Final Thought on Online Teaching

  This past three week class has really opened up some new doors for me about teaching online. I had not thought about all the different components that go into teaching online before. I really am glad that I have had this opportunity. I hope that these ideas will carry over to my future teaching.
  Overall I really felt that module two was probably the most useful for my future online teaching. The other two modules were very helpful and I will hopefully use what they learned. But I really appreciated the hands on opportunity that module two gave me with different tools for online teaching. I really enjoyed learning about all of those tools and how to use them correctly. I really think it is important to know how to use these tools correctly.
  Module One was helpful because it reminded me of all the pitfalls that online teaching can have. I really appreciated seeing how a good online course should run versus an improperly made one. I think that it was really helpful to read about how to not teach online and how you should teach online.
  Module Three gave a great insight to Moodle. I had not every used moodle as a teacher, so this was a new experience that I really appreciated. I also never realized how much you could do on moodle. I hope that I will be able to grow more familiar with the program in the future.
  Online teaching may be a bit more work than I expected, but I can see why it is so useful. I also can see how we need to be careful with our online courses.

Online Tools: A Warning

This past module has focused on a lot of online tools. These tools seem really useful though I have a few concerns with them. The tools can be a great way to work with students and get some active involvement. Voice thread seems like a great way to get students to talk to each other without having to be in direct contact with each other. Voki gives you a chance to interact with students in a fun and creative way, but I do not think it would be useful beyond an introduction to a course. Screen casting is great way to instruct students in how to do something. It can be helpful to see what a teacher is doing themselves so you know what to do. And podcast could be useful if you had the correct situation; though I am not as big a fan of those.

These tools can really be useful, but there is one limitation that I can see for all of them. Internet connections are not all the same for all students. I had problems this past week because my internet connection could not support all of these tools easily. I often had to redo videos or go to a new location to be able to access information. Not all students will have the same quality of internet as you do, so just because you can do it does not mean they can. So can see how these tools can be helpful if they can be accessed, but you need to remember that not everyone will have the same means as you do.

That is why I think it is every important to provide a written form for everything that you have in video or podcast. This will help students who cannot always access what you are posting. And this also means you need to work with students who may not be able to use the tools you provide easily. Obviously you cannot allow the student to not complete the assignment, but you may need to provide them with more time or some accommodation if they are having problems. Students are often nervous to ask for these accommodations so I think it is important to tell your students to come to you with concerns and issues.

Other than this issue with internet, I think that these tools can be used in an online class with great success. I am hoping that I will get a chance to use these tools in an online class in the future. 

Community or the Lack of

The beginning of the course has really started me on thinking about community in online learning. Having recently graduated I have the prospective of what I would want as a student still in my mind, and I have recently interacted with other students about online courses. Often what I hear from other students when they have online work is that it all seems to be busy work and there is no real connect to others.
It is sad how often that online courses really are just busy work without that community. Often teachers just assign a bunch of work online and tell the students a due date. The students go through the motions and just get it done. I will admit that I have myself fallen into this situation where I just did what I had to without really caring what everyone else was doing. Students who I talked to would comment that the group discussions were more of an assignment than a real discussion. You would log onto the Moodle course and see the generic posts that everyone did. There was no real conversation, just the desire to get an A in the class and move on. They didn't contribute because they felt involved, but rather they just saw it as another assignment.
Even online group projects have been seen as isolated. Students would often tell me that they just divided the work up and went their separate ways. They would talk at the beginning about who was to do what, then they would come back at the end to put it all in a document. One person would take this jumble of information and streamline it into one document. So their interaction was kept at a minimum versus F2F projects where you meet all the time.
I am hoping that over the next few weeks we will learn more about how to avoid making community feel like just another assignment to quick complete so you can go watch Netflix. I want to figure out how to incorporate things that students enjoy into online community. I hope that I can find a way to involve social media, Google video chat, etc. so that students are more engaged. I want the students to be able to joke around, encourage one another, and even debate like it is a classroom rather than simple sit at their computers spitting out generic answers to get their online work over with.