A Few things about Online Learning

A Few things about Online Learning

 

I would like to say a few things about Online Learning. I like it very much, and I believe that it is a great tool that educators can use to help the students achieve a mastery over their subjects. When it comes to Online Learning My choice of technology to use, from the many available, is a wiki. I believe that the use of a wiki can extend from its intended purpose. For example, I can provide links to other created online experiences like Webquests, Educational Blogs, Podcast/Videocast, etc. Honestly, I think the same can be said from other Online Experiences. That said, the way I would use a wiki is as a Online portfolio where the student can place from written to video material they have created individually or as a group. This would be a good place to track documents and manage projects.

If I were to use a Wiki with a specific subject, I believe that a Wiki could help me teach Science. Aside from the classroom resources, students would have the ability to look anywhere online for questions, answers, variations to experiments, etc. With a Wiki and the help of other teachers and students, it could allow the advance learners to be more challenged and the struggling learners could find more help.

One of the teaching strategies that I would use with Wikis is cooperative learning approaches. Various types of cooperative learning exist, but I would have students working in groups producing the type of work that ensures them that contributing is necessary and they will be held accountable for their participation and learning. Also, I believe that this would be a good place for students to begin generating and testing hypotheses. This greatly complex form of thinking requires the applying knowledge. Students can utilize both inductive and deductive approaches to prove their hypothesis.

In my opinion, the technologies that would present the most difficulty to use for students would be the RSS Feed. The information brought from the feeds, depending on the site and the topic, can be tumultuous. If the student is not used to RSS Feeds and does not know how to extract the information necessary to arrive at a logical personal conclusion, these feeds can be more confusing that helpful.