https://www.col.org/news/registration-open-for-on-authentic-assessment-for-online-learning/
May 9, 2022 was one of the most exciting days of my professional life because Authentic Assessments for Online Learning launched with 2,440 dedicated educators from around the world! Thank you all for joining this course!
One of the participants asked, "What is online learning?" This is a seemingly simple question with NO clear answer?
Duus (2009) observes it is difficult to refer to online education as a singular entity because it is so big (like referring to an ocean as a big body of salt water). Duus makes a critical distinction between “low-end e-learning” and “high-end e-learning." Low-end e-learning is characterized by content transmission and is volume-based. Technology provides the innovation to these popular, mainstream strategies that are often erroneously made synonymous with all forms of e-learning (Duus, 2009, Figure 1). Duus argues that most of the discourse and academic research has focused on low-end e-learning, and while it is simplistic to categorize it this way, low-end e-learning is best conceived as content-heavy education with low interactivity (Protopsaltis & Baum, 2019, p. 30).
Moving towards a learning-centred instructional approach means moving towards interactivity, moving towards student engagement and student knowledge-construction. Moving towards authentic assessments is a move from low-end to high-end e-learning.
Online education is a form of distance education where the primary delivery mechanism is via internet-based technologies, but this definition lacks nuance because the terminology struggles to keep up with the invention of new approaches and applications. Online education may include synchronous “face-to-face” technologies such as Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, Zoom, or Google Meet, asynchronous or multi-synchronous platforms such as the learning management system (LMS) and Google Docs, and/or participatory flow technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, Mentimeter, and Padlet.
Dron (2014) suggests that online instruction will grow to include “emerging systems and their capabilities for assembly and integration” that allow for a “depth of sophistication that we have not seen before.”
I love that phrase - a depth of sophistication we have not seen before - this depth of sophistication is what we are after as we explore authentic assessments.
Dr. J
Dron, J. (2014). Innovation and change: Changing how we change. In Zawacki-Richter, O. & Anderson, T. (Eds.), Online Distance Education (pp. 237-265). Athabasca University Press.
Duus, H. J. (2009). A socioeconomic approach to the development of e-learning. E-Learning & Education (eleed) Journal, 5. https://eleed.campussource.de/archive/5/1985
Protopsaltis, S., & Baum, S. (2019). Does online education live up to its promise: A look at the evidence and implications for federal policy. George Mason University. https://distance-educator.com/does-online-education-live-up-to-its-promise-a-look-at-the-evidence-and-implications-for-federal-policy/