Week 12 (Part 2)

         After reading the articles, I understood more the nature of synchronous and asynchronous models of delivery. In K-12 settings, synchronous instruction is a better option for students and teachers at the same time. Based on his research, Barbour has found that virtual school teachers in general are better at delivering synchronous instruction rather than asynchronous. Just like the case with traditional teachers, some teachers are more prepared and trained to teach online courses than others. Synchronous instructions give learners the opportunity to have both online and face to face interaction. 

       One of the myths about online learning lacking one-on-one interaction didn’t make much sense to me. It is true that some online courses allow for genuine interaction whether it be between the learner and the teacher or among the students, but that doesn’t make online learning ‘more’ interactive than face-to-face learning. I am saying this based on my personal experience with both online and traditional classes. Most of the time, the online interaction that takes place, lacks genuineness and is mostly staged for the purpose of ‘interacting’. I totally believe that nothing beats face-to- face interaction when it comes to learning.

       Barbour described the nature of students that enroll in online classes as “highly motivated, self-directed, self-disciplined, and independent learners”. This is quite the opposite of what myth 2 explained, describing that students of all levels and backgrounds benefit from online learning.

      A myth that I was guilty of is thinking that online courses were easier than traditional courses. I took my first online course last semester with this thought in mind and reality hit me hard. I realized that online courses were more demanding and required constant work. But as a procrastinator in nature, this has worked to my advantage. Meeting regular deadlines has pushed me to study every day and not leave everything until the end. 

 

      In general, I found the 10 myths about online learning to be very vague and one size fits all. They were tailored to depict a more positive view of online learning. There isn’t an extensive research yet that’s done on virtual schooling to truly illustrate the positive and negative aspects of it. As Barbour wrote in his research paper, there’s a troubling lack of literature related to asynchronous teaching in the K-12 environment. Not much has been studied regarding the advantages and disadvantages of online learning compared to traditional learning when it comes to K-12 schooling.

Week 12 (Part 1)

I don’t have an extensive experience with online-learning in general as this is my second semester taking online courses myself. And even my current experience is not very relatable to K-12 online learning. Based on what I think; K-12 online learning can be two things. Students are either taught online exclusively without attending schools or blended, where they do attend school sometimes and do virtual schooling at other times. I believe that online learning is very tricky with younger students for many reasons. First of all, K-12 students may not be as motivated to learn compared to older individuals. Also, online learning is very dependent on the students taking the initiative to learn by themselves and doing so based on their schedules. This might not be very successful with younger students because of procrastination and lack of interest.

I think the kind of students that take online classes are either students that have learning problems, are shy to speak up in class, are not succeeding in conventional schools, or are students that have busy schedules (compete in sports) and cannot attend regular schools. I think all courses can be offered online.

Post #1

Blogs 

1.     Blog de Christina  http://www.cristinacabal.com/

Christina has been teaching English to adults since 1991. Blog de Cristina aims at providing useful teaching materials and ideas and it’s based on student’s needs and her own motivation to make her lessons enjoyable, involving and effective. “In my classes, I try to combine the traditional method of teaching with the new technologies and for this reason I’m always on the lookout for new tools to spice up my lessons”.

This is especially interesting to me because I am all about combining the traditional teaching methods with what technology has to offer.

2.     Mondo’s ESL/EFL World http://mondosworld.blogspot.com/

This resource-rich Blog is beneficial for students and teachers alike. It offers numerous video lessons, song lessons, and writing classes. There are also cartoons, suggestions for discussions by level, writing topics, podcasts, and grammar lessons. There are links to newspapers, books, and useful videos. This is a great site that can be used inside and outside the classroom.

3.     English for University https://englishforuniversity.com/

This blog is meant to help international students prepare for and do well in college. Students can find a wide variety of useful guides, including “How to write your introduction,” “How to survive your summer course,” “How to develop a paragraph,” and “Writing topic sentences.” The author, a university lecturer in the UK, also posts on points of language and includes references to outside resources to help supplement study. This is especially useful for my advanced writing classes.

Twitter 

All five accounts are based on teaching the English Language. I have particularly chosen educators that integrate technology in their teaching. Since I have been learning more about web 2.0 tools, it would be beneficial to get ideas of how to use them more in my lessons.

@TheEngTeacher : Aniya Adly. E-Teaching Consultant, Personal ESL Trainer.

@MissShonah: Shonah Kennedy. ESL teacher. Learn English Online. Passionate about language acquisition and teaching English.

@teflclips: Jamie Keddie. It is a website dedicated to the role of YouTube in ELT.

@FelipeMorales: Felipe Morales. Teacher, Educator, web 2.0, e-learning, social learning, blogs…

@langwitches: Silvia Tolisano. She is a 21st Century Learning Specialist-Technology Integration.

Since I am not a big social media fan, it has been hard for me to keep up with all the educators that I followed for the sake of this course. The only social media account that I check regularly (since I have the app on my phone) is Facebook and sometimes Pinterest. But when I scroll through Facebook, I usually do it to take a break from whatever I am doing and see what my friends and family have been up to. Now as I scroll through Facebook, I see educational news-feeds from the pages that I followed but I honestly don’t always open them for two reasons. 

1. My mood (since I consider Facebook to be for leisure and not educational purposes) and 

2. The title of the post (if the title interests me I read the post, if not I don’t).

Another purpose as to why I haven’t been keeping up with all the social media educators that I followed and the blogs is because I am not teaching this semester. I took this semester off to focus on a personal matter. Being detached from teaching has made me less eager to check out the latest trends in the education realm. But I am sure that when I get back to work next semester, I will be more in touch with my teacher self.  

Post #2

How do you view Wikipedia and YouTube (or any non-vetted site) as a resource for your students? Why? Do you let them use either as a resource? Do you yourself use them during instruction?

         Personally, I never had a problem with allowing my students to use use YouTube and Wikipedia. I seldom viewed either sites to be inaccurate or inappropriate.

I, myself use them extensively and I can’t but say good things about them. I don’t mind my students reaching out to those sites for extra information whenever they need. The only time I restrict their use is when they write research papers. In this particular case, I ask them to only use peer reviewed articles. Why? Because this is what I was taught in school. This is what I was asked to do when I wrote research papers. But even when I write research papers, I do use YouTube or Wikipedia to further understand certain concepts even if I don’t use them as resources. So in reality, they do contribute to every research that I do! 

       The podcast was very interesting and I couldn’t help but listen to it until the end. I do understand the discrepancy in the female to male ratio when it comes to Wikipedia but that doesn’t affect my view towards their effectiveness. Regardless of who writes and edits articles on Wikipedia (whether it be males or females) I’ve always thought that they offered reliable information and no matter what I searched for, Wikipedia had the answer.