Canadian Geography 120 in a Distance Education Setting

I really enjoyed the Distance Education course that I took this semester. I feel that the semester work plan guide did meet my needs in that I rarely felt rushed to get my assignments completed. I felt that the work load was fairly average, and wasn’t too much for me to do. The information that I was given on the website for my assignments was clear and concise. I was able to follow along easily. There were a few resources available for my course, but more would make it easier to find what you are looking for.
Students should be told in detail about the Distance Education courses, and what will be expected of you. They should be told completely that it is on your own and there isn’t someone reminding them that their assignment is due. I had no problems whatsoever with navigating the course or finding out where anything was. The site was designed well, and everything seems to be at your fingertips with regards to finding what you need. The roles of the teacher and facilitator seem odd to me. The teacher mainly just sits in the class and keeps order, as they may not have taught the subjects that are in that class. Plus there is a teacher in a different place that can help you out if you need it. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the teacher in the classroom know the subjects of the students in their room? For example, it would be more beneficial to me to have a canadian geography teacher in my class, so then I could just go up and ask my question and get an immediate response. With a facilitator, sometimes you have to wait a day or so to get an answer about the question that you have. I do not think that a weekly tutorial for all students would be beneficial, because different students work at their own pace, so having a tutorial for everyone would mess up the process of the students who learn at different paces. The email accounts could be better utilized because they could be a place where the facilitators could send a quick word of praise to the students who did good on an assignment, etc. I don't think deadlines should be placed on the units because then it seems like so much more work to do, whereas when you have one assignment that's due in a week, it doesn't seem like that much work that needs to be done. I do believe that more pictures, diagrams and graphics would add a lot to the course, instead of just a lot of text. As for the assignments, my only complaint is the amount of graphs and diagrams that needed to be labelled and made. They are the most time-consuming of anything.
The regular evaluation of student progress could be improved by more communication between the facilitators and the students. There could be a place where you could keep a journal showing your progress within the course. If you make the journal worth some marks I'm sure that the students would be more than willing to participate. I think students should be tested whenever the test is scheduled. By giving a student a date, it is their responsibility to be ready by this time. I think the tests should be done online, as it is an online course. Students should become familiar with the computers, and should be able to navigate on them efficiently enough to be able to write a test online. I think the evaluation should be formatted in a way that allows the students to show what they have learned and to show that their online course was beneficial to them in some way. I think that regular assignments should be worth 80%, work ethic, regular testing, special projects, and the final examination should be worth 5% each. The assignments are the main topic in this course, as it is where you learn all the information, so it should have the biggest weight.
I liked being able to work at my own pace and teach myself about the topics, rather than being taught to. That made the course interesting and fun for me. However, I did not really like all of the maps and graphs and diagrams that I needed to do. They took a lot of time, which could have been put towards something else. I would take another distance course, but since I am graduating, I can't. I did enjoy it because it was a nice break from the normal, everyday class room setting.