Friday, March 31, 2017
Virtual Schools: Post 2
After completing this week's articles, I feel much more informed about virtual schools. Most of the information in my initial post was not necessarily inaccurate but did not fully encompass all the nuances and varieties of virtual schools.
I was surprised to learn that virtual schools have their roots in the pre-internet technology (Computer Assisted Instruction), and I didn't realize that virtual schooling has been around essentially since the birth of the web. I was interested to discover that my school actually utilizes some of the Pearson materials named in the Keeping Pace Report which evolved from some of the earliest CAI programs.
I was also surprised to learn that many online courses are actually completed by a student who does attend brick and mortar schools. I was under the impression it was online school or brick and mortar with no in between. This makes sense though as a way to offer a much wider variety of courses to students with varying abilities.
I was also struck by the sheer variety of types of online schools. It seems like an overwhelming job to ensure state standards are being met with some many variations. I was particularly interested in the information in Barbour's article comparing the asynchronous and synchronous models. I once took a training course for a job that would be considered a synchronous model, and I absolutely hated it. To me, one of the benefits of online school is the flexibility of being able to work at any time at your own pace.
I found the myth that online teachers have easy jobs to be absolutely ridiculous. I can't believe anyone would think that. I can't imagine the time it would take to prepare all the information I deliver to my students every day for presentation online. The amount of writing, lessons and feedback, must be enormous.
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Ryan,
ReplyDeleteWonderful post- I find that I agree with you on a number of the conclusions you came to after the readings.
Online teachers definitely do not have easier jobs, though I do presume that just as there are bad teachers in the classroom, there are teachers who struggle online as well. Building relationships is still a major part of an online classroom, and teachers must be willing to take the time to get to know their students and design activities to reach them appropriately as well.
I, too, was surprised by the different types of online schooling available to students today. I am pretty familiar with the brick and mortar student programs however, as our school has several students currently enrolled in online learning programs to take a specific language not offered in our curriculum. I disagreed with the report on top ten myths for this, as I have definitely seen this become a burden for our school in terms of identifying a teacher to check in with the students and to have them arrange their schedule to accommodate the additional responsibilities.
My question for you is whether you see any online learning in your school district? And if not, how do your colleagues tend to view online instruction opportunities for students? I am curious if there is a stigma in general, or if people are generally more open to the idea now than in the past.
Enjoy New Orleans!
Alan
As far as I know, my school offers no fully online courses. However, we have tons of online tools that are expected to be integrated into our classrooms. There are online math modules, grammar modules, and others for the younger students that I'm less familiar with. I think all of my colleagues are very open to using the online tools. It is a great way to reinforce skills and keep the students busy/engaged so that the teacher can provide individual instruction to students who need it.
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteI too agree the all that you have said I too was surprised by the number of ways students can achieve online proficiency. In my school we too do not have any student taking fully online courses, but in the district having one to one technology for all students teachers are strongly encouraged to integrate the technology into their lessons. Plus at the elementary level they also have a 21st century as one of their specials which is a computer class that all students take. Even though they don't take a fully online course they do get totally immersed in technology. they also have and online component that the teachers have to use were the teachers can post questions to students and have a discussions. Although the program is not very user friendly so the teachers don't like to use it very often.
Hey Paul-
ReplyDeleteBeyond the tools I mentioned about, I know my school has many many many others that are available. Some of the are also not used very often because they are not user friendly, but I think one of the biggest hurdles to them being used is that the teachers don't know how they work. When I first started, I asked several of my coworkers about specific programs and their either didn't know they existed, didn't know what info to use to log on, or didn't know any of the functions once they got on. I've actually discovered some cool stuff on my own just playing around with the tools. I think the take away here is training is key.
Ryan,
DeleteI do agree that teachers are not getting the proper training or none at all on how to use these tools that the districts are asking them to use. A lot of the teachers in my school use the tools in the classroom and would have to figure out how to use them for themselves. As far as Itlearning the teachers I believe got training on how to use it. Even then they really do not like to use it because it is difficult to use. I do know from experience that the program is not user friendly when I went to add assignment to it took me a while to figure out how to do it and still I was not able to get to function like I wanted it to. Even on the student side it is difficult to use. The student have a hard time using it.
Training is almost always a major reason that tips the scales between success and failure when it comes to technology. As always, what's missing is the pedagogical component. That is, if teachers do get training, it's often only on the technical 'how-to' stuff, not training in best practices for leveraging in the classroom for better outcomes.
Delete