've been using cable. Probably should have tried to find a Wifi spot every now and then.

But back to teachers and teaching. I've meet some wonderful teachers in my travels--many of them happy to take a summer breather from classroom duties. I met one teacher still going back to her classroom.....she told me that she was getting things ready for "next year" organizing the textbooks, designing and planning new bulletin boards and sorting and throwing out stuff. Not on the payroll for the summer but still she was working away to get her room ready for the next "batch of kids." I love teachers--they are a work of art.

The sad news is that many beginning teachers in the state are getting pink slips indicating they have no job next fall. Cut backs in budgets impose such happenings. I worry about them. Idealistic and excited to have done their first year with success, now they have to find another position. This will be tough.

But during the past few weeks, U.S. News and World Reports listed the top 100 high schools in the United States. I'm fascinated by this. How do you go about deciding which criteria is the most valuable. What makes a good high school? Many of the chosen schools were private--I'm not surprised. And a few I recognize from previous year's listings.

What I don't find as a surprise is that five of the top high schools in the State of Washington are from one school district. Bellevue. No other high schools in the state made the top 100 list. You wonder why. What is one school district doing to achieve this honor? What do their teachers do that other district teachers are not doing?

I have watched Bellevue grow from a small community to a major urban city in this state. It has always had the attitude that "we're good and going to get better." The citizens of the area have always wanted the best and schools were included in that arena. I can attest that I have been in many of their schools and everyone is well run. Their teachers are all excellent teachers who want to teach.

There was a time some years back when I was the president of a neighboring education association--a branch of the Washington Education Association. The presidents of the different educational association in the county would get together once a month to exchange ideas, have legislators speak and figure out ways to improve things for teachers. I became good friends with the president of the Bellevue Education Association and Boyd and I are still good friends after all these years. I saw him recently at the age of 85 and he is still passionate about teaching. I remember at one meeting where the majority of the local association presidents were wonder how to get pay raises for our districts and Boyd was asking "how can we improve our schools?" It was the way Bellevue was. They wanted to be the best. And have the best for their kids.

Over the years parents have continued to vote extra school bonds so that new programs could be started. Music and art were always a mainstay of the curriculum on the grounds that children who had music and art did better in other subjects. It appears they were correct in their thinking. Money does buy quality and that is what Bellevue schools have--quality. I'm tired of listening to politicians who want to reform our public schools but do not want to add taxes to pay for the reformatting of the schools. Bellevue doesn't need reformatting--it just continues to improve bit by bit, child by child. The goal is always for the better.

I would also like to add that Bellevue has also kept its school buildings in good shape. The environment in which children learn is important--it adds to the montage of learning. It is the framework in which learning takes place. It appears that the better the physical plant the better the overall learning that can be accomplished. Bellevue has done well with its schools and it shows. Well designed and well landscaped, they are all inviting to the learning community.

An interesting aside. I started my teaching career back in the fifties and in Rye, New York. Rye high school also made the list again this year of being one of the best 100 hundred high school lis. t Rye is another community that takes education seriously and they fund their school districts so that their schools are among the best in the nation. Before I could get into the school of education at my university I had to do a two week intro observation in a school during the fall opening. I applied at Rye High School and they were generous in letting me observe. This was in the early 1950s and this high school already had a reputation of being one of the best.

I remember going to the principals office to introduce myself and the principal made me feel quite welcomed. She also asked if I minded doing a task while I was there observing the classroom. It appears they had a young girl who could not attend classes but was bed ridden at home. However, the district had set up a microphone and speakers in her bedroom and had wired the high school with plug ins. I was to carry a small speaker around and plug Ann in in the classes she would be taking. Although I did not meet Ann in person we quickly became good friends. I would pick up the speaker in the office, first plugging her in and checking to see if she was "on." She always was. For a person who was handicapped she had a very cheerful manner and I enjoyed talking to her. Then off to a classroom where I would plug in the speaker in the front of the room and then check to see if she could hear me. If I heard her reply we knew the system was working both ways. Then I would go to back of the room to observe.

Most of the teachers if I remember correctly would welcome Ann and she would say hi to the class as well. Then teaching and learning would commence. If it was a discussion that was to take place in class the high school kids would raise their hand to enter the discussion. Every so often there would be an "ahem" and the kids would say, let Ann say something. She was always right on--very smart. As I mentioned I did this for two weeks and was truly sorry to have to leave Ann to others when I left.

This was back in the early fifties and this high school was already making adjustments to its student population. Rye high school will always be one of the best.

The question really ought to be...."why don't other communities in this state have high schools that rank in the top 100 list. I'm not sure why. You have to have a upper class majority that is willing to vote extra taxes beyond what the state allocates to the schools. Some districts just can't do that sort of thing. I know several school districts that are comprised of mostly farms and the farmers are barely holding on to their life styles as it is. Raising taxes in that sort of district just can't be done. The state is hard pressed in its budget. I really don't know the answer however, the problem exists.

But in any event, Bellevue deserves our applause. They know how to run top flight high schools for their children. Interesting.