Balancing Act

Lester and Perini state:

Distance education students can benefit from more meaningful interactions with faculty and fellow students, keep students actively engaging with the campus, and provide more access to campus services, thereby creating a more supportive culture for distance learners (Lester and Perini, 2010, p. 75).

we are talking not just about collaborative learning but about fostering a learning community among distance learners, a practice that has demonstrated higher levels of student satisfaction and course completion among online learners (Rovai, 2002).

online instructors should not be blinded by the uniqueness or newness of a tool and integrate it just because it is cool. (I call this SRBS — Shiny Red Button Syndrome.)

Courses still benefit from a clear design strategy even if that design is exploratory in nature. Johnson (2011) also demonstrates that in the activity system that develops with tool use there are always “tensions” (Barab et al., 2003) or “contradictions” (Murphy & Rodriguez-Manzanares, 2008) that must be mediated – i.e., students should not find the technology a barrier to learning. Rather, it should be seamless with their learning activity and engagement.

Communicate project priorities: One of the first questions I ask a client is “Which is the most critical to determine this project’s success – the project completion date, staying within budget, or keeping to scope? While everyone knows that these 3 pieces are related, it is helpful to think about them in the context of each specific project.

When I look back on my greatest successes, they were the result of the team coming together to find creative solutions to difficult problems.

By fostering an environment with open communication you’ll find yourself developing meaningful connections with team members, colleagues and clients.