Thing 18

1.  My district has an online program for students that has been in place for 4 years now.  Because of this online program, all teachers have access to e2020/education2020 for all courses that are taught within the building.  There have been several traditional classes that have blended online learning with traditional learning with some success.

Personally, I have used e2020 to prepare my students for the ACT/MME test.  Naturally, some students did find it beneficial and chose to continue working on e2020 at home.  For them, they felt better prepared for the actually ACT/MME.  Other students didn't take it seriously because there wasn't a grade attached to working on e2020 or they became frustrated with the content and decided to give up.

For this upcoming school year, I hope to incorporate the e2020 program as well as phschool.com  more in my planning for the classes I will be teaching.  I know I have students that would find learning some of the content online beneficial to their success in math.  Plus it would give students another view on how math can be taught.  It would also give them the opportunity to learn upcoming topics before they are taught.  I know I loose a few with some of my lectures.  Hopefully, by giving them another avenue of learning, they will use it to gain a better understand of the topics taught in class.

Downside:  Being able to get into a computer lab when every teacher in trying to do the same thing.  Too few labs and too few working computers is a big issue.

NOTE:  e2020 and phschool.com are at no cost to our students.

2.  Instead of writing a paragraph I decided to list some things that would enable a student to be successful as an online student.

• Commitment to taking online courses with the knowledge that you will be working independently.
• Being a self-sufficient independent (for the most part) learner
• Knowing the cost, if any, for taking online classes
• Willingness to increase skills for the workplace
• Willingness to learn new ways of communication(i.e. Skype, blogging, creating own website)
• Take on the responsibility for own learning
• Knowing if the course can be accessed at home, school, library, etc.
• Having a computer
• Knowing if working ahead is allowed
• The limit on the number of courses that can be taken in a semester
• Knowing who to contact for tech support
• What teachers are available and when to help when topics need more explanation 
• Will online courses count towards graduation?
• Are the online courses accredited?
• Will in-school lab time be required?
• Learning how to use the program that provides the online course
• Knowing how homework (if any), quizzes and tests are to be turned in.
• What happens when passing the course isn't possible?