Advanced Distributed Learning

I have seen a few examples of the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) in a few of our programs at school. I feel that ADL has been so effective in corporate setting because the system probably only is about a few topics at a time. If only one topic is cover, then a system of resources can be carefully organized and available in each trainer.

However when it is used in an educational setting, the ADL will get considerably more complicated. A complete curriculum will require a greater amount of resources. I do agree that real-time interaction is important when used in an educational setting. Our school uses two different ADL’s class.com, and Umbudsman. Class.com is similar to the example from academiccolab.com. Students have a few example videos, some resources websites to visit, online checks, and an assessment and the end of each lesson. These assessments are graded by a teacher at our school and then returned to the student. There very little real-time feedback for students, beside the online checks. An improvement would be an area where students could ask questions and receive instant feedback. Our second program, Umbudsman has greater support. Here students work through similar online trainers, but have subject supported instructors available onsite for support.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is developing standards for a more experiential form of mathematics. ADL’s could help with providing students with examples of how mathematics is used in real life settings. This would cause the roles to shift as mentioned. Students would have more responsibility for independent learning and the teachers will have to become a greater facilitator of information.