Welcome to My MDE e-Portfolio!
This e-Portfolio was one of the culminating activities in the Master of Distance Education program at the University of Maryland University College (now called University of Maryland Global Campus or UMGC). When I decided to embark on graduate school I wanted to select a field that was on the cutting-edge in terms of knowledge and ability to apply the skills in my career. I wanted a field that was not over-crowded with people proficient in DE knowledge and looking to grow in their career. Distance education, distance learning, or e-learning was definitely on the cutting-edge!
Working at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business in a staff role put me in the midst of higher education. The University of Maryland has moved towards offering more and more distance learning. Of course, in March 2020 we were hit with a global pandemic, and courses all over the world suddenly shifted to online learning. I have now been teaching online for both UMGC and UMD's English Department, where I have taught WRTG 394 (Advanced Business Writing) at UMGC and ENGL 394 at UMD. I have taught both fully online and F2F at both campuses.
This e-Portfolio offers a comprehensive look at the courses I took in the MDE program, including the history and theory, costs and economics, multimedia, learner support, management and leadership, intellectual property and instructional design. A sample assignment from each class is included on the "My MDE Courses" page. "My Resume" describes the myriad of skills I have acquired in the world of business and higher education. The page entitled "English Grammar Course" is a snapshot of the course I created and developed in several of my MDE classes to assist international students at the Smith School of Business improve their English writing skills. Finally, the page entitled "Post MDE" describes the many learning opportunities I have had since completing my MDE.
The first course in the MDE journey was the History and Theory of Distance Education. It was pretty dry, and of course getting accustomed to graduate level writing and expectations was a real eye-opener. During the winter term I took the mandatory, but zero credit course UCSP 611 -- Introduction to Graduate Library Research Skills. Because this course is required of every graduate student, it is impossible to have a high level of student-to-faculty interaction. The course was monitored/led by UMUC librarians. It was self-paced, with modules and links to UMUC sites, such as the writing center, and external links to other universities with excellent libraries and writing centers. It had embedded video clips, modules of study, pre-assessment quizzes, and graded assessments. The entire course was nearly completely automated. I truly was amazed by the structure of the class, and I really, really enjoyed it. My favorite quote that I remember saying repeatedly was "Wow! This is SO COOL! Who in the world creates all this stuff?" It wasn't until I got into my second class, OMDE 603, Technology in Distance Education and E-Learning, that I learned the answer to this question. The answer was: Instructional Designers put these classes together.
UPDATE: It is now seven years later, and I am updating my e-Portfolio for a number of reasons. First, I have retired from the University of Maryand, College Park as of November 1, 2021! Second, I will be teaching ENGL 394 - Business Writing in the spring of 2022 at the Shady Grove campus. One of the new assignments is for students to create their own e-Portfolio, so I figured I had better update my own!
Working at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business in a staff role put me in the midst of higher education. The University of Maryland has moved towards offering more and more distance learning. Of course, in March 2020 we were hit with a global pandemic, and courses all over the world suddenly shifted to online learning. I have now been teaching online for both UMGC and UMD's English Department, where I have taught WRTG 394 (Advanced Business Writing) at UMGC and ENGL 394 at UMD. I have taught both fully online and F2F at both campuses.
This e-Portfolio offers a comprehensive look at the courses I took in the MDE program, including the history and theory, costs and economics, multimedia, learner support, management and leadership, intellectual property and instructional design. A sample assignment from each class is included on the "My MDE Courses" page. "My Resume" describes the myriad of skills I have acquired in the world of business and higher education. The page entitled "English Grammar Course" is a snapshot of the course I created and developed in several of my MDE classes to assist international students at the Smith School of Business improve their English writing skills. Finally, the page entitled "Post MDE" describes the many learning opportunities I have had since completing my MDE.
The first course in the MDE journey was the History and Theory of Distance Education. It was pretty dry, and of course getting accustomed to graduate level writing and expectations was a real eye-opener. During the winter term I took the mandatory, but zero credit course UCSP 611 -- Introduction to Graduate Library Research Skills. Because this course is required of every graduate student, it is impossible to have a high level of student-to-faculty interaction. The course was monitored/led by UMUC librarians. It was self-paced, with modules and links to UMUC sites, such as the writing center, and external links to other universities with excellent libraries and writing centers. It had embedded video clips, modules of study, pre-assessment quizzes, and graded assessments. The entire course was nearly completely automated. I truly was amazed by the structure of the class, and I really, really enjoyed it. My favorite quote that I remember saying repeatedly was "Wow! This is SO COOL! Who in the world creates all this stuff?" It wasn't until I got into my second class, OMDE 603, Technology in Distance Education and E-Learning, that I learned the answer to this question. The answer was: Instructional Designers put these classes together.
UPDATE: It is now seven years later, and I am updating my e-Portfolio for a number of reasons. First, I have retired from the University of Maryand, College Park as of November 1, 2021! Second, I will be teaching ENGL 394 - Business Writing in the spring of 2022 at the Shady Grove campus. One of the new assignments is for students to create their own e-Portfolio, so I figured I had better update my own!
Carol Cron's e-Portfolio by Carol Cron is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.