Lesson Seven: Online Instruction Basics and
Issues.Introduction to the key issues surrounding online instruction
Asking the hard questions on the quality of traditional and online education
A tour of cyberschools and online courses
Free courses on creating online courses
Convenient online professional development courses for busy teachers
Key considerations in planning an online class
Lesson Seven Required Assignments:
1. Send via email to your instructor a two-page accounting of
your explorations of a minimum of three K12 online courses
from the course directories given in the lesson. Include a
review of the two specified courses for teachers on how to
create and teach an online class, 1. Mentoring Online and
2. Designing K12 Internet Instruction.
Include a sampling of the most significant URLS you visited,
in your judgment, other than those specified in the lesson
and share your views on the appropriate, and/or
inappropriate, use of online classes.
Lesson Goals
To identify the main issues related to online classes VS traditional classroom classes.
To identify the ease and availability of the new free online class authoring tools.
To review sample online courses to establish a sense of what "passes" for a good online class.
To identify the planning issues behind preparing to create your own online class.
A. The most important issue surrounding online learning is "What's best for our students?"
In the "Millennium" article you read for lesson one, a number of considerations are given for designing an online course. It is important to realize that online education is very new, and refers to a plethora of different methods and technologies. We're limited only by our imaginations as to how we can use the increasingly powerful array of tools at our fingertips. As teachers, we need to learn to trust our own judgement....when our opinions are based on first-hand, hands-on knowledge of these tools. For this lesson you are asked to critically review two courses on designing online courses, and to review at least three actual K12 online courses.Read the article "Alaskan Professional Development; Lone Eagles Learn to Teach from Any Beach" http://lone-eagles.com/articles/eagle.htm (30 minutes)
B. Go to the Reach for the Sky courses at http://lone-eagles.com/courses/rfts/ and select the course "Online Mentoring " Spend at least half an hour reviewing the suggestions of this course.
(30 minutes)The recommended next course to follow "Making the Best Use of Internet for K-12 Instruction" is "Designing K-12 Internet Instruction" and all lessons are reviewable at http://lone-eagles.com/currmain1.htm . Spend at least half an hour reviewing the lessons for this course. (30 minutes)
C. (One hour)
Review the listings of K12 online course directories (from page 141 in your handbook) and online at http://lone-eagles.com/courses.htm and review at least three courses. Email your reviews to your instructor.
Here's the listing for many more online courses from the end of the Mentors Resources at http://lone-eagles.com/mentor.htm which is also in your handbook (page 61).
Lone Eagle Consulting's Best Online Learning Resource Listings
Adult Literacy Web Tour
http://lone-eagles.com/webtour7.htm
Free Learning and Other Freebies Web Tour
http://lone-eagles.com/freebies.htm
Online Courses and Learning Pathways
http://lone-eagles.com/self.htm
K-12 Online Courses
http://lone-eagles.com/courses.htm
Internet Training Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/training.htm
Teachers' Tools Web Tour
http://lone-eagles.com/teacherstools.htm
Building Learning Communities
http://lone-eagles.com/teled.htm
Ecommerce Start-up Training Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/entrelinks.htm
World Class K-12 Web-based Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/class.htm
A particularly unique handout with major reports on E-learning,
unique professional development resources and *many K12 resources.
Including a teacher's Guide to International Collaboration.
For the insatiable appetite see http://lone-eagles.com/tonofK12stuff.htm
D. (30 minutes)Review the listings of online professional development opportunities in your handbook on page 87 and online at http://lone-eagles.com/self.htm You'll find additional sources for learning how to create online courses, as well as a rich listing of distance learning clearinghouses and virtual universities.
Here are three of the more popular course-authoring services to explore within the time allowed for this lesson; Elluminate, Moodle, and Ecollege. Note the similarities in the tools provided.
1. Elluminate www.elluminate.com A very popular online course platform.
Select the free DEMO and follow the instructions.. Review the tools they offer.2. The Moodle homesite is www.moodle.org with many great resources.
This open source platform is free and many educators already prefer it to Blackboard
due to its elegantly simple functionality.3. OPTIONAL - Ecollege http://www.ecollege.com
Explore their general options noting they offer you a free trial where
you can use all their tools to create an online course - for a limited time.Review their full range of tools via their demonstration "Ecollege" class at
http://umtonline.net/Demo/index.real4. At www.cnx.org is a site offering free online course authoring
with a science and math emphasis. Check it out!E. Check out the free web collaborative and curriculum tools
at: http://lone-eagles.com/teacherstools.htm http://lone-eagles.com/collab.htm and
http://lone-eagles.com/webdev.htm (30 minutes)F. Review the three key reports on online learning at the top of:
World Class K-12 Web-based Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/class.htm(30 minutes)
Lesson Feedback: Optional, but much appreciated.You're invited to privately email your instructor:
1. What areas, if any, did you have trouble with during this lesson?
2. What questions remain now that you've finished this lesson?
3. Approximately how much time did you devote to this lesson?
4. What improvements would you like to suggest?