Benefits & Challenges of Online Learning (Mod 4)

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What are the benefits and pitfalls of Online Learning?

This weeks lesson was about giving a well-rounded view of  the online experience, with emphasis on the teacher's perspective.  From the many images of smiling faces you get when you google "Online learning" (see above) one could get the impression that online learning is nothing but happy teachers giving eager students the education they so earnestly desire.

Online learning does gives the teacher lots more flexibility in engaging with their students as well as creating the learning environment, with less hassles with commuting and being supervised.

And for the most part, it is a very positive experience, if flexibility and control is what the teacher desires.  Borup and Stevens (draft) noted that with their sample size the online experience was very popular among most teachers.  The key points teacher appreciated was flexibility, the ability to interact digitally with individual students and the amount of support they received from their administrators.

In contrast, Hawkins, et al (2012) in describing their Community of Inquiry (CoI) noted that for some teachers, not being in front of their students was a disconnected, therefore disquieting experience.  In fairness, these teachers did not seem to get the training or support that Borup and Stevens noted.  Together, I see that their respective papers suggest a strong correlation between admin support and realistic expectations as to whether the online experience turns out good or bad for the teacher.  What I take away from this module is that online teaching is different from regular teaching, and those that have the right expectations, temperament and technical skills ought to do well.

Finally, a link to my updated Popplet and a Tedtalk video of Daphne Koller and Coursera, which validates to me that despite the pitfalls, when online learning is done right it is an overwhelming benefit.