Tech Task #10

It was a very different experience participating in an online course. I was a little hesitant at first, but really wanted to take ECMP 455, so I knew it would be worth the risk. And in the end, it was! The one difficulty I had was not being able to "speak up" about many issues in class. Even if I were to blog them, that doesn't mean that everybody would read them. I know I'm a fast typer, but I don't think I could have typed my thoughts down quickly enough to address the topic before we had moved on. Another issue I had with the online course was that I have a short attention span and sometimes I could not focus on the content, especially if I was familiar with it. The nice thing was that we could listen to you talk and be doing other things at the same time. I learned well that way. I appreciated how the content was so detailed and laid out in such an easy to understand manner. I don't believe most professors would have done what you did for a course like this, but everything was easily accessible, especially if we had missed content. You were always available when there were questions. It wasn't like we had to wait for "office hours", because your online office is open all the time! You answered questions quickly and with enough detail to get the job done. I would recommend an online course for people who have never taken one before, but you have to be a fairly independent worker, and be able to keep up with the content. It's easy to fall behind. This course was great after my iTED internship. It helped me see other ways of incorporating technology and the neat things that were available to us for use in our classroom. Lots of tips and tricks were provided for future success. At some points I think you made us go out of our comfort zone, which was good for furthering our learning and builiding on prior knowledge. Specifically related to this course, if you're not familiar with computer content already, I would not recommend taking this course as an online course. There were points when I would be frustrated with some things, but that was when I experimented with the computer and the content. You should leave the schedule posted for us somewhere for future use, or don't take it offline right away, so that we are able to bookmark ALL of the wonderful webpages you have shown us. I feel my future students will benefit extremely from the content I have learned in this course.

I don't know how ideal online learning would be for K-12 students at this time. I feel like they need more experience with computers before they would be able to take the challenges of an online course. This would be through the discretion of their parents and past educators and how the student feels they would learn. I believe that all students should experience computer integration as they journey through their K-12 schooling, but done in a well thought out and safe manner. A lot of planning and consideration needs to be done before computers can be integrated into the classroom, in order for all students to benefit and succeed. There are many advantages and disadvantages to online education, and a lot of thought needs to be put into whether a parents' child would benefit from such. Each individual learns in a different way, and online education might be the route for some. I believe in the years to come we will see more online courses being taken by K-12 students, but right now I feel it is still in it's early stages, and has some years to go.

Thank you for all of your help throughout this semester. It has been a long and wonderful (semi-painful) journey. :) I wouldn't have made it without you!