Corey Whitacre's Blog

Chapter 7 is all about online safety and security.  When we are taking safety, security and students, we are talking about a lot because this is such an important issue. The danger for students on the Internet is increasing and commercial and pay sites are their greatest concern.  There are also concerns over useless or irrelevant results when using a search engine. This is a major concern. We all know that Wikipedia is not reliable but there are so many more sites with incorrect or skewed information. We need to emphasize that students use reliable sites when researching for information. If they are getting incorrect results that is just pointless and may hurt them worse in the long run. Especially, in the real world working real job.

                We also need to ensure information is being cited correctly for what students are pulling off the internet.  We cannot just pull something off the internet, change a few words and put our names on it and call it our work. This is a responsibility of ours to ensure students understand this problem. Because once again, this could cause major problems for the student latter on in life in the business world.

Online learning is traced back to 1995. Now it may have been around longer but this is when online learning became more then the future. It became a reality. Online learning really grew along side with the World Wide Web for obvious reasons. With that said, as the internet and technology has advanced tremendously in the last fifteen years so has online learning.

            The new environments of online learning include two major components. First, the multimedia explosion. This includes podcast, YouTube and slide sharer. This truly gives the opportunity to gain and receive more information than ever from wherever. Second, is mobile commuting such as mobile phones, PDAs ect. This truly gives us a wireless world where today’s people’s phones are better than computers from the past. We can access the web from anywhere.

            Another major change in online learning is the Web of 2007. It looks like nothing before its time. The definition of the Web of 2007 refers to the major changes the internet had seen at that time. The changes are such as social networks, blogs and wikis. As we all know from experience these changes have really changed the way we learn in the classroom and more importantly online.

http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/the-future-of-online-learning-and-personal-learning-environments

Education, educators and students are all changing at pace faster than ever, and that is due to technology. Students are part of a digital generation with new expectations and approaches to learning. They understand information from text, images, video and conversation. The day of using just the textbook with one author’s opinion is long gone. Students expect to be engaged and entertained at all times.

            This leaves educators with no choice but to embrace technology. We must be able to use technology proficiently and be able to pass the skills to our students. If we do not they will be at a disadvantage once they enter the business world.

            Another point in the text that caught my eye was financial issues. The cost of technology is far more than just the price of purchasing the equipment. Upgrades, support and maintenance are all additional cost. Districts have to explore the real cost of technology to ensure that they can sustain it. There is funding but sometimes this is just not enough. This truly is the business side to education.  

            The book offers alternatives such as using Linux as a platform and open source applications for free.

The article I chose is Online vs. Traditional Course Evaluation Formats: Student Perceptions. The reason I chose this article is because just from the title and later on reading through the content I was actually able to relate to the article and its points.

            The article talks about the many pros and cons of offering end-of-course evaluations in an electronic format or in traditional scan sheet format. This discussion stirred very many different viewpoints. A pro for offering evaluations on-line is that the evaluations online saves time and money and returns the results to faculty more quickly. This is mostly pro for faculty and administrator. As for students offering end-of-course evaluations in an electronic format is also a pro due to convenience. The report shows that there is a difference in responses of the research. The difference mostly comes from the demographics of gender, experience with online evaluations, and program level.

            I think offering end-of-course evaluations in an electronic format are a good idea vs. the traditional format. I like the ideal of saves time and money and returns the results to faculty more quickly and convenience to the students. I know that many students may just ignore completing the form by deleting the e-mail or whatever method they would use to get out of doing it. But, many students in the class do not fill out the traditional one either. Online may give students more time to reflect and give more meaningful feedback.

As I was reading through chapter five there was one point that really stood out to me. It was the professional development being administered through podcast in New Hampshire. I thought that this was a really cool idea as you can complete on your own time. Not only can you complete them on your own time but virtually from anywhere. They also mention a website LearningTimes (www.learningtimes.com) offers a variety of topics and is constantly being updated every day. There are a variety of organizations that offer podcast that you want to hear and can choose from.

It sounds that this area will be developing rapidly. This will allow for more training and development for educators. We can also the educate students on podcast and teach them how to use them to benefit themselves. As we prepared students for the business world podcast is an important component. Businesses are using this method for communication to their employees more and more every day.

Also, I think that blogs are a really useful tool for the classroom and in the business world. It allows for so much communication, networking and collaboration of ideas from the ease of anywhere we have internet access, which is practically everywhere.