Mod 6 K-12 Online Education
Posted in EDTL 6360 on March 27th, 2012 by PamelaCan I Teach Online?
Online education is one of my interest as I pursue my masters degree. But only in the college level, I am not totally sold that K-12 online education is the way to go. I feel kids at that age need to have the social interaction to be ready for the workforce. There is always an exception to the rule, children with disabilities I feel would totally benefit from this service, along with teenagers that have discipline problems. I am hoping I will be able to teach online courses in the community college level with the balance of teaching an in-person class.
As for the teachers it sounds great, but having listen to a virtual online educator speak, she mentioned her hours are from 8am-5pm and some extra hours for developing the program or discussing problems with the students. It seemed liked they work more hours, but have the advantage of being home most of time. After reading about certification, I feel that there should be a special certification for online teaching. It would be helpful for the teacher and school when the teachers are prepared to teach an online class.
As the online schools grow and develop it is important that the curriculum is entirely online ready to teach and the lessons are clearly written for the students to understand. According to one of the articles there is a school from Texas that has half and half in person class and some classes online. This method seems to be growing more and more to keep up with the 21st century of technology. I hate to say I believe there will be more and more k-12 online schools because how students are constantly using technology and never seem to talk to each much. Because of this the students seem to used to this type of interaction if it be by friends, family and/or a teacher.
The only way I could understand why online education could possibly work is using high-quality technology. For instance being able to talk to student using Skype or something similar and having several students talking to each other at once. I still feel having interaction with each other is so important. I read some teachers experiences with online teaching, it is clear that there needs to have standards written to improve the curriculum. This would also help with consistency in the classroom, so the teachers would be teaching the same curriculum. I thought it was interesting reading the teachers comments on their experiences: some teachers seem to love it and it is working great for them, while others are struggling with technology support and curriculum organization.
Finally, I am not 100% for K-12 on line education. I feel teaching students half in-person and half on-line would be the best way for students to learn. I strongly feel students need to have social interaction to improve on their soft skills. On-line education in the college level is a better choice and plan. As I begin my search to teach on-line classes, I may change my opinion but at this time I feel this is something I will enjoy.
Below is a site that is trying to sell K-12 online education- has some good testimonials but still I am not convinced this is the future of education.
http://www.k12.com/