After my readings
and research, the things that surprised me the most was the growth and availability
of online schooling. In my head, I always think of online schooling and courses
as a new concept, but in truth they have been around and growing for some time
now. The items that I included in Part 1 were accurate and were not found on
the top 10 myths.
I do have some experience with online
schooling from my nephew. He took off a year of on-site high school and
participated in online schooling. I tutored and helped him stay on task and
helped him with content understanding. In his case, he knew that he was going
to unable to do it on his own and he had me to help him. This is one of the
things that I think all students who are looking in to online school should
consider. It is very important to have a support system in place and to not be afraid
to ask questions of for help from your at home support system or from your
online school support system. For him, online school was more time consuming
and difficult then he originally thought it would be.
Also, I have done
some research on online schooling and hybrid for my own teaching experience. I
have had the opportunity to begin implementing hybrid course for my school
district and have been constantly updating and improving the way that my own
course structure works. My current education has helped a lot! I have seen many
teachers that think that converting to online course layouts will make their
course load easier. They soon find that operating a properly working online
course can be very time consuming and continuing education on technology and
resources is a task all its own.
Good for you Mallory! very nice experience you had with your nephew and through operating facilitation online classes yourself. I wonder what types of students/learners are engaging in your online courses?
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your nephews online experience. I was not surprised to hear he felt the experience was more time consuming and challenging than he originally thought. This is true for many individuals, including myself. I have learned a lot from the few online courses I have taken, but each experience has been more challenging than the previous one.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I was not surprised about the teachers who have found creating an online course is more challenging than they thought. I think it is helpful for teachers when they collaborate with other teachers when they are designing online courses. Asking questions about what worked and why is a good way to start the dialogue.