ok….

Thanks for your input. I read your comment last night but was not ready to respond quite yet as your question is something that has been bothering me for the past few weeks (as I was writing my first literature review for MDE 696). I initially thought about the MDE group because it is a program that I know and have experience with. Yes, there is certainly collaboration during the courses and there is even the potential to remain connected with other students throughout the entire program. However, the problem with keeping contact with other students is that no one is on the same track - you take the courses you want, when you want, at the speed you want. So, the result seems to be that you get to the thesis credits and you are basically on your own. There is very little interaction in my first thesis credit as everyone seems fairly stressed about getting their thesis underway and the program finished. I just think it would be amazing if there was a way to follow other students through the program and get to have a glimpse of what other students went through to get their thesis done.

Now, this idea presents a number of issues and makes a number of assumptions. First, the assumption that other students would be interested in being connected in this way throughout the MDE program. After reading the article about the failure of the virtual social space for a graduate program I am less convinced that my fellow students would be interested in putting in the time to blog about their course work. As I am currently experiencing, anything extra added to family, work, leisure time commitments can just fall by the way side. There pretty much needs to be marks attached to everything students do in this program as time is so important to them so I would need to do my research based on a course that was actually using blogs (which is probably not going to be possible). I was also interested in Mejias’ ideas about using a blog as a ‘literature review’ tool and the importance of reflection for learning (just did more reading on this yesterday).

I have been thinking already that the Me2U blog might not be the tool for connecting my fellow grad students. Maybe a MDE or CDE discussion board that is always available to post questions and queries to might be enough to add to the “social” aspects that are already part of the program.

So, apart from doing a study about learners’ perceptions of the need for more interaction in the MDE program I am not 100% sure where else to go with this train.

What are my other options? I have thought about doing a study on the communities that are developing on the main Elgg software itself. My concern here is that it may not fall into the category for appropriate research for a MDE thesis. Is it still distance education if people are seeking it out and learning on their own? I guess I should direct this question to Dr. Jones. I did include this in the introduction to the literature review I just submitted so I will probably have feedback soon. Any input as to whether this would be appropriate DE research? I am really interested in lifelong learning so this research would excite me.

Thanks for asking the question so that I could get a few of my concerns out in the open.

Welcome to the Dawn Patrol.

Goodnight and good luck.