Creating a blog for OMDE 603 9020

Hello everyone,

This is my first attempt at a blog for a class I am in at UMUC. The class is OMDE 603 9020 Technology in Distance Education and E-Learning. As a new student at UMUC there are so many different things to keep track of but I am sure I will get up to speed. This month of May has been a bit overwhelming and I hope June I level out and feel more comfortable with the courses and the amount of work.

Our fist group of readings were a good overview for me of the history of technology in distance education over the three generations. Learning the terminology and values and how they are applied was very helpful. 

The readings on historical context regarding quality control had me thinking of distance education just as I do any other business. There are many ways to control the design of your project in business or your class for DE that can lead to success.When I read Chapter 5 for the last module it gave me a clearer understanding or perhaps more in depth one of the key to successful distance education classes being the design and development being done by a team of specialist.

My favorite part of these first few readings was Moore and how he discussed how the economies of scale and the division of labor specialization has non consistent practice in our field. There was an article within one of the readings (also by Moore) where he gave an analogy of the specializations of labor in distance education to the airline industry. 

We spent some time discussing the term the authors use in DE literature and validating their reasoning for it. the authors use distance education mainly and one of the main reasons for that is they identify that the students and teachers are in different locations or "at a distance" and communication for education by technology is necessary. I agree with the term "Distance Education".