Tuesday, 2 March 2010

Are there any concerns or issues I have about E-Learning?

Yes. Firstly time. It is really difficult t find the time a a busy teacher to create, upload and monitor / deliver resources specifically for E-Learning systems. Secondly, resources. Even when all the hard work has been done, IT resources are limited and not available all the time so some classes may miss out. Also some pupils, although admitedly no many, will not have access to the internet at home and with the best will in the world they will not be willing to go to the library or stay after school and use those resources.

Monday, 1 March 2010

Developing E-Learning Communities

I have been doing quite a bit of reading around this topic this week.

The first piece I found was really interesting as it was viewing E-Learning from a completely different angle to what I had done previously. It it a white paper from Adobe, creators of the PDF format, outlining their intentions to infiltrate the E-Learning market. That part wasn't so interesting but they had done some great, straight to the point research (as commercial companies tend to do). Well worth a read for general research on how E-Learning communities function and how they tend to share information.

The second was an article I have read before from the TES. Dating back to the year 2000 it outlines a bold view of a future in which people would be able to complete courses on-line, without ever actually meeting. I can't see that happening, can you?!?!?! I found it sooo relevant to this topic area as we can see how E-Learning has developed since then.

I have also been reading McDonnell (2006), E-Learning Groups and Communities. If anyone has chance to read this, his views of learning, as determined by the E-Learning software is of interest (page 10). He splits them into 'linear', 'deterministic', 'closed' and 'negative in their feedback'. He also outlines several advantages of colaberative work (over traditional competitive individual educational settings) on page 12-13. In conclusion, McDonnell basically splits E-Learing communities into 3 models (pages 18-19), 'transmission/dissemination', 'transmission with discussion' and 'learning community'. Also the section on successful on-line debates (page 16) has some great ground rules there which may make any on-line 'chat' sessions more successful!.

That is my thinking so far