-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- pcb007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueThe Growing Industry
In this issue of PCB007 Magazine, we talk with leading economic experts, advocacy specialists in Washington, D.C., and PCB company leadership to get a well-rounded picture of what’s happening in the industry today. Don’t miss it.
The Sustainability Issue
Sustainability is one of the most widely used terms in business today, especially for electronics and manufacturing but what does it mean to you? We explore the environmental, business, and economic impacts.
The Fabricator’s Guide to IPC APEX EXPO
This issue previews many of the important events taking place at this year's show and highlights some changes and opportunities. So, buckle up. We are counting down to IPC APEX EXPO 2024.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - pcb007 Magazine
Happy Holden's Essential Skills: Online Instruction and Distance Learning
May 7, 2020 | Happy Holden, I-Connect007Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
The courses ended with a project assignment. If I elected to pay a fee, I could get university credits for the course. I encourage you to sign up for one of the many free courses to get a better idea of how distance learning works. It is clear that a distance-learning course has a lot more up-front time for the instructor than a normal face-to-face course, but once accomplished, it becomes available to anyone around the world.
Figure 5: Distance learning has existed with face-to-face learning and open education programs. MOOCs have recently come along and continue to evolve [5].
Distributed Open Collaborative Courses (DOCCs)
DOCCs recognize that the pursuit of knowledge may be better achieved by not using a centralized singular syllabus. Expertise is distributed throughout all the participants and does not reside with just one or two instructors.
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
A massive open online course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the internet. In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, quizzes, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants. MOOCs were first introduced in 2008 and emerged as a popular mode of learning by 2012 (Figure 5). MOOCs are still evolving (Figure 6), and Table 2 shows a number of early MOOC providers out of the nearly 76 institutions today.
Figure 6: MOOC is an evolving open-access method of distance learning. Every letter is negotiable. It has two variants—x-MOOC and c-MOOC [5].
Table 2: Partial List of Providers for Distance Learning with University/Industry Participation [5].
E-learning (another name for distance learning) has become so pervasive at universities and colleges that many now offer full graduate engineering degrees. If you want to develop your own e-learning course, most of the commercial sites in Table 2 have an affiliate program” that will help you to create the course and market it for you. For example, Udemy has 20,000 instructors supplying 11 million students in 190 countries. The instructors average $8,000 in income for their classes. If you want to learn more, check out some of the free materials listed in the references [2, 6, & 7].
Conclusion
The generations currently in high school and college have grown up with digital devices, video games, mobile phones, and social networking. This has affected them and changed the nature of how they learn. To continue their education in electronics manufacturing (and specifically, printed circuit fabrication and surface mounted assembly), training and education need to be adjusted to this new generation of learners. For someone as old as me, the challenge is to adapt my style of teaching to these new digital learners.
References
- Flores, J.G. “Distance Learning: Enabling the Race to the Top.” USDLA, November 16, 2009.
- Siemens, G., & Tittenberger, P. “Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning.” March 2009, University of Manitoba Press.
- Lwin, T. “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs),” The Global New Light of Myanmar, March 8, 2017.
- Open College at Kaplan University. “HE547: Effective Online Instruction–Principle and Practice.” (Now Purdue University Global)
- Massive open online course (MOOC), MOOC.org
- Veletsianos, G., Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, AU Press, July 2010.
- Anderson, T., Theory and Practice of Online Learning, AU Press, May 2008.
Suggested Items
Saab Announces Plans for New Munitions Facility in U.S.
04/03/2024 | SaabSaab announced plans to build a new munitions facility in the U.S., continuing the company’s strong investment and growth domestically.
Arlon EMC Receives IPC-4101 QPL Recertification
03/20/2024 | Arlon Electronic MaterialsArlon Electronic Materials has successfully completed an intensive two-day recertification audit by IPC Validation Services that examined Arlon’s manufacturing processes and testing procedures to assure that they are in conformance to the requirements of IPC-4101E-WAM1, the Specification for Base Materials for Rigid and Multilayer Printed Boards.
Orbit International Electronics Group Reports Bookings for February 2024 in Excess of $2,000,000
03/14/2024 | Globe NewswireOrbit International Corp., an electronics manufacturer and software solution provider, announced that its Electronics Group (OEG) reported bookings for the month of February 2024 in excess of $2,000,000.
U.S. Space Force Awards Boeing WGS-12 Communications Satellite Production Contract
03/07/2024 | BoeingBoeing received a $439.6 million contract to build the 12th Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) communications satellite for U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command.
IPC Releases Newest List of Standards Updates, Revisions
02/20/2024 | IPCEach quarter, IPC releases a list of standards that are new or have been updated. To view a complete list of newly published standards and standards revisions, translations, proposed standards for ballot, final drafts for industry review, working drafts, and project approvals, visit ipc.org/status.