Module 4 Post: Engaging Learners in a Digital World

Since the Internet became popular in the 90's we have seen a influx of online learning environments from as early as first grade to post graduate work.  Throughout this time there has been several methods of delivering content to students and teachers measuring the amount of learning that has been accomplished by the learner.  There are those who will provide you with evidence that describes how effective learning is online compared to the traditonal learning environment. On the same note, there are equally the same amount of people who will tell you that online learning is not as effective.  Could both be right?  Being in education for 15 years I have to say that yes both parties are right.  What is it then that makes the difference, or better yet what makes online learning effective?

In order to make online learning effective it first starts out with a caring instructor who reaches out and cares about the student's success. Just as an Face to Face (F2F) learning an instructor carefully monitors and provides timely feed back to the students.  If a student is not performing a specific task the instructors should immediately contact the students and find out what is wrong and develop ways to remedy the problem before it becomes impossible to fix.

In an online learning enviornment, it is important to develop an effective learning management system that clearly describes what is to be expected.  If the students are to create online content then there should be a universal or standard site in which a student should perform the tasks at hand.  An instructor should be able to have the ability to change and modify the content of the course to fit the needs of his/her students. 

To effectively communicate with students in the classroom there should be open ended questions that we could place a question about a problem that we are having within our school, job or course work that students can provide needed insight.  It would also be nice to provide a location in which we can also communicate with each other using tools such as skype or other video conferencing tools on the internet.

References:
Anderson, T. (2008). The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.). Edmonton, Canada: AU Press.
Siemens, G. (2008, January). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. ITForum.

Blogs:

http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/
http://gettingsmart.com/blog/