When many people think about online learning, they envision college-age students as well as older adults. But what about high school students? Can they, and are they, taking courses online as well? Recently, the online high school vs. home schooling debate has begun to heat up, as educators, parents and students begin to ask questions about these two forms of learning. Some of the main questions being asked include: Can high school students get the same quality education from online classes as they would from homeschooling? Does it take more effort to do well in online classes than in home school classes? Should home schooling include online classes for high school kids? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

For families who have the time to put together materials, teach material and help with assignments, homeschooling can be a great option. Parents can control exactly what their kids study, how much they study and they can also provide personalized, one-on-one feedback and attention, something that is missing in many of today’s public school classrooms. Homeschooling can be a great choice for kids who need a large amount of supervision with their school work, as well as for kids who are very bright and independent and who want to move much faster than their classmates.

Some parents choose to incorporate online classes into their home school curriculum as a way of involving a trained teacher in their child’s studies, especially if they do not have the teaching background themselves. Or, the student can take a class online on a topic that the parent has little or no knowledge about, but that the student would like to explore. Online classes can also add a social component to home schooling; this lack of social interaction with peers is what holds some parents back from enrolling their kids in home school classes. However, with chat rooms, forums, discussion boards and web cams, students can discuss topics with other students all over the world and have the advantage of getting multiple perspectives on a topic easily and from the comfort of their own homes.

However, unless the high school student is particularly motivated and has excellent study skills, a home schooling program that is entirely online might not be the best option. With a lot of support from parents and from online instructors, however, online courses can certainly have a very positive impact on high school students’ educations.

Tags: Non-Traditional Students, Online Education by Jenny
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It makes sense that students who take classes online will spend the bulk of their time reading and researching online as well. Finding reliable information about a topic can be a daunting task, and there can be literally hundreds of sites to sort through, and keeping track of all of these searches can be an assignment in itself. How to organize all of this web searching? Social Bookmarking sites provide an easy and fun solution.

Social Bookmarking sites allow Internet searchers to organize and categorize the sites they use. For example, the site del.icio.us allows users to collect their favorite sites, links, music, blogs and the like all organized in one place. This information can then be easily viewed from any computer with an Internet connection. The interesting part about this site is that everything on the site is someone’s “favorite,” so the site has a really great collection of information from a wide variety of sources. It’s a wonderful way to cut down the amount of time trying to find good sites to get information from.

Another interesting Social Bookmarking site is called StumbleUpon. Once the program is downloaded, and the icon appears in the browser toolbar, users can click “stumble” and random web pages will come up; these pages can be tailored to the user’s interests and preferences. For example, if the user wants to find random pages about only music, they select music, and various pages about music will appear each time “stumble” is clicked. What’s more, the user can rate the page in terms of how much he or she likes it, and the program learns from these ratings and adjusts the new pages which are brought up accordingly. It’s a great tool for conducting research on a particular topic as well as for learning information about a wide variety of topics. Many of the pages and topics which come up on StumbleUpon would eventually be found by users, but the site provides a much faster avenue for finding them.

Social Bookmarking is part of the next generation of information organizers, and it will be very interesting to see what comes next.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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Both online schools and Open Education information and classes afford students the wonderful convenience of never having to step foot inside an actual classroom. Learning can take place anywhere with an Internet connection, no time has to be spent in traffic and studies can take place at the students’ own pace.

However, there is a big difference between the two types of learning. Whereas Open Education is completely free learning, taking online courses is not. Certain factors can make online courses cheaper than courses taken on physical campuses, but at the end of the day, students are paying for instructor time, materials and program costs.

This being the case, why doesn’t everyone simply choose Open Education sites which provide knowledge, lectures and information for free? One of the biggest differences between the two is that most students who pursue knowledge or enroll themselves in courses want, and need, something to show for their efforts – to get a job, to get a better position within a current job, or to get a better job entirely. Open Education courses are usually not credentialed, and they are not usually accepted by employers or universities for credit. In an increasingly competitive world, having a certificate or a degree or some evidence of completion of a course or the mastering of a body of knowledge is becoming more and more important.

Another big difference is that Online Schools provide instructors to guide and facilitate learning, whereas Open Education courses are usually much more independent-spirited; the information is provided for whoever wants to read it, but there are generally few opportunities afforded to ask questions about the information being presented, or to engage with the learning materials. Similarly, many free learning sites are merely warehouses of information that are not organized in any particularly coherent way; users of these sites have to sift through the information to get what they need, and to throw away that which they do not want.

There is certainly something to be said for Open Education sites and free information sites. However, students and those who wish to further their careers must ask important questions about whether or not they are getting what they pay (or aren’t paying) for.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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For disabled students, especially those who are blind, issues of Web accessibility are very important. Those with vision might never think about how difficult it would be to navigate around a Web site without site, but a quick test makes the situation much more real: if you close your eyes and have a friend read the Web site to you, and give you commands on how to navigate the site, how easy is it? Is there information that you need that you weren’t told?

On the flip side, sites that have been made accessible to the blind can make online learning one of the best options for blind students. Think about it: instead of having to have someone drive a blind person to the bank, or to the grocery store, or anywhere else, for errands, everything can be done online with the help of verbal commands from the computer. For example, a blind person can order groceries online and have them delivered, and they can check their bank statements on a bank site, too.

This convenience goes for achieving a college education or an advanced degree, as well. Rather than having to commute to a college campus every day, disabled students can take classes from the comforts of their own home. They can use what are called “assistive technologies” such as Braille displays, software that reads screens and special clicking devices.

These are all wonderful developments which can help disabled people to fully enjoy the Web, but there are still many improvements which need to be made. For example, sites that have a lot of text are easy for screen reading software to handle – but what about Web sites that are composed mainly of images? If there is no text to accompany the images, the screen reading software hits a brick wall. However, the problem is easily fixed – the Web site builders only need to add text or HTML tags to accompany the images, and then those who are visually impaired can understand what is on the page. Also, sites with a lot of text can be turned into audio recordings which visually impaired can listen to. Also, vague terms and links need to be changed so that they make sense when taken out of the Web site itself; this means changing terms like “click here” to “click on the picture of the woman on the bench.”

Changes are coming, but they are coming slowly. There are already laws in place which have an impact on the accessibility of distance learning courses, but more laws and regulations need to pass before the Web is fully accessible to the disabled.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Non-Traditional Students by Jenny
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In the worlds of online classes, online discussions are a great way for students to get the most out of every class. Online discussions are not usually “chat rooms” that take place “live,” but rather discussion boards and forums where students can respond to a question posed by the instructor, a reading assignment and each others’ comments. However, in order to make online discussions truly valuable for the students, there are a number of things which can be done. All of the following tips will help motivate students to participate in the online discussions and thus increase the overall opportunities for learning.

1. Make participation a grade requirement

In a perfect world, all students would participate in the online discussions simply because they were asked to do so on a volunteer-only basis. This will not happen for most classes, however, and one of the best ways to motivate students to participate is to make their comments and participation efforts a significant part of their final grade. Requiring that students reply with a paragraph to the main question and at least two other student responses is one way to get the discussions started.

2. Make the discussions interesting!

Don’t ask the students about a topic that was discussed in great depth already in class; instead, try to pose an interesting spin on the topic. “What if” questions are a great place to start. Also, try to pose questions that are not black and white in terms of answers; open-ended questions that have no one “right” answer are better for encouraging students to participate.

3. Respond to posts – but don’t dominate the discussion

Responding to students’ posts and comments is a great way to keep them motivated, as it makes them feel as though their work is being read and appreciated. However, it’s best to not leave too many long comments; the discussion forum is a great way for the students to get their own ides out and to share them with others. Too many comments from an instructor might make students feel as though their own comments are not valued – or that there is one correct answer which must be reached.

4. Consider planning a project around the discussions

If students have to complete a project that’s based on information contained within the discussion boards, then they will be much more likely to actively participate. This is also a great way to help students learn to synthesize information from a large variety of sources.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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So this is a little continuation of my last post about the overall environmentally friendliness of online education. This time I focused in on the paperless benefits of learning online.

The use of paper in traditional classroom settings has many more far reaching effects on the environment than one might at first think. First, there are the resources which are required to manufacture paper, like water, electricity, fuel and bleach. Next, consider the stacks and stacks of paper which are used to print out training manuals, brochures, business cards, and handouts that are distributed at classrooms and events.

Online learning changes all of this. Simply put, online learning is “green” because it saves trees, and lots of them. Literally acres upon acres of forests can be saved as more and more online learning environments are set up. Online classes make use of tree-saving tools like online content, PDF manuals, synchronous classrooms, and other web-based tools. Entire textbooks can be scanned and put online, or converted into files which students can download onto their mobile devices or choose to use them online.

And what about all of the papers that students are required to write and turn in to their professors? In online learning’s virtual classrooms, papers can be composed on a computer and emailed to their professor without the words ever touching a single piece of paper. Alternatively, papers and projects can be uploaded into a course management system such as Blackboard, which can be easily accessed by the teacher and students alike. Handouts, syllabi, PowerPoint presentations and outlines, normally printed out en masse for students, can all be uploaded as electronic files and accessed online at the click of a mouse.

Online learning’s paperless environment can actually help students stay more organized; no longer do they have loose pieces of paper hanging out of their notebooks or paper syllabi to keep track of. Instead, students in online learning environments can access everything they need to organize in online files and folders. Forgot what last week’s reading assignment was? Simply go online to your course’s information page and read about the assignment, then download the passage onto the computer and read away. Paperless classes are green, and students aren’t the only ones who love them – trees do, too.

There are many online resources where you can learn more about living green. Check out TheGreenWayBlog.com for more information on how to live your life “the green way.”

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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Online learning environments are definitely environmentally friendly, and for many good reasons. While traditional school facilities do enable face-to-face interaction between teachers and students, school facilities do impact the environment in a number of important ways.

First, consider the sheer amount of space that school campuses take up. School campuses require years and years to build, and they usually require the bulldozing of large areas of land previously inhabited by trees and nature. Granted, environmental impact surveys are required for virtually all new building nowadays, but the fact remains that when you build a school facility meant to service thousands of students, the environment will be negatively impacted in some way.

Surrounding areas see an increase in traffic and possibly pollution, for example. Light pollution is even something that must be considered with a large school campus. Additionally, there is the issue of the amount of energy school facilities use. Energy is used to heat and cool school facilities as well as to provide electricity for computers and lights.

In fact, one study conducted by Open University found that producing and providing distance learning courses consumes an average of 90% less energy and produces 85% fewer CO2 emissions per student than conventional face-to-face courses. Those are huge amounts!

All of this is not to even mention the amount of paper products that a traditional school facility uses each and every day. Paper is used for all sorts of photocopies (many of which are lost or thrown away), books, notebooks and a myriad of other uses. And it’s not just the use of paper which impacts the environment by reducing the number of trees we have in the world – it’s also important to consider the resources which are used to make paper, such as water, electricity, fuel, bleach and a host of other chemicals.

Speaking of water, brick and mortar school facilities use a ton of it, and even if they participate in water recycling and reclamation programs, the amount of water used is still much, much higher than it would be if the school operated solely online. Online learning is not perfect, but it is very “green” and environmentally friendly.

Tags: Online Education by Jenny
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Preparing for an online class is very similar to preparing for a traditional class; one of the major differences will be that you might have to familiarize yourself with some of the technological components of the class. A course management system of some sort will very likely be used, and students can take in-depth tutorials of these systems before the course begins. Course management systems are used for a large variety of tasks including keeping track of assignments, lectures and readings, as well as for initiating class discussions.

Students will also want to ensure that their computers are in step with the course requirements. Do you need to purchase speakers? Will you need to use Microsoft Word and Adobe? What about a microphone and/or headphones?
One of the key parts to succeeding in any class, online or not, is making sure that you have a desk or work area set up. This will help keep you organized, and it will ensure that when you’re at your desk, you are working on school work as opposed to doing other things such as eating or reading a magazine, etc. Being highly organized is an important contributor to success.
Also, even though your school will be virtual, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the course’s “campus” or layout. You’ll most likely need to have a username and password to access your course’s site, so take care of that early. Where will your assignments be posted? Where do you submit finished work? Where will you participate in online discussions? Bookmark the start page for your courses, and if you’re using a home computer to do your work, have your computer “remember” passwords and login information so that you don’t have to worry about forgetting this key information.
Students should also take the time to read – really read – the syllabus. Familiarize yourself with course expectations and requirements. Make a note of big deadlines, and add them to your calendar right away. If you have questions about any of the information in the syllabus, email your instructor right away for clarification.

Finally, take advantage of any and all opportunities to introduce yourself to your classmates and your professor. This will help humanize the course and it will make you feel as though you are part of a family. It’s much easier to ask for help and to discuss a course with those who are familiar to you.
Remember to take all of these steps at least a week before the course officially begins. If you do, you can be relaxed once your work starts and you won’t have as many questions hanging over you as you begin to focus on your assignments.

Tags: Career Education, Learning Technologies, Online Education by Jenny
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