For Violet Kulo, the question of quality is key to understanding how technology meets the needs of learners.
By Sarah Stanlick
Violet Kulo
There have been undeniable technological strides in recent years, and such advances have pushed new tools into all aspects of our daily lives. Education is no exception to the utilization and popularity of these innovations. The quality of those implementations varies, and for Violet Kulo, the question of that quality was key to understanding how technology meets the needs of learners inside and outside of the classroom.
Presented at the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE) eLearn conference in November 2008, As the World Spins, Technology Spins Faster: A Global Long-Distance Education Program investigates students’ satisfaction in their use of online methods to participate in distance learning. As instruction has been adapted for distance education with little or no teacher intervention, there needs to be a better understanding of the benefits and disadvantages of online learning. After pouring over the datasets from their surveys, Violet and her team found that there was a definite quality compromise with the online experience when compared to instructor-led courses.
Violet Kulo presented her researsh at the AACE eLearn Conference
Violet conducted her research along with Dr. Daphne Hobson, who is the director of the Office of International Programs at Lehigh. She credits the success of the research on strong collaborative teamwork and communication. Violet notes, “The team work was great; we collaborated on everything.” Elaborating, she explained that the research process included independent data analysis by each researcher, with the team then coming together to compare analyses, verify conclusions, and then craft the paper to disseminate the results. The product of that collaboration was not only a presentation for the AACE eLearn conference, but was also incorporated into the book Research Highlights in Technology and Teacher Education 2009. Out of over 100 articles submitted for the publication, only 40 were selected for inclusion.
This research resonates with the entire educational community, and is very much in line with the biggest obstacles instructors and instructional designers face today. Furthermore, as Violet and Dr. Hobson found, there is no replacement for the instructor/teacher. The online experience, while satisfactory in its implementation, was seen by students as an experience of lessened quality. This has implications for distance education programs and instructional designers, who must understand those pitfalls to improve the online learning experience. Such findings will not stop the growth of online learning, but it must inform how programs are designed to maximize the educational experience.
While the research for this particular topic has been tabled for now, Violet continues to work assessing and improving the implementation of technology in the classroom. This commitment to educational research and the lessons learned through her research has informed her dissertation process. Working to create an online module for science inquiry, Violet is exploring another important technology, geographic information systems for use in the classroom. Her work furthers a tradition of research-to-practice work done by Lehigh’s College of Education that will continue to affect the landscape of educational research and practice nationwide.
There have been undeniable technological strides in recent years, and such advances have pushed new tools into all aspects of our daily lives. Education is no exception to the utilization and popularity of these innovations. The quality of those implementations varies, and for Violet Kulo, the question of that quality was key to understanding how technology meets the needs of learners inside and outside of the classroom.