Online Learning

When it comes to online courses I feel there are more negative aspects than positive.  Personally I have not taken an online course so I don't exactly know first hand the work that goes into it.  However I feel that online courses lack the interaction that the standard classroom provides.  I also feel that a student may not learn as much from an online course as they would from a traditional course.  I feel this way because when using an online course you have so many resources at your fingertips that the one resource you are suppose to use, your brain, you end up not doing.  For high school students I feel taking an online course is a good way to identify what type of environment you do best in.  It may help prepare them for basic technology needs that college requires from students their students.  However I can see this just turning into a problem.  At that age in your life you tend not to care as much, you want to just get things done and spend time with your friends before you go off to college.  By requiring an online course be taken before graduation I feel most students will take the easiest one they can or the hardest one they can and basically won't learn a thing because they can use the internet, books, and other people, they don't need to rely on themselves.  Going into secondary education I need to prepare for teaching an online class.  To do this I think I would approach this in a very creative way.  I could utilize an online chat site and have each individual student verbally take a test with me, to prevent cheating I could time each question, but what I would actually listen for is how they reason through the question.  Sometimes it isn't necessarily the answer that is most important but how you arrive at the answer.

By:  Elizabeth Carr
10/17/07