(Cross posted to the Powerful Learning Practice blog.)
So what does the following list suggest to you about the value of “online learning”:
1. I can work ahead if I’m able to
2. I get nearly instant responses from my teachers
3. I get personalized support when I need it
4. My teachers are just as excited about online learning as I am
5. I can do all my math for the week on one day if I want to
6. I know how I’m doing, my grades are right on the screen
7. My parents can see my work and grades
8. My courses are more challenging
9. I can keep up with my work when my family travels
10. I can work around a busy schedule
Those are the “benefits” touted by a group of Utah sophomores in this Huffington Post piece by Tom Vander Ark, ones that apparently impressed senators, representatives and school board members. I’m not as impressed.
Sure, taking a course online may offer more individuation and student choice in how to manage the process, but at the end of the day, I wonder what those online students have learned more or better than the ones who took the course in a classroom. And if we’re touting the online experience has superior because kids can take trips and still do the work or because their teachers are excited, that speaks to bigger, more fundamental issues that aren’t being addressed. This is still all about content delivery, Â old wine in a new bottle that’s being motivated more by economics and convenience than good or better design. And it’s about, as I mentioned yesterday, a growing business interest that sees an opportunity to make inroads into education as “approved providers.” Hmmmm.
Learning online is not about finishing the course requirements a few days early or answering the questions that the text or the teacher dictate. It’s about finding our own path through the material.  As I asked in a comment on the post, do students practice inquiry in these settings? Are they able to ask their own questions? Are they assessed any differently? Do they create any new knowledge in the process and, if so, is that knowledge shared anywhere? Does their experience in the course replicate real life in any new way? Does it teach them how to learn on their own? To go deep? Not that any of that shouldn’t be taking place in face to face classrooms as well, but if you’re going to suggest something as different…
My point is that if this vision of online learning is being touted as reform, why? What’s really different here? Obviously, I’m a big believer in the value of online networks and communities to support lifelong and lifewide learning. The work that Sheryl and I and our amazing colleagues have been doing with PLP attests to fact that there is another way to learn online aside from digitizing a curriculum. We have goals and outcomes for our participants, but we don’t say to them “here is the path, work ahead if you like, and your grades will be posted online.” We let them find their own way, supporting and prodding as needed, trying to keep them moving in the general direction of shift. With any luck, they experience the change in their own way, on their own terms.
Not saying there isn’t any value to offering classes online. But if we do, let’s make sure they take advantage of the online piece to let participants develop the connections that will sustain them far beyond the class. Or, if not, let’s call it what it is…online coursework, not learning.
No argument from me about the objections you’ve raised about the top ten list, nor about the article at HuffPo. For some learners, there can be value added by the time management pieces (1, 5, 10). Even if that’s an added value, I agree completely that it is much more about the “quality” of learning that takes place than all the other things combined times two.
I’m generally viewed as an advocate for online learning, but in my own mind I believe I’m an advocate for learning. It happens in different ways, at different times, and in different spaces.
BTW, #’s 2 & 4 on the list are very often not at all the case. It’s great when those are true, but it’s hell when they are not.
This is a very thoughtful discussion. Thanks, everyone! I feel that Barry makes a great point about #2 and #4 on the list. I’ve taken an online graduate class (with only two people enrolled!) and the delay between my communication and my professor made the flow of learning “jerky”. The “discussion” sessions with my one other peer were not the same as if we were with a larger group of students meeting face to face. Especially for younger students, the personal interactions are vital for authenic learning and if that is missing in an online course, everyone loses.
I have taught online (intro to online college) for the past 4 years, and I still teach 7th grade in a classroom setting. I have taken classes (entire Education Specialist degree in Instructional Technology) and my wife is currently taking online courses to prepare for an RN program.
Here are the major issues I see and experience in online classes:
1) The students MUST be self-motivated, much more than in a traditional setting.
2) The students who must take required courses are NOT learning the material, they are completing assignments to jump through the hoops of the program.
3) The instructors are not always quick to respond, and there is no true relationship built between student and instructor, which, in my opinion, is invaluable in learning. With a superficial relationship, there is superficial engagement, therefore superficial learning.
Is there a place for online programs? Absolutely.
Is online learning gong to create better learning? I don’t think so.
Is learning the real issue in an online environment? No, it is a economic issue, allowing for more adjunct teachers, less pay, fewer (if any) benefits, and therefore a profit-making or budget-cutting program.
Thanks for your post. With a few minor tweaks to your words, I wonder if this might also be true…
Here are the major issues I see and experience in face-to-face classes:
1) The students MUST be self-motivated.
2) The students who must take required courses are NOT learning the material, they are completing assignments to jump through the hoops of the program.
3) The instructors are not always quick to respond, and there is no true relationship built between student and instructor, which, in my opinion, is invaluable in learning. With a superficial relationship, there is superficial engagement, therefore superficial learning.
Good teaching is good teaching is good teaching…online or f2f. Different? Perhaps, but ultimately, it’s about giving the student ownership over their learning.
Cary,
I think it can be true.
I think, depending on the grade level of the teaching, the “ownership” issue will have different meanings, in the sense of teacher-student relationship.
Ex: Sometimes (most times in the situation I chose to be in – high immigration, English language-learners, high poverty level approaching 35%, etc.) middle school students require the trust-building that comes from face-to-face contact and time spent together to help them WANT to own their learning.
The relationship-building part of the discussion seems very absent in recent ed-reform discussions, as if it is possibly intentional (not in this discussion, in the broader sense of a national level).
I am moving from the “It’s not about the tech, it’s about the learning” mantra to an “It’s not about the tech, it’s about the relationships the tech helps me maintain throughout the years of my students’ learning” that matters.
Response to Cary
It is true that some of the benefits of online studying mentioned by students are unnecessary and misleading. For instance, receiving instant responses from the teachers are not guaranteed. Moreover, online teachers cannot give the students personalized support as they have never met. Such a student might undergo psychological depression, which the teacher might not realize. Studying during trips is misleading because a student cannot give his schoolwork full concentration. Thus, traveling tends to disrupt the learning process.
These conditions do not provide an excellent setting that favors a learning process. I agree with the fact that those students learning in classrooms achieve more than those learning online do. Most importantly, the essence of a learning process is to gain knowledge and not to finish the course. Although one should consider that for an individual to gain knowledge he has to go through the course, which means the course must be completed.
The liberty of students thus ability to ask their own questions is crucial. This is because whilst taking online courses the students and the teacher do not see each other physically. Thus, asking and responding to questions during a lesson is difficult. On the other hand, their response might not be timely. It is obvious that these students rarely gain knowledge from this process. This is because they cannot work on their own and assimilate the teachings. Most importantly, the experiences they get from these online courses do not imitate actual life in any way. It is true that some of these issues are also experienced in face-to-face classrooms. However, they are rare and are easy to correct if identified. Your PLP version is a brilliant idea because the benefits mentioned are outstanding. However, is it more efficient than digitized curriculum? It would have been better if opinions of those students who have gone through this system were highlighted . This will help confirm the efficiency of your learning system.
Hi Ric,
I think the items you share are found in online learning environments, but they are not a result of the online learning environment. The “motivation” issue is all about engagement – an engaging passion-based curriculum (or opportunity to show competency) is will motive a student whether F2F or virtual. I would also suggest that your second and third points are more symptomatic of specific programming than of virtual schools.
If one is simply digitizing an analog curriculum and not valuing the role of the instructor, then you are right, the online space will be of less value than the F2F space. But, I would suggest that there not only is a place for online learning, but there is the potential to create very powerful learning opportunities for some kids. Unbound by the institutional structures that so many communities are unable to break free from, virtual schools can create very meaningful platforms for kids to learn.
I agree with you Tony. I would suggest that in order to make happen what you and I would consider motivating and engaging, it should not be constructed by career educators (I know I will get blasted for that statement). The current view of the purpose of online k-12 learning is not focused on much more than digitizing the analog so students can catch up on credits they failed to receive in f2f classrooms (at least in most of the current state-level considerations I have read).
I still maintain, the current trend for k-12 advocates of online learning is more about reducing the number of teachers they have to pay and to leverage “great instructors” to the masses of k-12 students (Khan Academy, et. al). It is about saving money, not educating and learning.
It is true that some of the benefits of online studying mentioned by students are unnecessary and misleading. For instance, receiving instant responses from the teachers are not guaranteed. Moreover, online teachers cannot give the students personalized support as they have never met. Such a student might undergo psychological depression, which the teacher might not realize. Studying during trips is misleading because a student cannot give his schoolwork full concentration. Thus, traveling tends to disrupt the learning process. These conditions do not provide an excellent setting that favors a learning process. I agree with the fact that those students learning in classrooms achieve more than those learning online do. Most importantly, the essence of a learning process is to gain knowledge and not to finish the course ). Although one should consider that for an individual to gain knowledge he has to go through the course, which means the course must be completed.
The liberty of students thus ability to ask their own questions is crucial. This is because whilst taking online courses the students and the teacher do not see each other physically. Thus, asking and responding to questions during a lesson is difficult. On the other hand, their response might not be timely. It is obvious that these students rarely gain knowledge from this process. This is because they cannot work on their own and assimilate the teachings. Most importantly, the experiences they get from these online courses do not imitate actual life in any way. It is true that some of these issues are also experienced in face-to-face classrooms. However, they are rare and are easy to correct if identified. Your PLP version is a brilliant idea because the benefits mentioned are outstanding. However, is it more efficient than digitized curriculum? It would have been better if opinions of those students who have gone through this system were highlighted ). This will help confirm the efficiency of your learning system
Provocative post, thanks. I’ve taught online for two years, and am now teaching completely online, though whenever possible I arrange optional face-to-face meeting-times as well. I do think online learning will be better learning when we learn to design it well, so that it overcomes the problems you cite.
My own courses are game-based, and the online environment offers some key interactive affordances in terms of collaboration among the students, which in turn increases engagement and forces them to do “real” online learning by researching their responses to the assessments/immersions. It’s not necessarily applicable to every course, but it seems to be working as a way to design an online learning experience that really is learning online.
Yes, online coursework is an excellent distinction from online learning. Many of our students take ‘courses’ to get to the next course. You-put-your-left-foot-in-you-put-your-left-foot-out type of learning. Why not do that online, if that’s what it’s all about?
At the same time, thanks for inspiring me to consider the higher order thinking potential for online learning.
Will, I wish that most if not all online learning happened in communities with people sharing and learning with their fellow students, but the items on that list ring true for a lot of our students. I design course for people in the industrial trades, nurses and others who are often already in those work places. The value in these courses being online for a lot of our students is that they can work these courses around their shift work. They can do them without leaving their small communities, families and jobs. Many of them have no interest in having discussions with their fellow learners. They just want to learn what they need to learn to do their jobs well.
This is not the ideal model for K-12 students, but what you’re proposing isn’t necessarily the best model for a carpenter who wants to get read for their journey exam.
But that really is the point. There is no one size fits all model for teaching that actually works. There isn’t even one just for elementary school or just for grade 10 math. And we (and I mostly mean the powers that be) need to remember that and stop trying to fit students and subjects and teachers into little prefabricated boxes.
Thanks for the comment, Heather. I agree that for certain skills work, online learning works just fine. I was just trying to make the point that most K-12 online learning isn’t decidedly different from what happens in class, that it doesn’t really take advantage of the “online” piece other than to distribute the content more conveniently.
I know there is no one size fits all when it comes to this, but is it fair to suggest that every student now needs to be able to self-direct whether it’s online or off?
In an unhopeful way, Fullan calls this “symbolic” change as opposed to “real” change. That is, we’re doing the same thing in a different way or with a different tool, but it’s still the same thing. In a more hopeful way, the ACOT study (Sandholtz, Ringstaff, and Dwyer) would categorize this as somewhere around the adoption or adaptation phase where you’re using the tools to do the same things you used to do, but possibly more efficiently. In the ACOT model, the hope comes from the idea that this is just stage 3 of a 5-stage change process with the goal of reaching the Appropriation and Invention stages, where real change starts to happen. Maybe we’ve got to do a lot of the same old stuff until we’re comfortable with the medium and what new things it can do for us.
I’m of the “don’t knock ’til you try it” team.
I fear people still think of “online learning” as students sitting and interacting with screens. In the last six months, I’ve started tutoring kids using Skype. I am able to help my former students who have moved thousands of miles away and are now doing university calculus. I’ll have the Skype window on the upper right of my screen, and the student directs me to the course website (these websites are increasingly rich with resources, content & info) which I keep on the left of the screen. As a techie, I’ve tried to accomplish this for years with lesser software and computers. All of a sudden the technology is here and widespread and available. But, I will admit, it’s the person-to-person connection (skype) that facilitates the learning. If online learning connects more teachers to more students and helps them exchange questions, answers, and resources quickly, then it will be a revolution in education. Oh wait. The revolution has already begun!
There you go! You provide an example to what I think can be a power of online LEARNING. You are maintaining the relationship. You move from teacher to mentor and it’s based on a long-term relationship between teacher and student. That, I believe is why what you are doing works.
As Will replied elsewhere, the “online piece” is not about convenience of delivery. It is about being able to connect with trusted resources (and people as well). I would go farther in the discussion, but I want to see if Will might define and describe more precisely his ideas on the “advantages of online” as the conversation continues.
Go, Will!!! 😉
Ric,
I replied to your earlier comment without reading this one… It appears that we have similar streams of thought.
Weird, I replied to you before I read this one.
I would add to my thought above that the online technology for learning could lead to a progression of being a students teacher, to mentor, to colleague (in a global sense). Do that with enough of the students from the k-12 setting, and imagine the kind of real-world learning that could happen as a teacher enlists the former students to teach the next generation. Longevity in a community could really be an asset not only educationally, but economically in this type of scenario.
We would have to be more patient than we are willing to be though. As a teacher of 7th graders, and teaching in the same community for 16 years, I am just getting to my first group of college graduates that are coming back to talk to my current kids, and willing to Skype in to my classroom to discuss their work and entice my students to be more self-motivated in their learning process.
Will, I think we are doing some pretty amazing this here in New Hampshire at the Virtual Learning Academy Charter School (VLACS) that may get to what you are trying find. While this isn’t meant to plug VLACS, it’s important to note there are opportunities arising.
In order to earn credit in a New Hampshire high school course (regardless of the school), a student must demonstrate competency in several areas within that course. So, at VLACS, we have developed competencies for all of our courses. For example, an Algebra course may have 8 competencies. In order to pass the course, a VLACS student must show that he/she is competent in each of those 8 areas. In our traditional courses, we provide the assessments for the students (which may not be fully transformative as I think you would like).
But, we are also developing our Experiential Learning Opportunity (ELO) program, where students can demonstrate competency (to earn credit) any way they want. So if they want to do an internship, develop a social entrepenuer opportunity, complete an independent study, be involved in a service learning project, etc. etc. to show competency (and develop a comprehensive portfolio) they can. This opportunity has been available in NH high schools for some time, but because of institutional constraints, there are only a handful of kids doing them. At VLACS, because we are not tied down to a schedule, a CBA, or local politics and traditions we are able to very efficiently and effectively administer these types of opportunities for kids. Our hope is that kids really explore passions through our ELO program.
So… I get your point about the learning, but we’re working our tails off of to do some cool things here in NH to be transformative – even in a virtual world.
Tony,
I like what I’m reading here; especially the ELO program (though it is hard to not think Electric Light Orchestra at my age). 🙂
QUESTION: Do you have a feeder school(s) that are preparing middle school aged students to examine their possible areas for “passionate learning?”
I’ve worked with 11-15 year-olds for 28 years (16 in teaching). Very few students that age are truly able to identify what their passions of life are outside of sports, music, and movie careers.
I have a view that young people that age can make a tremendous difference in their world, but that they have a distorted view of what making a difference is about. I would equate (to an extent) that passion-based learning is when a person finds their niche in making a difference in their world. When one believes their existence is worth something, then they take their education and learning seriously enough to be self-motivated. Just an observation of mine.
Thoughts?
Ric,
No feeder program per se. In addition to trying to work with individual students, we are trying to form partnerships with larger organizations (like First for example) that are already engaging kids in these types of activities but can’t offer the credit. In doing so we are able to blend the virtual component with the experiential side, resulting in blended, passion-based opportunity for the student.
I concur with your viewpoint. I have three kids, the oldest of which is 10 and it is so hard to convince him that he can control over his learning, that he is not just a passive learner in his teacher’s classroom.
That sounds really interesting, Tony, adn it looks really interesting too (I’ve been exploring the website). I’d like to find out more about how it works from the teachers’ point of view ie the technology used, how they prepare materials, training etc, ie the nuts and bolts of how it works. The stuff on the website seems more geared to students (which is understandable). I was wondering if you can suggest who I might contact for a bit more info to feed into the research I’m doing? Thx for any assistance you can give.
Terry
Terry, feel free to send me an email at tbaldasaro@vlacs.org.
Your concluding statement resonated, “…let’s make sure they take advantage of the online piece to let participants develop the connections that will sustain them far beyond the class. Or, if not, let’s call it what it is…online coursework, not learning.”
I recently was asked to reflect and set goals for a graduate course related to teaching for understanding with technology. As I considered the variety of technology I had available in my previous classroom, my frustration was the effectiveness of use and implementation. I processed to the conclusion that simply the use of technology in the classroom is not enough to significantly impact student learning.
The same holds true for online classes. The mere act of offering online courses is not enough to significantly impact student learning either. Online courses are certainly glamorized and promoted for the benefits you listed above. Amidst the glamour and hype of such courses, our job as educators is to question the effectiveness of our practices with the goal of improving them to benefit student learning.
Well stated Sara. Those teachers who have used different online/tech-related tools over the past 10-15 years have experienced things that “theory” is just now discussing.
Yes, technology and online spaces will play a part in the learning processes from this point forward. However, glamorizing the tools to hype educational reform and betterment is naive.
Perhaps, though, it is necessary for the pundits and wonks outside of educational settings to have these discussions that many of us have had for the past decade, so that in a few years we can have policies and reform that might make more sense and promote actual learning. Unfortunately, my bet is that reform will be based on reducing funds for schools/teachers, and increasing profits for businesses hyping their technologies as a panacea of school reform.
I am a teacher at an online charter school and I am often so torn each day about the value of this. I have students who stay up to date and contact me regularly (the minority). The rest don’t answer their phones when called, have parents who make 1,000 excuses or don’t understand computers enough to know their kid is lying about completing work. The administration is so concerned with pass rates and documenting “points in the gradebook” that the course I teach has become so easy you could finish the whole semester in about 1 week when you put your mind to it. They keep pushing the value of a high school diploma for these kids, but they are constantly devaluing a diploma through their actions.
My school is perfect for motivated students and parents and I am always glad the school is there when I hear of how students came because they were severly bullied or because they are chronically ill. I wish the school had a better policy for removing quickly people who don’t stay up to date, because those students aren’t learning anything.
Anyone else have similar experiences and more effective adminstration answers to the difficulties?
Janette,
As an administrator at an online charter school in New Hampshire I can’t say that we are void of that which you describe, but I don’t think it is as prevalent as you describe. I think one of the reasons why is that we have partnered with local schools. As a result, they are able to provide local supports to help our students succeed. Of our more than 8,000 enrollments, approximately 75% are still full time students in their local schools. So those students not only have our certified teachers, but they also get the local structural support of their home school. As a result, our students have three levels of support, home, local school and our school.
I’ve been doing quite a bit of research into virtual learning environments recently, and one of the conclusions I’m drawing is that what works really well is when the learning-teaching experience is built around offline and online working in a complementary way to each other. Each mode has its strengths, but simply bolting one onto the other doesn’t get the best out of either of them.
Even on a really mundane level, the online-only model rarely works in my opinion — especially when the students are self-directed. I inspected a top school a few years ago, with really motivated students, and they had put on an online, teacher-free course for the students so that they could gain an extra qualification in their own time, and they simply didn’t do so, which sounds a little like Janeite’s experience. I think the teacher has a role to play, and a much more responsible role than the so-called “guide on the side” aproach which, to me, is a cop-out.
I think we need to stop thinking of teaching, learning, online and offline, and think much more in terms of designing and evolving (with the students themselves), educational experiences which can develop in an organic way. I’m sorry if this all sounds like hippy claptrap, but the concepts are not easy to express!
My experiences lead me to a very similar destination. It has rejuvenated my approach to building relationships with students and parents to experience learning (in and out of the classroom).
The online experience is more a part of keeping in touch when we are not together geographically. It enhances, but in no way can replace the trust between student-teacher-parent-and any other relationship in the mix.
I think the “scalability” issue and cost factors are leading to the idea that tech can replace current forms of content delivery…and it can. But at what greater opportunity cost? (Funny I have to teach the opportunity cost concept in a few days – and now have another good example).
By the way, the hippies didn’t have everything wrong. 😉
Hi, Ric. I agree about the role of the online in ENHANCING rather than replacing the offline. And also that hippies got some things right (eg laid-back attitude!)
The way I see it, even if we ignore the much-hyped benefits of online learning, it does provide for a scalable model of education delivery. That scalability is its redeeming feature.
So, there are a lot of threads to consider here. I am going to just let my thoughts flow from what I remember best. I think that people have made a just and fair point when considering that online courses and online learning are two different things. I have recently started taking some online courses through a national (and highly respected) university. My thought going into the courses was that I should really just buy the books and learn on my own; I was cynical and pessimistic, and I thought that the credentialing would be a benefit to my career. I would occasionally think, “I don’t need to go through the drudgery of having some teacher put me through the ringer with busy work.†But, I ignored my inner demon there and registered for two courses.
My experience, I think, is rather appropriate for this conversation because I have encounter two very different teaching styles with the instructors that I have. The first is very committed to the concept of community and collaboration; a good portion of the class work is negotiating material with my classmates through threaded conversations (much like this one) and collaborative projects. My instructor spends a considerable amount of time and effort to facilitate the course in this way, and I believe that my experience has been more than I could have ever hoped for. The textual material becomes contextualize, relevant, and most importantly real through the dialogues. I have learned more in just a few weeks of taking this course than I ever did as a graduate student in seminar-based (supposedly dialogic) courses. The other class has been living up to my original expectation. I am given reading assignments that I complete on my own, and occasionally I have to report back on the information that I covered. The class is not exciting, and I honestly think that I could have saved the tuition money and just simply bought the text. I am just simply working through a syllabus. But I encountered numerous classes like this when I was an undergraduate in college taking f2f courses.
I think, as some people have pointed out, that it isn’t necessarily the medium of content delivery (online, f2f, or even hybrid), it is the way that the instructor conceives of the course. It is not enough to just have access to the technology, and it is not enough to just have access to your students; it’s not even in having motivated students either (I feel that I am very motivated in spite of my cynical beginnings). It is all in making your students want to work. There are many different ways of doing this – some work better for varying mediums – but there are general ways to construct learning environments (virtual or not). I think a shared sense of community and responsibility helps a lot in this way, but I also think that allowing students to create and be creative or constructive during the process is essential. Like Will wrote, “We [instructors] let them [students] find their own way, supporting and prodding as needed, trying to keep them moving in the general direction of shift.” So, it’s not a fight about the medium itself but about the delivery. Students now-a-days expect to be able to extend what they already do in their daily lives: creating … texts, blogs, pictures, podcasts, videos … their experiences.
“Learning online is not about finishing the course requirements a few days early or answering the questions that the text or the teacher dictate. It’s about finding our own path through the material.”
Did you just dictate every learner in the world what *real* learning is? And I thought my horse was high.
Last night I set up SSL on my server for the first time. I found a bunch of tutorials and I picked the most straightforward: the one that gave sufficient explanations, but didn’t detail all of the possible options. I wanted someone to walk me down a path, not counsel me on “finding [my] own path.” Was the learning I gained equal to what I would get from finding my own path? or from attending a conference on public key encryption? Probably not. Did I get *adequate* learning for my needs? Definitely.
I’m sure there are areas of your existence (auto mechanics? civics? grammar?) where you desire just-enough learning to get by. This is natural because there are too many learning paths in our modern society for any one individual to find them all. If students only desire such a level of learning, we should not deny them it.
But didn’t you do exactly what Will prescribed? You defined your own problem, set your own goal, and followed your own path to solve the problem using the resources available to you.
I only found my own way *to* the learning, not *through* it. It’s like eating at a restaurant: I’ll choose the establishment based on my own criteria, but then I want to chef to cook for me. I’m sure there are people who would rather cook their own food, and more power to them, but don’t say that my preference is somehow inferior.
Maybe the students in certain online environments specifically chose those environments because they offered the type, intensity, or modality the students desired. Who then are we to say what learning is – or is not – about?
Sorry to disturb all well i learn online too many things even that what i have it is because of online learning.
As a beginner of online “learning” I can see what you mean. I’m feeling as if the online course currently enrolled is just giving me busy work to get a grade. It does have its perks such as completing my assignments after work,but I also thought it meant receiving faster feedback.
Learning is learning. What technology and social media offer on top of a world of content is the possibility of collaboration and networking. Online learning communities need good facilitation.
Look at the Seddon/NCSL model, Salmon’s models of engagement.
‘Finding your own way through content’, is simply being self-directed but even the most competent independant learners value guidance and peer review. Collaboration leading to the construction of knowledge is the goal.
Hi
Is online learning giong to create better learning?
In an online learning platform, there is an opportunity for students to take control of the learning process. In this sense students are able to freely choose materials, tasks and activities that fit well within their preferences. Online education also provide the students with flexibility. With online instruction students find it convenient to pursue other things in life while achieving their learning objectives.
Great post. I received my MS degree online through Walden, and am currently almost finished my EdD in Adult Learning. Many teachers do not allow you to turn in work early to eliminate this rushing through the material. You are required to be immersed in whatever module we are currently in, by regularly participating in the discussions.
In lower levels, I definitely see how students can rush through a course just to receive the credits without much learning taking place. I interviewed with a virtual school and investigated the student comments. Many students responded that the classes were a joke and felt that it was just a way of jumping through hoops to make up missing credits.