The Merits of Online Learning and the Virtual Classroom

As with anything, there are both strengths and weaknesses to online learning. For years and years, online learning was dismissed as an inferior method of education for today's students both at the primary and secondary levels. However, as computer technology continues to grow and become an ever more essential aspect of our lives, online education has gained more respect in the academic world. Many individuals are seeking online learning avenues to better match their special needs. There are many aspects of education that online classrooms excel in and many other areas that traditional classrooms excel in. What seems to finally be agreed upon at this point is that online education is not wishing to replace the traditional classroom setting. These two avenues for education are available to meet the differing individual needs of different students. As more and more students flock to non-traditional modes of learning, we continue to discuss the pros and cons of online learning versus traditional classroom learning.

Pros

1. Anywhere, Anytime, Any Pace:

The most obvious and immediate advantage of online learning is that it allow students to participate in high quality learning situations from any place and at almost any time. Students from all areas of the nation and world can participate in classes as long as they have a computer and internet access. This flexibility in location and schedule is particularly useful for students with physical disabilities that limit their ability to access a traditional classroom. Furthermore, it also benefits individuals wishing to return to school who are currently working fulltime jobs, have families, or a bounded by some other daily responsibility. Though the requirements of different online classes will vary, the online classroom is typically available 24 hours a day. This means that students can develop their own schedules so that their education fits within their already complicated days.

2. Access to Resources:

The flexibility of the online classroom also allows instructors a number of options for their curriculum. Because the classroom is online, anyone can access it from anywhere. This means that instructors can easily include distinguished guests, experts on the topic at hand, and students from other institutions in the curriculum. With classes taking place through an online medium, it makes it much simpler for instructors to collect various online resources for students to utilize. Furthermore, online lines of communication provide an extremely convenient way for students to get a hold of their professor or classmates. With a world of information directly at their fingertips during their virtual classroom experience, students and instructors are able to expand on topics in more depth and can have better informed discussions.

Cons

1. Accessibility to Technology:

One of the major disadvantages to online education is that it requires access to the online learning environment. This requirement makes online learning inaccessible to a large portion of the population be it for economical or logistic reasons. Students from rural areas or lower socioeconomic lifestyles are put at a distinct disadvantage because of this. This is particularly an issue because one of online educations big ploys is that it is less expensive than traditional brick and mortar schooling, at least at the collegiate level. So, students who can't afford traditional universities, but can afford online tuition prices are still unable to attend because of their limited access to technology. Not only are computers an expensive investment, having reliable access to the internet is costly. If a participants' time online is limited by their ability to access the internet, then instruction and participation in the online program is not equal for all students involved.

2. Limitations of Technology:

Reliable technology is essential to an online program. Technical issues or internet problems can cause major issues for the success of a program. That being said, no technology is completely reliable. There will be technical errors and problems that occur regularly for an online institution. These technical hiccups can be majorly detrimental to the regular proceedings of an online class and to the learning that is supposed to take place. Because computer technology and the internet are such specialized fields, not everyone can maintain their devices in optimal working order. With this unreliability, online learning can be put at a huge disadvantage and students' learning experiences can be harmed.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Katheryn Rivas, who writes for online universities blog. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: katherynrivas87@gmail.com.

Online Forums and Student Writing

This guest post written by Elaine Hirsch. Thanks for your contribution to this online dialogue about how technology (and online tools) offer potential to the future of education.

At first glance, web-based forums may appear little more than a medium for exchanging comments. However, teachers are realizing that online forums can be powerful tools for developing students' writing skills, whether in a master's degree program or primary school.

First, online forums instantly showcase examples of students' writing to the entire class. Teachers and fellow students can then post their opinions on the writing as direct responses: this both broadens the range of feedback each student writer receives and delivers that feedback much more quickly than waiting for a marked-up paper to be returned.

This type of instant and collective feedback can help students' rough, early drafts grow into fully developed first drafts. Teachers can keep tabs on the writing as it develops and assess students' progress in a more fully realized manner.

Online forums also augment peer discussion. Students reluctant to participate in classroom conversations, because they're shy or unwilling to fully express their opinions may find it easier to type their thoughts. On the other end of the spectrum, students who speak without much forethought in class may be more reflective and thoughtful when contributing their comments in written form.

Online forums also take advantage of the average student's familiarity and comfort with the Internet. Most students these days have lived with the Internet their whole lives and probably have posted on forums before. Their understanding of the rules and decorum of forums may help make them more comfortable with discussing writing.

Tracking posts is also a great way to gauge student participation. Counting the number of successful posts is much less subjective than gauging students' participation in a live classroom - as you can literally see how much they're contributing.

Perhaps most importantly, forums expose students to the writing of their peers and help them learn from each other. For example, one student may wonder why another used particular words in a specific section of writing. The peer can explain the choice of words as well as the meaning they were attempting to convey. This instantaneous feedback and discussion on the forums provides simultaneous learning not often possible in most classrooms.

The easiest way for teachers to integrate forum discussion writing is to create their own private forums. Many educational websites enable teachers to create and administrate their own free private forums. For teachers looking to take a first step into technologically enhanced education, using forums for writing assignments is a simple and effective option.

Online Coursework as a Supplement for Traditional Teaching

This guest post written by Natalie Hunter. Thanks for your focus on e-learning, Natalie, one of the future frontiers of learning in our education system.

Computers will never have the responsiveness and adaptability to each student's strengths and weaknesses required in teaching that a human teacher has. Conversely, teachers not always be able to give each and every student the time and attention comparable to what can be received from an online coursework source that can be accessed at any time of day and from any computer or online device. Online schooling, therefore, makes an excellent supplement to a traditional educational system by allowing the student a means of accessing extra help and information outside of the classroom.

The simplest way of implementing online education is simply a web page that contains text relevant to the course in question. Students could then access the website to read about the subject, just as they would read a textbook they had taken home. Teachers can also record lectures and present visual models in the same manner, to accommodate students who respond better to verbal explanations or visual aids, and making the online textbook into a sort of book on tape as well. More information on these methods can be found at the National Repository of Online Coursework.

Repetition also helps students to learn, and being able to rewind any given lecture allows a student to repeat instructions or facts until he or she is comfortable with the material. Given the cost of textbooks, keeping lectures and text online may help ease the financial burden on students and their families, provided that the family can be expected to own a computer or have access to a library. Since the cost of a year's worth of textbooks in four or five subjects may exceed the cost of a simple computer, and many families may have a computer anyway, this is not an unreasonable expectation. This tactic also can help to bring down district costs, which is a definite bonus.

Providing reading material, however, is insufficient without proper assessment of the student's comprehension. Online assessment methods do exist, but presently they are crude and ill-suited to certain subjects. Many online coursework programs include multiple choice tests, and a computer can easily execute a math assessment, but for anything more nuanced, a human instructor is needed. Teachers can use online assessment methods as a valuable tool in determining what students are learning and not learning, and refocus the lectures and discussions accordingly. Just as it is the instructor's duty to evaluate the students' progress, so must the instructor evaluate the online programs used. Foundations of educators such as the European Foundation for Quality in e-Learning have been formed specifically to help educators find suitable online resources and evaluate their worth.

Another new aspect that online coursework brings to the education process is that online learning aids can be "asynchronous", meaning that the student and teacher need not be using them at the same time. An instructor can post an audio file of a lecture or a text file regarding the subject to a website when his or her schedule permits, and each student can listen to said file when it is convenient for them. Because the student and teacher need not bend their schedules to each others' more than a traditional class would require, this allows each student to seek extracurricular help at any time of day regardless of the instructor's availability, giving students more "virtual face time" then would be possible by traditional means. This is as much a drawback as it is an advantage, however, in that instructors have no guarantee that a student will check the online updates with any degree of frequency or regularity. Outside of the classroom, a student may fail to check e-mail or other educational websites as surely as a student may fail to finish homework on time. Online materials will therefore never fully replace the time spent with a teacher in the classroom.

Online learning programs can never replace the guidance and personalized assistance that a teacher can provide, but teachers can use online learning programs as a versatile tool in their courses. If teachers are willing to make use of the possibilities that online learning have opened up to them, schools and universities will someday come to see online programs as just as much a part of the total learning experience as textbooks, notebooks, and the like.

Using Technology in the Classroom: Online Animations

Online animation programs allow the user to instantly create an entertaining and humorous cartoon. Gone are the days when successful animators are the only people able to enjoy the process of putting voice to cartoon creations and experience a fantastical world that inspires.

Goanimate4schools.com can put the creativity back into your pedagogy.

Whether entertaining or educating, cartoons are a powerful vehicle to carry educational content and teach in a 21^st century manner. Students will love your creative new approach to teaching them using cartoon characters, as their interests and values are adhered to using web 2.0 tools.

To get started, teachers can create an account for their school, after which they can create logins for students to access this school account. As animations are being created, students have the option of saving a draft or publishing a finished product.

This is a terrific way to incorporate aspects of media literacy, language expectations, content subjects (history, science, etc.) and even character education. Having problems addressing bullying and peer problems in your class? Why not teach the lessons students need to learn using cartoon characters and humor; rather than lectures and detentions.

GoAnimate4Schools allows students to be the creators of virtual worlds where they choose characters, write dialogue, decide on movements and gestures to match words and focus on a variety of settings through which the plot or action occurs.

This application is very user-friendly and is a much more appropriate option (compared to goanimate.com) for elementary school students. GoAnimate4Schools features built-in text to speech that allows you to type words that can be instantly read out loud. A variety of voice options allow you to personalize and alter the sound to fit your needs.

In as little as 30 minutes, students can create (from start to finish) an animation presentation worthy of display to your class and their family. Web 2.0 tools such as GoAnimate4Schools are paving the way for teachers to infuse technology into classroom practice with very little technology knowledge themselves. Let students be the teachers and show you how to animate. It builds literacy skills, confidence and engagement into the school day.

Team Teaching with YouTube

We've often heard the saying, "Everything I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten." It's supposed to be a humorous view of how the education system teaches the fundamentals early on and then fills the remainder of a student's time with information that is not as important. I'd like to offer my own current one: "Everything I need to know, I learned on YouTube." Students today are using this video archive to teach them skills and information that they search and seek out.

We don't need to be the controllers of the content. Teachers today stand to gain nothing of themselves or their students by keeping the knowledge guarded or secured. We need to educate students about how to use the knowledge. They can already find any answer they want by searching it online. They don't need a teacher (for instance) to inform them about historical dates and details. They need a curriculum expert to enlighten them about how those historical events are playing out right now in our world.

Students need direction and critical thinking skills about the kinds of things they seen online and find posted on YouTube. They can access it at almost any age; and yet, have not been taught how to process most of it into a context or framework that can build their own knowledge or understanding. YouTube and Google hold the knowledge. Teachers, now, are standing outside looking in through the windows and wondering what lessons their students are learning in today's online classrooms. They attend their choice of online classes at any given moment. They search and it appears instantly. They read what they want and move on when they feel like it.

When you teach, ask yourself, "how does this information prepare my students for the real world and what matters to them?" If you struggle with this question, how would you use the information if you weren't a teacher and therefore didn't need to know it to teach it? Do you remember when you learned the things you know or do you perhaps even learn some of it only because you need to teach it to your class? Rethink what you do and reap the benefits of either legitimizing your practice or starting to drive the change to improve your practice.