Thoughts Concerning Online Education

Assignment: Thoughts on Online Education

• Does it meet the purposes of education that we discussed?
• Why is it a real option for so many students?
• Would I take a position as an online teacher? Why or why not?
• If a school was hiring a teacher and their grade level team or department was strong on blended or hybrid online learning would you want to take the job? Why or why not?
• Brainstorm- Share ways that you would/could use online education as a teacher to be more effective.

I believe that online education can meet most of the purposes of education, especially the good reasons for free public education. Of course this is dependent upon the structure and makeup of the course, and should be differentiated from independent study-type classes which can often not meet the needs and reasons of typical education. A valuable component of any effective educational course is frequent, personalized (though in online education’s instance, not necessarily physical face-to-face) interaction (feedback) among the students and teacher. If the online course includes this, which is often one of the more difficult obstacles, then I believe it can be quite successful and meet the purposes of education which are based upon our (society’s) changing needs for education.

I today’s changing world we are becoming more and more integrated with technology and the technological age. An emerging purpose of education is to educate students in the use of technology. Instead of having a course focused just at using technology it can be helpful to design a course that integrates another important course of study with principles of using technology to help students better learn both subjects. Also the pace of life that students (and students’ parents) have put on themselves is ever increasing. They (we) are becoming involved in so many more things compared to years past that our time, and management of our time, is becoming more and more critical. Online classes allow greater flexibility to students to choose when in their day/week to work on assigned materials.

My first preference would be position in a traditional classroom, but I would consider a position as an online teacher. As long as I had freedom in the course design I would feel pretty comfortable in such a position. I feel that if used properly an online course can be very beneficial to both students and teacher.

I think this would be my first choice of positions. To have the wonderful technology that we have at our disposal in the learning process would be a great tool for all involved. I envision things would run more smoothly and efficiently with even when you take into account that technology can fail. I believe the benefits of using technology in education far outweigh the costs/ downfalls.

One thing that I really like about online classes/ hybrid classes is that it’s really easy to make a page where the student can look and see what assignments are needed for the class and when those assignments are due. It’s simplified even further when these assignments can be turned in online. The “cherry on top” of this process is perhaps the ability to give prompt feedback to the student of their work. This feedback is then saved and easily accessible when the student needs to refer back to it. It’s amazing really…