Distance Education in Transition - Master of Distance Education ...

Moderating a Virtual Seminar
lady studying at a Japanese college what do you think about the concept of the
autonomous learner?" "I am glad that you have found a new position, hopefully a better
one." "I envy you because of your house on the beach." Such remarks are not at all banal
ones. They can alter the atmosphere. The participants feel that they are accepted not only as
students when talking about academic matters but also as distinctive individual persons.
This must be considered a pedagogical achievement. We could imagine that communication
in virtual seminars can ideally take place on two levels – an official and an unofficial
one.
Evaluation
At the end of the virtual seminar that was described and dealt with here, the question
must be asked whether this specific pedagogical approach towards autonomous learning
on the Internet has been successful. We cannot answer this question before the criteria
for "success" are established for this particular case. Naturally, we cannot expect proof
that well-defined kinds of knowledge have been acquired and adequately reproduced in
the same way by most of the students involved. We cannot compare these learning
results and express the findings in quantitative terms. The goals of this module are
structurally different. Students are to become motivated and interested in theoretical
interpretations of distance education and online learning in general. They are to develop
a reflective attitude, which stimulates them to analyze their learning and teaching with
the help of theoretical concepts. They are to recognize the specific potentials of online
learning for autonomous, self-regulated learning. They are to gather first experiences in
this mode of learning. They are to become acquainted with theoretical positions in the
field of distance education and online learning and possibly adopt one or the other. They
are to broaden their horizons and learn about and evaluate models in distance education
in other parts of the world. Overall, they are to learn how to deal with the phenomenon
of distance education in a professional way.
In how far can these goals be reached? It stands to reason that each individual student
will achieve this in a different, personal way. The elementary school teacher deals with
the contents offered in a different way to the training specialist at a big chain of hotels,
or a Fleet Liaison Officer in the Navy, or the 59 year old Ph.D. in psychology, or the
program manager in the IT department with a private engineering university – to refer
only to some of them. They assimilate different information, aspects and points of view.
The diversity of different approaches can be seen by reading the essays the students
have to write at the end of the module. They show clearly how far they have become
familiar with this previously unknown way of thinking and talking about distance
education. We can see that they have increased their knowledge about theories of
distance education. And even more, we can also sense how they are assuming a new
attitude, the attitude of persons on their way to becoming experts in distance education.
The main advantage of the essay as an evaluation instrument is that the teacher can see
how independent the students have already become in their thinking about the themes
under discussion. The papers show whether the students stick to texts recommended for
reading or whether they report on them in their own words, presenting ideas and critical
judgements of their own in unorthodox sequences, showing the relevance to their
vocational experiences and reporting about how the new knowledge can be applied in
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