CEDO 550 - Week 1

After seeing some of the sample courses and packages that are being offered in today's online learning "game" I have to admit that I am pretty impressed. I spent some time on the discussion boards saying how I thought that online learning was more geared towards advanced, self-motivated, organized students but now that I have seen actual sample lessons (K12 website) I think that there is much more hope that these online programs can help struggling kids as well. The GUI is impressive and caters to visual learners and there is enough variety among the ways that material is presented and evaluated that I think a wide range of students could have an excellent chance at success when finding failure in traditional classroom settings. The main topic of discussion during our web conference (group work) was how we thought that self-motivation was key to the success of an online learning program with students. We were leery of its potential effectiveness with unmotivated students but after seeing how attractive the online schools and their programs look it has given me reason to believe that there might be hope. I have seen unmotivated students at my school turn over a new leaf with opportunities provided by technology. Case in point, 12 out of the 14 struggling students given iPads have shown marked improvement in the areas of motivation, organization, and creativity over a 3 month period. Technology has that positive effect more often than not on today's youth. It is not always able to be explained but we can certainly take advantage of that allure to reach students in ways that we couldn't reach them before. Online learning is a perfect example.