Week 6: Online Learning

Workspace for Online Teaching

Donald Jordan “Workspace for Online Teaching” Jan 22 2014 via Flickr,Creative Commons Attribution

The past two weeks we have been investigating online and blended learning and actually throughout the past two semesters you have been learning in an online program-so you aren’t unfamiliar with this topic. The readings also discuss hybrid or blended learning strategies. As my teaching has evolved I have moved to teaching courses which are delivered entirely online. What I find most interesting about this transition is that there are many things that apply to both teaching online and teaching face to face. Especially when designing the course. Some of the principles of quality online course design are true of quality face to face course design. The differences for me are in the delivery. The delivery of content, activities, and information through only online mechanisms takes time, especially in the planning and communication. Instructions that might take 5 minutes to say at the end of a face to face class take me a good 30 minutes to write and communicate. So for the instructor teaching online is not always more efficient. My teaching has evolved from traditional face-to-face lecture style to teaching all of my courses entirely online. So I have learned along the way that while there are many things are similar, there is something inherently different about teaching online.

Blog Post 4: None of you are strangers to online learning. I’d like you to answer the following questions in your blog post this week. What are the similarities and differences you see in face to face and online teaching and learning? What are the benefits of online courses or programs? What are the challenges? Finally, how do you feel about online teaching and learning?