Understanding Technology in Online Education
What impact does technology and multimedia have on online learning environments?
Course management systems form the basics of online courses. You will need to first prioritize familiarizing yourself with management system.
- Requesting and arranging for a course template
- Uploading documents and pictures
- Updating and revising documents
- Setting up and creating discussion forums
- Setting up and using the grade book
- Setting up teams and groups
The most popular course management systems include:
- Blackboard
- Desire2Learn
- Moodle
- WebStudy
- Sakai
What are the most important considerations an online instructor should make before implementing technology?
- The instructor will need to learn the required software applications
- Synchronous collaboration applications
- Maintain grade book
- Participate in email, discussion thread, wikis, blogs
- Use and explain the use of audio, video, podcast, webcams
- Upload resources, course documents, learner tools
What implications do usability and accessibility of technology tools have for online teaching?
- Students want to learn with technology
- Critical thinking skills and knowledge application
- Comprehension of new ideas
- Decision making and problem solving
- Information analysis
Students need to be able to demonstrate knowledge through the use of multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, and text.
What technology tools are most appealing to you for online teaching as you move forward in your career in instructional design?
- As a classroom teacher and future online instructor webpages, blogs, wikis and skype are sources I find exciting
- I utilize an internal course management system with my current students to post links to educational sources and course documents/requirements.
My new personal favorite technology is my Droid X phone my sister purchased for me. She told me I would be able to upload, download, view emails to study and send my images to the computer with ease. She was right and so much more, I know have the ease of use of calendars, emails, and media files. I would be even more excited if I could watch course videos from my phone – I am working on that.
My son who is 18 received the same phone and his favorite feature is the voice command feature. He explained to me that all you have to do is activate voice command and it will call who you choose, locate your destination using the GPS feature and compose your text messages for you. I am anxious to start using this time saving feature after his excited explanation.
Resources:
Palloff, Rena. & Pratt, Keith (2010) Video: Enhancing the online Experience
http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4894963&Survey=1&47=
5974603&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1 (Accessed Mar. 28, 2011)
Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and
practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Conrad, R., & Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass
Hello Crystal,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I see you teach high school Special Ed for Math. I commend you very highly. Your job takes lots of love and patience. I have never tried Skype in my classroom setting. I do think it would be great to hook up with another class from another school. I seen it done in a workshop. Each classes students take turns teaching a specific to a unit both are on. I never heard of theDroid X phone app. You have me curious now I will have to look it up. Hope you have a great week!
Hi Crystal,
ReplyDeleteI found the comment box! I really like your post, especially your graphic...it's beautiful! You did a wonderful job of synthesizing the essential concepts of our resources this week. What have you found to be the most useful tech tools in your math class and how have you used them? I would be curious to know. Have you heard of the Khan Academy that offers small videos of single math concepts for free? It might be useful for students who are struggling with some aspect of a larger lesson that you are teaching. Here's the reference:
http://www.khanacademy.org/
I'd like to hear from you what you think of this tool. Several teachers and students seem to like it!
Reference
Khan Academy. (2010) Extracted from: http://www.khanacademy.org/.
Deborah,
ReplyDeleteWow, love the link to the Khan Academy I will definately be using this link on my school website. Thanks to your helpful link I will be able to offer a mix of videos with our other work next week as we prepare for state testing.
You are awesome-- my team is going to appreciate this link.
Crystal