Week 17

Finals week in here!  I am currently enrolled in two classes, one of which I successfully finished yesterday!  Yeah! 

I am almost finished with this class, still working on my final project.  Tied up loose ends on my blogging within the last two days.  I had completely misunderstood the dates versus blogging schedule.  Thankfully, I’m finally caught up on that.  Thank you Dr. Lowell for clarifying this for me, I was a little worried (no, make that very worried).  I think I’m okay now.

WEEK 16

OLdaily had a post on November 27 regarding Terms of Use.  You need to read this post in which he posts his terms of use and what he thinks terms of use means.  This is an amusing post, and I have often wondered how often (using percentages) people actually read these without just simply clicking passed them.  How often do you read them?

Week 15- Breathing

Throughout this week, I have been gathering sites and tips to post to my blog for my final project.  I, however, cannot post some of them as they will be out of date or expired deals by the time I post my blog site for review for the final project.  I have found many sites that are useful and others that I felt were a waste of my time.  I feel like I cannot seem to stay caught up in this class.  I am breathing and hoping that my final project will pull together nicely by finals week.

Also, I have read some of my classmates ideas and concerns regarding our final project.  I am glad to see that I am not the only person that had trouble finding a topic.

Final project thoughts – Week 14

After much thought and changing my mind a million times, I finally decided on a topic for my final project.  The topic that I chose was Economics for the college students, both traditional and nontraditional.  I’m going to set up a blog posting ideas on how to save money by shopping for your needs and wants using sales, coupons, and online deals.  During these hard economic times, I feel that this would be a great learning experience, while assisting with real life problems as well.  Wish me luck!

Comments on Cool Cat Teacher blog

Cool Cat posted an interesting post regarding Flat Classrooms and conferences that they have.  Conferences   along with cost and information are found at this link, as they discuss their shortage of funding.  “The aim of the workshop is to bring together geographically dispersed participants with a view to sharing ideas, using mobile computing, learning about Web 2.0 communication and collaboration tools in a flattened world, and working on a project theme that can be transplanted back into their home school.”  I cannot imagine how awesome it would be to travel and learn about the other cultures and ways of teaching in this manner.  How awesome!

Kearsley and Research

Last week as I mentioned Chapter 4, Research about Online Education, I outlined the findings of one study found regarding online courses.  This week I would like to focus on a couple of these points and expand on them.   

First of all, Kearsley, discusses the impact on student achievement.  He mentions that if a course is offered online and in the traditional classroom setting, then the only difference should be the form of delivery.  However, this is not the case, the content may be taught differently. Finding the success with the online version would be a focus of the research as compared to the traditional class.  Online students must be self-motivated to stay on track and continue learning and completing assignments throughout the course, as online classes don’t often meet at appointed times.

Another research perspective that Kearsley mentioned in Chapter 4 was school-level impact.  The factors of onine courses effects the school as a whole and needs to be analyzed as well.  If scores are improving then the courses are providing the in depth learning that the students need.  However, if the lack of success of these courses have effected student achievement, enrollment, etc. then the courses would need to be analyzed further.  Changes may need to be made to the presentation of the material, assignments, or content.

Distance Education

Pick a topic for research in Distance Education and write a brief synopsis of how you’d study it.

Student Achievement is a research topic that Kearsley mentions within Chapter 4.  Researching and comparing the grades, completion of assignments, and use of tools available would be the steps that I would take to analyze the success of the online course compared with the traditional class.  By analyzing the data, I’m sure that the online students would be more involved in their classes, and in turn, have a better success rate.

Final Project

Write up the proposal for your final project. Make sure you answer the following questions

• What are you going to do?
• How are you going to do it?
• Who is it intended for?
• Why are you doing it?
• How will you know if it’s working?

I have been thinking about these questions for several days now, and I am unsure of my final project.  I cannot decide on a project.  I thought about incorporating online assignments for my students that must be completed at home, and communication must be through email.  However, I have many students without internet access.  This project is something that I’m going to need to focus on and narrow down my ideas.  Any suggestions?

Chapter 4 – Kearsley

Research about online education

Well motivated and well prepared students take advantage of the resources that are made available throughout the online courses that are available.  The Hiltz findings found that online courses are equal or superior to classes offered in the conventional classrooms.  The students reported that they have better access to the professors, which I agree with as well.  With classes in the classroom, if you have a question after class is over, then you have to wait until the next class meeting.  I like the convenience of the online chats, IM, and emails and most of the time I receive a response from the instructor in a timely manner.

 

Goals and objectives

Are the goals and objectives changed when you take a course online compared to classroom based instruction?

Honestly, it has been so long since I have taken a course in the classroom, that I had to think about this for a little while.  First of the goals and objectives are met differently when compared with online and classroom courses.  Within the classroom based courses, the classes required more time in front of the class or group work.  Whereas the online courses require less group work, but more writing assignments, such as blogs or discussion boards.