Education has changed so much in the last 100 years, but the biggest changes have been in the last 10 years.  It used to be that any type of schooling outside of a traditional classroom was looked down on.  In current times, non-traditional types of learning are becoming widely accepted and even encouraged.  Homeschooling is changing to on-line learning and is experienced in both K-12 settings and in upper education and graduate schools.  With the World Wide Web, almost everyone has access to any type of information and course work. 

For an online course to be effective, the class needs to be structured in such a way that the expectations are clear for both the instructor and the students.  An on-line course can have similar expectations as a face to face course, but without the students being able to interact as easily, the on-line course has to arrange for the interaction between students that is needed.  The instructor in an on-line course has almost more requirements than a teacher in a face to face classroom because they do have to facilitate the interaction between students and with the instructor.  To ensure this interaction, it takes plenty of prep work on the part of the instructor or course developer.  There needs to be both formal interactions with discussion boards and a place where there can be more informal interactions between students and the instructor (Durrington, Berryhill, & Swafford, 2006, p. 191).  The course also needs a clear syllabus and rubrics so that will allow students more confidence that they are meeting the requirements of the course.  The instructor also needs to be available to the students through email and message boards.  With the differences between an on-line course and a traditional face to face course, the instructor has to view his role differently.  George Siemens offers many different perspective of what an instructor can be like in the modern educational system (2008).  With the technology available, the instructor does not have to be the traditional lecture, but he can offer opportunities and direct what students need to accomplish to successfully complete the course.  An instructor needs to help students make the connections so that they can take the information on and apply it to other applications (Siemens, 2008). 

An on-line course can be a great opportunity for both students and the instructor.  As the world has changed from face to face communication to digital communication, education has to make the change also.  When there has been adequate and proper planning, an on-line course can allow plenty of interaction between students and the instructor that will allow all involved to be successful.

References

Durrington, V. A., Berryhill, A., & Swafford, J. (2006). Strategies for Enhancing Student Interactivity in an Online Environment. College Teaching. doi:10.3200/CTCH.54.1.190-193

Siemens, G. (2008). Learning and Knowing in Networks: Changing roles for educators and designers.

  

Assessing Collaborative Effects

How to achieve interaction from all students?  This is a factor in distance education (DE) and in the face to face classroom.  Each student has their comfort level with public speaking and interaction and a teacher needs to find the ways to allow students to interact as needed.  As a middle school teacher, there are many times when I feel that I am able to assess what my students know through our classroom discussions more than on a written test.  It is easier to have a student expand on an answer or comment when we are speaking than on a test, when they just want to be done with the test and move on to something else.  With distance education, when there is no face to face communication, it is important that there be some type of interaction.  This can be complete with blogs or discussion boards, but again, how do you get an introverted student to interact appropriately?  The easiest requirement is to have a minimum requirement of interactions, but how do I, as the instructor, get to know the student?  One way that Karen Swan states in her article “Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments” is to have rubric that encourages the desired cognitive behaviors and interactions (2004).  Another strategy is to have both public and private responses between the student and the instructor (Swan, 2004).  An introverted student, even in the privacy that online can provide, may still not be willing to respond to a large number of students or even to the instructor when others may be able to see their responses.  The privacy and the one on one time is needed for many students who are taking the course because they do not have the time to attend a face to face class or have such a class near enough to be able to.  It is important that the student realizes what type of learning environment works best for them so that they will succeed in the classwork learn to the best of their ability (Moller, Foshay and Huett, 2008). 

When a student does not like to interact with fellow students on a collaborative assignment, how can fellow students and the instructor handle this situation?  This happens in a face to face classroom also, and can be a struggle to adequately assess the students.  The type of personalities of the students make a big difference on how much each student interacts.  When one student takes over as leader and does not necessarily listen to their fellow students on idea and has a fixed idea of what the project should look like, it can be prevent other students from feeling like they can participate.  In my middle school classroom, I have students grade each other on their participation, always with the caveat that I, as the teacher, can overrule their scores.  I may have different expectations for students based on their ability and other difficulties.  This works well in a classroom setting, but what about an online setting?  Communication between partners is the paramount need.  If one of the partners is struggling, they need to let their partners know and their partners may be able to help them through a rough area and will request help when needed.  For this to be successful in an online community, it is important that at the beginning of the class, the students and the instructor need to create that feeling of community (Palloff & Pratt, 2007).

References

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the web. Tech Trends, 52(4), 66-70.

Palloff, R. M., Pratt, K., & Palloff, R. M. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for the virtual classroom. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Swan, K. (2004). Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments. The Sloan Consortium.

Matt is a leader in the Textbook free classroom. 

Keynote Speaker Storyboard – Digital Textbooks

Narrative                                                                                        Visual

Schools of the past (30 sec)                                                       Traditional classroom with desks and textbooks

Schools of the future (30 sec)                                                    one to one classroom

What is missing from the future   (30 sec)                               traditional textbook

What is the future of education (60 sec)                                 computers, digital textbooks/no textbooks

How digital textbooks are perceived (60 sec)                        graph of student use/comments from students,

How are digital textbooks being used now (30 sec)              College/kindle/nook

Introduce Matt Miller      (60 – 90 sec)                                                    Matt’s blog “Ditch that Textbook”

My storyboard is going to be a day late.  My internet at home crashed and it took 3 days to get a repair man out to find the problem.  It was also Spring Break and visitors came unannounced and stayed for a couple of days.  Sorry.  I want to make sure that I have it completed correctly and not rush on something and pay the price later.