Journal 10

The New Gold Rush: Establishing Effective Online Learning Policies
By Ferdi Serim

According to Ferdi Serim, online learning is the fastest growing segment of educational technology. This type of educational channel has the advantage of delivering student-centered learning anytime and anyplace. Serim’s concern is that this vehicle may encourage the elimination of skilled educators in favor of a more cookie cutter-mass content approach.
One possible solution is in the creation of hybrid courses. These are courses which combine face to face instruction with the online component. This best-of-both-worlds approach, according to Serim, leads to higher completion rates and a higher quality learning outcome than online courses alone.
Professional development is a high priority in making these hybrid courses work. Traditional teachers can become effective at online learning with the right combination of professional development and clinical experience. Qualified online instructors can produce high-quality online learning materials with more specialized instructional design and implementation skills.
Serim argues that this type of instruction works. Students once considered at risk achieved better results when they were in control of the pace and direction of their education.

Question: What would be my biggest challenges in conducting an online course?

Other than mastery over the technology itself I might find it difficult to form a relationship with the students. I would not always know how they were progressing until they actually failed at a task. Creating specialized assessments to monitor the students early and often would be critical.

Question: What is a possible disadvantage to having students in charge of the pace and direction of their learning?

Some students would tend to stay within their comfort zone. They may move more slowly than they could and avoid going in directions where they do not feel confident.

Journal 9 Classroom 2.0

Presentations

This tool deals with multi-media presentations on the Web. They can be part of a website, used as a collaborative tool by students or as a presentation such as powerpoint. I am interested in this technology as a learning and communication tool where there are many applications.
One of the recent posts discussed a new product called Jing. This software allows the user to take whatever image is on their computer and share it with anyone by using a link pasted onto the clipboard. It even allows images to be shared as video.
Another teacher was asking about applications for teaching math. She wanted to create slideshows and movies as expressions of the new material they were learning in class. One of the responses was to use a concept mapping tool called Cmap. Students can not only collaborate with each other, but parents can view what the students are learning.
Someone else was using Voicethread for English language learners with good success. It allows students to speak over images. I think this has some great possibilities. Projects can be created where contemporaries speak over pictures of some time or event to tell their personal history.
One of the last threads I looked at discussed Google’s new presentation tool. This application along with Sliderocket would compete with Powerpoint. Most seemed eager to having an alternative to Powerpoint.