Research and Online Schooling

More and more I am convinced that online schooling has the potential to solve so many issues we face with our "education crises." If we put the time and money in to research, if we take the time to teach our teachers how to produce and execute a really good online course there are so many benefits. In a regular face to face environment, a student may get 20 minutes 3 times/week to develop literacy skills. That may be all the time they get for any course, not just literacy. In an online course, we have the opportunity to be sure the students are understanding by using ongoing assessment tools and adaptive learning. And now as we are moving toward core curriculum standards in so many schools, the challenge in face to face schools will grow greater and they will be re-developing their curriculum regardless. There is so much that can be done, and the flexibility is so much greater than in a face to face environment - hopefully as time goes by we will have more case studies to evaluate that have been developed over time and as a result carry more validity. We have never needed this more.

After Developing the Course......

In a way, the course was easier than I thought it would be to develop. I was lucky enough to have a partner who had a lesson plan she had already done for her class, so we didn't have to think that through. What I am more recently aware of, both through working with Sara and through my own real-life job, is how academic requirements play such an important role in course design. Sara had already designed the course to coincide with the Regents, so this seems to be something regular teachers are used to. But from a design standpoint, it made me think about time allotted to each task, how long we could leave for each task, if the same exact requirements applied for each online course, and how complicated it must be for the larger for profit companies that create content for states other than their own. It seems very specific, although I am just getting a handle on that aspect of course development (so pardon my ignorance for those who didn't think twice about it.) I am very glad I had Sara because my concerns about time allocated and the unit would have been magnified if not for the fact that she was used to working within those parameters and had already designed the course to fit.

It was great fun to apply mindtools and various ways of learning the same content. I am also not sure that we should have used a different platform than most were using, as I don't believe many people had a chance to view what we did and thus we didn't get much feedback (my fault - there was not a link that would have worked for everyone, only an email I sent out which may have been misinterpreted as SPAM.) There is definitely something to be said for the incumbent (moodle) in terms of people's familiarity - but I think it is only a matter of time before the other open source platforms start getting momentum and people choose based on their needs. Especially where there is no cost involved.