Brian,
I agree with much of your comments and believe that many mixing it up helps with an online learning environment. With so many learning styles quizzes, discussions and shared resources make for a better learning environment.
Antoine Lewis
I'm using some of the cloud based system that others have mentioned here such as dropbox, skydrive, slideshare, etc. Also social bookmarking sites such as delicious.com are a fantastic way to share with your class some of the great resources that are on the web. There is a major move toward a more collaborative learning experience, I've started using edmodo in tandem with traditional classes, students can respond to and create discussions, share resources, take quizes, etc. It makes for a more immersive and personalized learning experience, not so much getting up and lecturing.
Lucila,
The internet has indeed giving educators the ability to better illustrate and break down material for a student.
Antoine Lewis
What I like about having the internet on hand is, when I have a student with a question of "why" I can easily have the answer along with the ability to actually break things down from the beginning to end.For myself what helped me was when I had to cover reproduction and the stages of labor. We went through it during the power point but I was able to show the students on the internet the actual stages.
Shelia,
Good job encouraging your students to research. It is important that today’s student know what are reputable sites that can be used to research and knowledge is at their fingertips but have to be careful as anyone can now post information on the wed.
Antoine Lewis
My students access an online program that allows them to take practice tests for their licensing exam. They can take the tests as many times as they like. Also, if they have questions about a question, they can use the Internet to research it. I show them various sites where they are most likely to find information pertaining to our field of study. I try to emphasize the wealth of knowledge literally at their fingertips, reminding them that when I was in college research was based on spending hours and days searching through bookshelves in a library. ...Not that long ago really!
Bill,
It seems that dropbox is and will change how instructors share course material within a physical or virtual classroom as technology evolves
Antoine Lewis
Robert,
It is good than you are being proactive and resouceful within your classroom(s)
Antoine Lewis
Shelia,
Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your documents anywhere and share them easily. A good read is http://www.billselak.com/2012/dropbox
Antoine Lewis
This is but one of the cloud systems for virtual information transfering
If you have a msn account you can activate skydrive
for drop box go to dropbox.com
sign up
you can then have your freinds sign up on drop box and you canhave instant communication
for my students each class crates a linage
whe nI give them an assignment there is an instant notifiacaation even to their smaart phone they can do their work post it back and all is in a single sourceaccessable any where any time
I have used it as a fact check for when our textbook makes a statement that seems suspect. Students love to take their phones out and try to find out if the book is wrong. I have found that bringing in a Utube video is a good addition. It takes a lot of seraching time before I find an appropriate example, so this is a slow process. A am using some free educational sites such as Engrade so students can check how they are doing. I am building a class folder of material on Class Jump so students can access information associted with what we are covering. I feel there are other tools out there I have yet to find and learn about, so this course has been a good source for more of that sort of thing.
Never heard of dropbox. Can you tell me what it is? Thanks!
Zelda,
Distance learning can employ almost any learning style discussed. Much of the power of learning via the internet lies in taking into account the varied learning styles of students and providing learners such as those that do best as a self-directed, and visual online learner.
Antoine Lewis
Dawn,
While the quality of internet provides resources it also complicates the research process in my opinion, but the internet can also function as a rich source material for critical thinking
Antoine Lewis
Depending on the course, the Internet provides a wealth of resources. For example, in a networking course, I'll use the Internet to look-up standards and current technology. Even books that have been published in the past year often require a supplemental resource to bring the content up-to-date. In a programming course, it's often easier to search for code samples on the Internet than to search through a textbook.
The biggest advantage is probably the wealth of information that is available. It's important however to utilize critical thinking skills to evaluate the particular resource.
I use the internet to help present concepts found in our textbook...I show the class other explanations and examples from the internet. I also encourage my students to use online labs found at other colleges website for tutorial purposes. Many of my students are into video games and being able to use the internet with all of its graphics and sound helps to keep their interest in class and sometimes causes them to feel at ease about a difficult topic.
titilola,
I agree a dropbox would be a good to have and try as it is often free and convenient. In my opinion the best tool the dropbox offers is that if you have multiple computers you can still work on a document that you started working on at the "other" computer.
Antoine Lewis
I'm not familiar with dropbox, however, after reading the comments of others about it, I am interested in trying it out. I find that using a variety of sites from the internet helps to keep students engaged and curious.
Kathryn,
Open courseware site are becoming popular in the education field as a resource for instructors.
Antoine Lewis
Kathryn,
I like that dropbox keeps lesson plans organized.
Antoine Lewis
