Week 6: June 10th-16th

This week we learned about waht makes an online learnder sucessful. In reading this weeks articles, I started to learn more about what is needed to help make one sucessful online. One of the important things I realized was that you need to have dedication to the class. You must be able to contribute to your classroom online by giving them your opinions, times and ideas. There must be a schedule for an online learner. If you do not start to schedule your time or tasks, it can become very overwhelming. Especially for someone such as myself that works, has a family and is taking other classes. One thing I have started to do with all my classes that I probably should have done prior, was to read the whole syllabus and write down in my calender big projects and their due dates. This has helped me to know what is going to take me longer to complete and what I need to focus on during the week.

Second part of the week was to create a CourseSite. I actually enjoyed this task and also learned about how much work it is for the professors to create online classes! A lot of thought has to go into the work but it was fun to create my own course about something that I enjoy and I am passionate about. Actually is a course that I would be interested in taking or being able to be a part of. In creating an online course I realized how you definitely have to be technology friendly and know how to operate the site. There were things that were harder for me to learn to operate and also adding certain colors to the site or pictures. I wanted to add more but it was a bit harder to edit, but I think I did a pretty good job.

I liked CourseSite because it is a great resource to have for your students to be able to refer to online assignments, homework, and projects. It is a free site and I think it is a good resource for teachers of middle or high schoolers to help get their students ready for online learning. I was interested in reading some articles about online learning and if people truly found it to be effective for learning. One article I found said that it was a "cheap education" and it wasn't effective for students. So I was interested in reading/researching more about the topic and if this effects every age group, or only a few. Below is the article!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0