Online Learning

Online learning is the future.  Or so I have been told.  I fully agree that the world is changing, the way we access information is changing, and the things students need are changing.  I see that education must change in order to serve the masses and online learning seems to be the answer to the question.  The problem that I see is in the quality of the education that can be gained in an online environment.  Online courses today don’t have the kind of robust depth or interaction that I would look for in an educational experience.  That being said, I think they could.  I think online learning could be extremely wonderful and fantastic but I feel it needs to grow out of its infancy.

While reading through the Michigan Merritt Guidelines on online learning I noticed right away that there was an emphasis on “substantive conversation”.  The guidelines require that online learning have some from of interpersonal interaction happening so that students and teachers can learn from one another.  As of right now, that usually means that students have to create post on blogs, forums, or discussion board.  Then, other students need to reply to those posts.  The problem is that most online students are not  going to take the time to reply to something unless they absolutely have to.  This causes instructors to require replies and then something terrible happens.  People interact with one another because they have to.  Its almost like virtual small talk.  As an educator, I feel like this type of interaction is the worst type of interaction that can take place in a learning environment.  I would almost prefer that students not interact at all if they are only doing it on a superficial level because they are being required to.

I would like to create a way to make substantive conversation an authentic experience like it is in a brick and mortar classroom.  There are ways that we can get online students to interact in more authentic ways than post and replies to blogs.  I think products like Voice Thread are creating a great way to interact.  I would like to implement that kind of interaction in my classroom because I think it is much better than simple text on a screen.  I would also bet that a product such as voice thread will intrigue most students enough that they would want to respond and interact.