Open Source Course – Not Really Distance-Learning

http://oyc.yale.edu/music/musi-112

 

 

This week I will consider an open source course and determine how well the course was planned for a distance-learning environment.  The course I chose is Listening to Music (MUSI 112) from Yale’s Open courses.  The first thing that attracted me is that Yale is an Ivey league school and I have always thought how powerful it would be even to visit the school let alone take a course at the University.  Therefore, when I saw that Yale had open courses I had to investigate further.

 

This course is taught by Professor Craig Wright who has taught at Yale since 1973.  The course “fosters the development of aural skills that lead to an understanding of Western music” (Yale, n.d.).  There are 23 lectures within the course all of which were recorded in 2008 from the actual course that met on campus.  Within each lecture there are chapters.  Although the information is very interesting and the professor is easy to listen to and watch the course was merely recorded from the actual class setting and placed online with all of the course information. 

According to Simonson, Smaldino, Albright and Zvacek, (2012), states that the first item that should take place when creating a distance-learning course is that the course should be “retooled” (p. 153).  This open source course was not retooled but rather just videoed and placed online.  Nothing was made specific for distance-learning including activities, textbook, there were not any planned group work nor where there anything that encouraged interactivity.

Overall, the Listening to Music course was interesting but not really a distance-learning course but rather a recording of the the Professors lecture.

 

References:

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Yale University. (n.d.). Listening to music. Yale University Open Source Courses. Accessed on October 7, 2012 from http://oyc.yale.edu/music/musi-112