Online Learning

1
Online Learning

• By
• Ashleigh Christie
• Crystal Guerard
• Shannon Quigley

2
What is Online Learning?

• Online learning is a sub-set of flexible teaching
  and learning that seeks to provide greater access
  to learning for all students.
• Basically, it is a collaboration of the internet
  and the classroom for the purpose of education.

3
Curriculum and Standards

• Nearly every state has developed academic
  standards that delegate what students should know
  and be able to do.
• Recently, educators have found that the limitless
  amount of education available is a great resource
  to help students reach these standards.
• Researches have found that this new way of
  looking at education promotes technology as a
  tool for learning and collaboration.

4
The Teachers Role

• The work of the teacher is to plan and carry out
  a series of interactions between the students and
  the online subject matter.
• In general, the teacher must control the way
  students come into contact with the subject
  matter.
• By doing so, the teacher expects to make the key
  concepts and ideas more accessible to students.
• Simply spitting out information is not always
  the best way to teach. Leading students to
  question the material themselves and then search
  online for answers will allow for exploration,
  reconstruction, and creativity while at the same
  time, learning!

5
E-Moderators

• Online courses are created by experts in a
  particular subject area.
• The experts rarely teach the courses themselves,
  but instead rely on the knowledge of e-moderators
  whom have more experience with the teaching
  aspect.
• E-moderators can simply be described as an online
  professor. The only difference between a
  moderator and a professor is that the moderator
  more or less looks over the class and is there to
  help instead of actually teaching the class.
• An e-moderators main goal is to get students to
  participate and interact in the online course.

6
Computer-Mediated Communication

• Open University, a pioneer of online learning,
  created a five-step model for e-moderator/student
  success.
• Access and Motivation
• Online socialization
• Information Exchange
• Knowledge Construction
• Development

7
Online Teaching and Learning

• An e-moderators success depends on his ability
  to gain and encourage high participation from the
  online students.
• Open University developed four areas that
  necessary in sustaining successful student
  participation levels.
• Appropriate numbers of online students enrolled
  in the course.
• There are many varying opinions to what this
  amount should be.
• The use of online time.
• Time and complexity.
• This is very different from time in a normal
  classroom environment because essentially a class
  could go 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• The development of online communities.
• Forming student connections and study groups.
  Studies show online courses which meet
  face-to-face at least once throughout the course
  create better learning environments and tend to
  have better end outcomes.

8
Assessment of Online Learning

• Participation is a main factor in online
  learning. Participation among students is highly
  recommended and encouraged by e-moderators.
• Participation is very often measured and factored
  into a students final grade in an online course.
• E-moderators keep track of student participation
  by recording key strokes and by time-stamping
  records of online events.
• Some online courses have elaborate management
  systems that keep a detailed transaction record
  of every instance where students log in and do
  work in an online learning environment.
• One main concern of online learning is cheating.
  People are afraid the person submitting the work
  may not be the actual student. This is often
  avoided by having face-to-face meetings and
  longer class sessions. These two factors let the
  e-moderator get to know individual students
  better and their personal work styles better so
  they can tell the difference between real work
  and imposter work.

9
What Students Do Well With Online Learning?

• College-bound students in need of advanced or
  specialized coursework
• Students wanting to improve their skills in
  specific subject areas
• Gifted or advanced students in need of expanded
  educational offerings
• Remedial students who require one-on-one support
• Students who are unable to attend school during
  traditional times
• Summer school students
• Active students with scheduling challenges
• Nontraditional students returning to school
• Students seeking to expand their educational
  opportunities
• Students who may not otherwise have a particular
  course offering available

10
Disadvantages of Online Learning

• Costly
• - The quality of online-learning is directly
  linked to the money schools are willing to invest
  in it.
• Technology
• - The technology of the programs are evolving so
  rapidly that investment could be risky because
  software can become obsolete quickly.
• Cheating
• - Online students may be tempted to use
  resources that an in-class student would never be
  allowed to use.
• Faculty Issues
• - Few teachers have the technology to instruct a
  quality online course.

11
The Future of E-learning

• In order for us to make any progress on
  technology in education and e-learning, we first
  need to change our beliefs on how we approach
  education and technology. Says John Bailey,
  Director of Instructional Technology for the US
  Department of Technology, we must
• Move beyond the notion that education is about
  school buildings, school days, and classrooms.
• Schools need to become access points to a whole
  range of educational opportunities.
• Every educational program is a technology
  opportunity, and every technology program is an
  educational opportunity.
• The potential benefit of online assessment should
  result in more effective use of class time.
• Using technology to teach using traditional
  methods will only lead to traditional results.

12
To Sum it up, E-learning isnt anymore about
digital technologies than classroom teaching is
about chalkboards. Its about people, and about
using technology systems to support constructive
social interactions (human learning). E-learning
will work best when combined with the
face-to-face experience.

• For More Information
• about Online Learning
• www.class.com
• www.apexlearning.com