I see educators benefitting from designing and implementing online learning by experiencing interactive and effective online learning and providing assessment of students' knowledge and learning of course material, reading, writing, and computer literacy skills. As an educator, I can see a benefit of implementing online learning that can provide relevant frequent course content and students can expect a quick turnaround from the educator's response and feedback as oppose to the traditional classroom. Flexibility is a major benefit of the implementation and design of online learning because it can also be beneficial to the students who may not be able to attend a traditional classroom due to illness, pregnancy, self driven students, and students who do not do well in traditional classes. Also, course material and content can be accessed 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.
I would use my online course as a means of online collaboration among CTE teachers as well as other teachers who would like to become digitally connected and up-to-date in technology. I would use online learning for chat rooms, discussions, virtual faculty or department meetings as well as parental communication. I think online learning would be great for facilitating team learning and joint course collaboration among teachers. Everyone including the students will be able to have discussions, forums, and questions about course content, grades, course content, or any other pertinent course material. The online course would be a great digital tool to encourage technology use to the "digital immigrants", (teachers that aren't interested in technology or technology knowledgeable) and/or resistant to learning about technology. After engaging in online learning they may become familiar with the online learning and become "digital natives". I would become a technology facilitator or leader in assisting them to become technology savvy and understand the importance of using technology integration in the classroom or in the development of online learning.
I am a Career and Technology Education (CTE) teacher and I think that the integration of online learning would be very beneficial to my course and program. I would integrate online learning in my course because most of my students are cooperative students and they leave school early to go out into the workplace. They have a very hectic schedule with school, work, children and other school or outside activities. They would be able to use online learning effectively because I use real world and project based learning activities, projects and sometimes group activities and discussions. Project based learning "involves maximizing the use of digital tools to better reach essential learning goals, expanding classroom boundaries so that students gain real-world experiences and become global thinkers". (Boss & Krauss, 2007, p.22) I know that my students are very tech savvy and they would love to utilize online learning as oppose to a traditional classroom setting and use online learning as an extended tool to traditional classroom learning. I would include power points, resource documents and other necessary information needed for online learning. This would be a great tool to showcase and publish my student organization, DECA, an association for marketing students. I would also include wiki spaces, blogs, web conferences, email and discussion forums.
The questions that I still have about online learning are:
Would I call the campus based technology facilitator or the district technology coordinator for technical difficulties of the online learning course or content?
How could I screen potential students or candidates to have limited or full access to online learning?
Will I be able to use online learning to send personal emails to students, parents, staff and faculty?
Will I get a hands-on lessons or virtual lessons to understand and gain more knowledge of online learning?
Are there any staff development or workshops for the online learning for educators?
How do I promote online learning as an effective digital learning tool to other educators?
What if students do not have Internet access at home, how will they be able to utilize online learning away from school?
Presently, there are a few virtual online courses offered through our school district, Pasadena ISD for core classes only known as the Pasadena Virtual School (PVS). I would like to see my course, Marketing included as an online learning course. I will use the knowledge gained about online learning as an effective tool to be able to teach a wider base of non-traditional students and become a "paperless" course. I know that students are "digital natives", they love to use technology and I think that this online learning would facilitate higher order thinking because of the opportunity that teachers have to ask higher order thinking questions which would allow students to analyze, synthesize and evaluate instead of just recalling information. I would use my knowledge gained through the design and implementation of my online learning to make my course fun, exciting and motivating for students so that they can be engaged in cognitive and interesting learning as well as technology integration for the course. I would also collect relevant data and use learning style inventories to be prepared to teach online learning and to adapt to the students' learning behaviors as well as use a variety of teaching methods for effective online learning. When looking at statistics and data in various articles, there is a need for a digital connection and technology integration in and out of the classroom. Online learning requires the use of technology integration. When researching data, the data “suggests that today’s students not only desire but need engaging, media-rich learning experiences to maximize their learning potential”. (Williamson, J. & Redish, T., 2009, p.58)
Boss, S., & Krauss, J. (2007, December). Real Projects in a Digital World. Principal Leadership. Research Library pg. 22
Williamson, J. & Redish, T. (2009). Technology Facilitation and Leadership Standards: What Every K-12 Leader Should Know and Be Able to Do. Eugene, Oregon & Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE),
