As a facilitator of an Online Masters of Education program, I have found the widening possibilities provided by new technologies and the vast amount of accessibility on the internet very exciting. As a grandparent I have been extremely disappointed in the amount of innovations I have seen in my grandchildren’s classrooms. It seems to me that the NCLB rules and accountabilities are causing school districts to limit class time to teaching the materials to be tested causing a conflict for teachers as to what they should be working on with their students.
"Great post! This has me thinking already in my own teaching!"
The first thing to understand when deciding whether online learning is for you or not is: Not all online programs are the same. There are multiple levels of use of the internet as well as a wide variety of teacher/ student responsibilities. The 3 main types of online learning courses are:
1) Face to face classes that use internet resources
2) Blended courses
3) completely online courses
"I would love to hear more about how you accomplish the successful delivery of your degree programs 100% online. Perhaps a future blog post? My school is looking into offering a blended option, but we are years away from offering 100% online. Kudos to your university for being ahead of the game!"
In the last 5 years, I have been amazed at how the internet has changed. I am on the internet every day for at least 4-5 hours a day doing my job as an online instructor. However, I have been so busy and involved with learning the tools on our virtual campus that I have missed out on the exciting innovations of the web in general.
"Thanks so much for including links to these valuable tools! Believe it or not, I find Wikipedia very valuable as a learning tool for me to get an understanding of new internet applications in terms I can understand. For those that have never used Wikipedia, you should check it out at http://www.wikipedia.org"
For many generations educators (including me and most of the teachers I have known over the 40 years I have been an educator) have worked to help students learn by being taught. It seems to me that this generation of young people are not interested in being taught. They want to immerse themselves in learning and develop their own understanding. The job market they will be facing in the future is looking for people who can think outside the box and can work collaboratively. The traditional classroom, where the teacher is the “sage on the stage”, is no longer appropriate for educating this type of thinker.
Unfortunately, most instructors were trained to be that sage. A few are learning to move to the side and act as a coach or facilitator.
"I find myself in the same dilemna that you mentioned. Just when I think I am ahead of the curve in terms of being cutting edge, I find out there is something new that I hadn't even heard of. I'm trying to get blogging and podcasting up and running at my school, but sometimes it's an uphill battle when the administration doesn't even know what a blog is! Keep blazing the trail at your university. It only makes things easier for those of us in more traditional settings!"
