How Are E-learning And Classroom-based Learning Similar? How Are They Different?

Although many states and organizations are developing standards for distance education, a widely accepted set does not even so exist. Rather, distance educators concur that due east-learning should support content standards and land learning goals in the same means that traditional classroom learning does. In add-on, participating in distance learning can assistance students come across many standards, such as using technology tools to collaborate, communicate, solve issues, and inquire.

Specific guidelines for dissimilar types of online learning are existence adult, but for at present teachers tin can recollect about how east-learning might improve help them meet curricular goals and educatee needs. If east-learning cannot encounter these goals and needs, then a different instructional strategy should exist used.

OVERVIEW OF Due east-LEARNING IN K–12 CLASSROOMS

What Is e-Learning?

Because learning through or with the aid of digital technologies like the Internet is a relatively new phenomenon that expands continuously, in that location are many terms to draw it and few consistent understandings of what these terms mean. For example, mutual terms to describe some or all aspects of learning through technology include distance education, distributed learning, open learning, online didactics, virtual classrooms, composite learning, and e-learning. Clearly, east-learning is not a learning goal per se but rather a structure or context for engineering-supported learning through which content, communication, disquisitional thinking, creativity, trouble solving, and product tin can all take identify. For this book, the term e-learning (brusque for electronic learning) ways that the learning environment:

Is enhanced with digital technologies, particularly but not necessarily computer-mediated communication software (CMC, described in chapter iii)

Involves learning situations where interaction between the student and instructor is mediated, or bridged by technology, in some manner

Uses technology in an ongoing and consistent way, non in isolated events

Is learner-centered

Focuses on students with instructor and student with pupil interaction

Uses a wide variety of resources

According to this definition, e-learning tin can occur in contexts such every bit

A face-to-face (f2f) classroom in an online chat

Video conferencing

A virtual schoolhouse that is completely online (for examples, see the Idaho Virtual University, http://idva.k12.com/. A lesson provided by K–12, Inc. is shown in Figure 8.i; Florida Virtual School, www.flvs.net/)

Situations that combine these options (see the U.Southward. regime's Star Schools at www.ed.gov/).

All of these examples fit the definition of e-learning in this affiliate.

A combination of contiguous and electronic learning can be referred to as blended, hybrid, or mixed-mode environments. Generally, in blended contexts, f2f time is partly given over to e-learning experiences. These optimal environments let teachers to blend the all-time of f2f and online learning. Allay (2004) explains, "The traditional face-to-face uncomplicated classroom imparts the social contact that children need to guide their learning while the online, or Spider web-based, learning environs offers flexibility and opportunities not possible in a traditional classroom. To create a learning environment using both modes to enhance the

learning experiences of the students would provide the greatest benefit" (p. i). Giarla (2017) notes many benefits of composite learning, suggesting that blending f2f and e-learning can result in higher quality achievement and better didactics. Figure eight.2 presents online projects that could be integrated into a blended learning environment.

As in almost instructional contexts, three general components interact to comprise e-learning:

Instructional and learning strategies, such every bit collaboration, reflection, problem-solving, communication

Pedagogical models or constructs, which indicate how learning takes place

Learning technologies, including everything from Web sites to communication software and digital cameras (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005)

However, there can also exist crucial differences between traditional learning in f2f classrooms and e-learning; for example, Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland (2005) contrast the characteristics of traditional and Web-based learning as outlined in Table 8.1.

Traditional Learning Environments	Web-based Learning Environment
Bounded	Unbounded
Existent time	Time shifts: asynchronous communications and accelerated cycles
Instructor controlled	Decentralized control
Linear	Hypermedia: multidimensional space, linked navigation, multimedia
Juried, edited sources	Unfiltered searchability
Stable information sources	Dynamic, real-fourth dimension information
Familiar technology	Continuously evolving technology

Note: Data from Why the Web? Linkages, by M. Chambers, 1997. Paper presented at The Potential of the Web, Institute for Distance Pedagogy, Academy of Maryland University College, Adelphi, MD. Source: Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland (2005).

Who Are e-Learners?

Today, students of all kinds are participating in distance learning through a diverseness of e-learning opportunities. Co-ordinate to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2005, 36% of school districts and 9% of all public schools had 328,000 students enrolled in some kind of due east-learning. High-poverty districts were among the most ardent supporters of using due east-learning to provide services that the commune could non otherwise afford to provide to students (Setzer & Greene, 2005). By 2009-x, 53% of districts had students in online courses, and i.iii 1000000 high school students were enrolled (National Center for Educational activity Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/). Clearly, the trend is growing and has no indications of stopping soon.

Most K–12 elearners access their online courses from their schools, which often provide onsite help for eastward-learners. Nonetheless, home learners, homebound learners, juvenile detainees, alternative school attendees, and schoolhouse dropouts too use e-learning resources. E-learning is flexible plenty to come across their needs for easy access and alternative curricula. Although the majority of e-learners who study completely online are in high schools, even younger children are taking part in e-learning tasks in their classrooms. Schools generally provide east-learning for avant-garde written report and remediation, but many schools and districts are also making a systematic effort to employ e-learning in reforming what they do across their classrooms. For example, second graders are communicating regularly through email with experts about class content, and ninth graders are working with students in other countries through the Internet to sympathize culture.

Because distance education at the Thou–12 level is withal developing, the full results of these changes will not be bachelor for some time. Nonetheless, preliminary enquiry shows that, done well, e-learning environments can be effective for K–12 learners (run into, for example, Cavanaugh, Barbour, and Clark, 2009). Because e-learning concepts and understandings alter rapidly and the research cannot keep up, Conceicao and Drummond (2005) suggest that the best identify to find out most due east-learning in K–12 contexts is to wait at Spider web sites that provide examples of how due east-learning is taking place.

Contexts for e-learning

Many due east-learning tasks and courses are interactive multimedia explorations among a variety of participants. However, some due east-learning formats still replicate the isolating, one-way correspondence course. There is no 1 set format or style to conduct due east-learning, but what information technology should not (and usually cannot) be is traditional educational activity moved to a new medium. For example, in a text-based electronic forum, if the teacher monopolizes the discussion (the equivalent of offline lecture), it is easy enough for students to ignore her postings.

The use of technology for east-learning makes it imperative that teachers rethink how they teach and investigate what the new mediums beget. Such reassessment is necessary because during eastward-learning, communication can accept place synchronously (at the same fourth dimension) or asynchronously (at unlike times), and participants can exist in a variety of spaces and places. The variety in these instructional features calls for a multifariousness of approaches, as seen in the three scenarios that follow.

Scenario I—Videoconferencing

The teacher and students at four different sites videoconference twice per week for an hr each session. Students find materials on the course Web site, use online conversation to work in teams to interact on assignments, and receive assist from teachers at their local schoolhouse site when they have questions and concerns. They electronic mail or fax their assignments or post them to their Spider web site for evaluation, and they each take an office visit with the teacher by phone or Skype once per month.

Scenario Two—Online Grade

In a completely Spider web-based course, students who never meet their teacher f2f go into their course space in an online learning environs such as the gratuitous Canvas platform ( https://sheet.instructure.com/) and find instructions for the electric current assignment. As they proceed through the assignment, they interact with other students and the teacher asynchronously through the discussion forum. They can enquire for help and feedback, post comments and Spider web site URLs, and participate in an analysis of the topic at hand. They also send and receive emails with the teacher and consult the online resources available in the course infinite, including rubrics for the activities. After they plow in (fax, electronic mail, or post) the concluding draft of their assignments, they receive comments and a course in a virtual space online that is only seen by them. Figure viii.three shows the interface of one electronic forum where an ELL student and instructor are discussing conditions every bit function of a unit on inventiveness. In the threaded discussion shown, the comments are inset to testify the society in which the comments were input and whether they are new letters or replies to a

previous message.

Scenario 3—Composite Learning

In an case of a hybrid or blended course, students in advanced high school science are released from two class periods each week to work on private projects. They go along in touch with the other students and the teacher about their projects using an electronic forum where they post information about their progress.

…………………………………………

As discussed in affiliate 3, students could participate in other e-learning activities including communicating with external experts, accessing remote resource, mentoring and tutoring students at other sites, and working in projects where students collaborate with external peers or other audiences. There are many variations on due east-learning, but all must comply with standards and guidelines for constructive pedagogy. Fifteen years ago Blomeyer (2002) noted what is still true today; that the most important agreement that teachers and administrators must take about e-learning is:

In the terminal analysis, e-learning isn't nearly digital technologies whatever more than classroom teaching is well-nigh chalkboards. due east-learning is most people and about using technology systems to support constructive social interactions, including man learning. (p. 5)

Characteristics of effective e-learning tasks

Small but critical differences exist between tasks in face-to-face classrooms and in online contexts. For example, Jackson (2004) contrasts content-loftier and process-loftier tasks that occur during e-learning. Content-high tasks, the most common in contiguous instruction, are i-mode resource dumps from teacher to educatee with trivial interaction. If this occurs during e-learning, students may drop the task or non practice well because of the lack of support.

Process-high tasks, on the other hand, acknowledge the importance of interaction and communication among students and instructors before, during, and after the task. Employing process-high tasks is a principle emphasized throughout this text to back up all learning goals and is particularly of import for online learning experiences (Tallent-Runnels et al., 2006). However, fifty-fifty process-high online activities lack the kind of educatee gestures, facial expressions, and other feedback that allow teachers to "read" how their students are doing. Teachers in f2f contexts find

this blazon of feedback essential during process-high tasks and must larn either to do without it or obtain it in some other fashion during online courses. To accost this potential problem, effective east-learning tasks must take carefully designed opportunities for interaction. In addition, teachers tin can assistance students learn to convey their intentions through the use of text color and size (e.m., ALL CAPS MEANS SHOUTING), format (east.grand., use italics for emphasis), and emoticons, or text-based emotion icons (observe a complete definition and a listing of emoticons at the What is . . . site at http://whatis.techtarget.com/).

In addition, effective e-learning tasks employ multimedia rather than one medium. If the interaction during e-learning is solely in writing information technology can pose a barrier to language learners and other students with unlike reading and writing abilities. To overcome this barrier, back-trail instructions sent in an electronic mail message with a recording of the message and/or attach a handout with graphics.

To be effective, tasks must also exist diverse and have clear instructions so that students are not bored or confused before they brainstorm. To avert confusion, effective east-learning tasks should include ways for students to:

Receive reinforcement.

Review or echo any part of the task.

Ask for help or remediation for parts of the chore that are not clear or are besides challenging.

This is relatively easier to do in blended contexts because the teacher can interact f2f with students and sympathise their needs more readily.

Finally, because students typically piece of work more independently when involved in eastward-learning tasks, extra fourth dimension may be needed to consummate tasks. Therefore, build flexibility into the assignment alee of time. Characteristics of effective e-learning tasks are summarized in Figure 8.four.

Student benefits from e-learning

Students tin derive a number of benefits from participating in effective e-learning tasks. A Instructor's Guide to Distance Learning, published online by the Florida Center for Instructional Technology (http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/distance), suggests that e-learning can have the post-obit benefits for students:

Flexibility/control. When students participate in true e-learning, they have more control over their learning. They can cull the step, site, and format of their learning. Students in many e-learning situations tin can besides cull what they wear to acquire.

Responsibility. During e-learning, students are required to get active, responsible learners. To exist successful, students must develop skills in working independently, in asking for help, and in interacting with fewer nonverbal cues from other participants.

Exposure. Oftentimes, e-learning exposes students to resource, people, and interactions that may not occur in traditional f2f tasks or environments. This idea was outlined in chapter 3 and throughout this volume.

Interaction. During e-learning, students learn technology and accept more opportunities to interact with teachers than in traditional classrooms. Shy students, those with limited language skills, and those with physical limitations can often take more time and more admission to the interactions because they can read and respond at their own pace.

Anonymity/equity. When students are online, cultural, physical, and other personal attributes are non focal and are often invisible during interaction. The online format can exist more equitable for students with noticeable speaking differences, physical disabilities, and other characteristics that might present barriers in f2f interactions.

Convenience. E-learning opportunities come in all shapes and sizes. While some require attendance or a starting engagement at specific times, others allow teachers and students to set their own schedules.

Overall, research shows no significant departure in educatee accomplishment between skillful f2f educational activity and e-learning. In other words, if done well, both tin piece of work toward pupil accomplishment. However, in a mode the comparison is a false ane—students do different kinds of tasks during eastward-learning and they learn in unlike means, and therefore information technology is important to offer a variety of options for learning, including contiguous time. Researchers are looking into these outcomes more than closely to see which factors promote what kind of achievement for which students. For instance, according to an analysis of the inquiry on altitude learning, the 2016 National Education Applied science Plan (https://tech.ed.gov/netp/learning/) concluded that:

Historically, a learner'southward educational opportunities have been express past the resources found within the walls of a school. Technology-enabled learning allows learners to tap resources and expertise anywhere in the earth, starting with their ain communities.

Schoolhouse and district east-learning benefits

In addition to student benefits, e-learning as well has benefits for teachers, schools, and districts. According to the National Instruction Technology Plan (essential reading for whatsoever teacher; Office of Educational Applied science, 2016),

Educators tin design highly engaging and relevant learning experiences through technology. Educators have nearly limitless opportunities to select and use technology in ways that connect with the interests of their students and achieve their learning goals. For example, a classroom teacher kickoff a new unit on fractions might cull to take his students play a learning game such as Factor Samurai, Wuzzit Trouble, or Sushi Monster as a manner to innovate the concept. Subsequently, the teacher might direct students to practice the concept by using manipulatives and so they can start to develop some grounded ideas about equivalence. (n.p.)

These are benefits that cannot be overlooked in this age of shrinking funding, teacher shortages, and increased accountability. Of form, there are too disadvantages to due east-learning.

Disadvantages of e-learning

The disadvantages of e-learning, like the benefits, vary by context. These include, for example:

Teachers might find information technology difficult to run into all learners' needs in a completely online course since some need more construction or f2f interaction than exists in e-learning contexts.

Learners at a distance from the teacher might non have support for technical bug.

Students who practice not have access to technology outside of school may non take the pick to participate.

Teamwork is more than complicated in online contexts because the typical classroom immediacy of contact is mediated by admission to and use of the engineering science.

If information and resources are not advisedly called, the learner tin exist overwhelmed with the corporeality of information available online.

The often-huge number of discussion postings and assignments for teachers to check in completely online classes might prevent students from getting the straight, immediate feedback that they need.

In spite of these difficulties, calculation due east-learning to f2f courses, such every bit integrating a give-and-take lath or class blog, for example, tin can enhance effective learning. In addition, the "broader educational community" can contribute to the experiences.

E-LEARNING PROCESSES

The benefits from eastward-learning will accumulate if participants pay careful attention to the processes involved. These include:

The teacher'due south (or instructional designer'south) process of creating e-learning opportunities

The educatee's process in taking those opportunities

According to Bowman, teachers and instructional designers generally use the post-obit process to create and implement successful due east-learning experiences:

Plan—appraise the learners and the technology.

Design—develop learning objectives that advance content to [attain] desired learning outcomes.

Develop—match learning objectives to media using multiple strategies to engage creativity (e.g., lecture, text, sound, video, instance study, team projects, applied exercises and individual assignments, interactive problem solving, student-to-student interaction).

Implement and evaluate—use iterative (repeating) blueprint so activities tin be improved and updated easily. (n.p.)

During e-learning tasks, students must:

Understand the assignment.

Learn the technology to a level sufficient to complete the job(s).

Interact with the online community to build understandings.

Complete the assignments and related assessments.

Depending on the goals of the eastward-learning course, students will also use processes to solve problems, communicate, produce, and meet other learning goals.

Teachers and east-learning

Teachers must often learn new skills and take on new responsibilities in e-learning environments. Ko and Rossen (2017) notation that online instructors, while sharing the need for good communication and organization skills with f2f teachers, also require a different set of skills. These include:

Planning for asynchronous or other distant interaction

Organizing detailed tasks and instructions

Using presentation skills specific to eastward-learning environments

Using questioning strategies for different (often unseen) students

Involving students beyond different sites

Using student progress reports and learning analytics

Connections to social media

Keeping updated on the technologies

These needs might require that the instructor learn new technologies and teaching strategies, every bit described in the following department.

The teacher'due south role

There are cases where electronic instruction consists of lectures posted online, but these are not good examples of due east-learning. The teacher'due south function in e-learning is to exist a facilitator, making sure that students are engaged in working toward learning goals. In this role, teachers can:

Build rapport with students past meeting with them f2f or working on a personal footing at the start.

Encourage eastward-learners by addressing feedback to them by name, and guide them in finding their own answers.

Make sure students are spending their time effectively, not spending a disproportionate amount of time on assignments simply working efficiently toward the course or chore objectives.

Separate classes into give-and-take groups. More than than six members in a group tends to isolate at least one member. Fewer tends to shut down the group in the outcome 2 members get unavailable (Jackson, 2004).

Require individuals to identify their discussion posts conspicuously. Besides require groups to summarize their group discussions and so that students do not need to read every posting.

Create a presence in the class or job. Let students know that the teacher is observing and is available.

Above all, teachers must exist able to promote successful interaction during e-learning.

Challenges for teachers in creating e-learning opportunities

At that place are barriers that teachers may face when get-go using e-learning. For example, the engineering science chosen for the course can become in the way of instruction considering information technology mediates in means that foreclose teachers from receiving and providing visual cues or instant feedback. Therefore, teachers and course designers must make instruction straight and concise. They must besides take into consideration:

The difficulty for students of reading extensive text on a monitor

The time it takes students to type their responses

The pace and amount of data such every bit video clips, discussion postings, and Web- based data

To piece of work around these challenges, during course design teachers tin work with an instructional designer, a engineering specialist, the library media specialist, and fifty-fifty students. Once the course or task is designed, teachers can and should partner with the students' on-site teachers and counselors. To see an instance of teachers partnering with others, take the online tour of Virtual High School at www.govhs.org/website.nsf.

GUIDELINES FOR SUPPORTING Pupil E-LEARNING

This chapter has shown that e-learning is not entirely different from f2f learning, nor does it require completely different teaching skills. Also, the guidelines in this section apply to all learning contexts, only they accept on importance in e-learning contexts, whether hybrid or fully online.

Guidelines for Designing eastward-learning Opportunities

Four guidelines for edifice constructive, interactive e-learning opportunities are presented hither.

Guideline #one: Build customs. Whether participating in a Web-based grade or a technology- enhanced homework assignment, students need to know that they are not alone and that others are working toward the same goals. It is important that students place themselves as members of the learning community whether they are face-to-face with other students or in a virtual on- line classroom. Strategies for building community include encouraging all students to participate, providing support for group work, connecting learning to students' lives as a group, and incorporating team-building exercises into tasks. Customs tin can besides be built using strategies such as all participants using others' names when they are interacting online, posting profiles (and peradventure photos) that help learners choose group members and get to know more about each other, and having online chats to give learners a chance to work together in real time.

Guideline #2: Consider the subconscious curriculum. In any curriculum, at that place are elements that are non explicitly taught (i.due east., they are "hidden"). These include values, relationships, societal

norms, and expectations. These are essential elements that students are expected to learn. Eastward-learning likewise has its hidden curriculum, such as the cultural and social impacts of e-learning. Questions for teachers to reply that accost this hidden curriculum include:

Who benefits from the way information is being presented?

What dominant ideology, explicit or implicit, is being espoused?

What is credit being given for in the grade? Participation? Writing well? Citing the course texts?

What kind of student will succeed or fail in this context?

How is engineering science valued?

Who should be allowed to participate in this e-learning experience?

This terminal question arises from the economic bear upon of courses that are offered for a fee.

Guideline #3: Organize alee of time. A Web site or learning management system (LMS) similar Canvass or pbworks that accompanies e-learning opportunities and provides the following tin assist students and teachers work more efficiently and finer. This site should include:

One-end location for upward-to-the-infinitesimal grade announcements, materials, assignments, etc. Digitized information is also easily modified and maintained.

Resource and access capabilities for all students.

A mode to display and receive resources which may otherwise be hard to gather or locate, such as samples of assignments (practiced and bad with reasons why), or hot links to Web sites used for class assignments (for example, analyses of corporate annual reports).

Online archive of grade slides, graphics, digitized video, for educatee retrieval and report on their own time.

Digitized multimedia that illustrate grade concepts, especially those that are interactive. (due north.p.)

By organizing alee of time and creating a Web site with all the essential information and tools, teachers will have more time to dedicate to the of import interactions necessary to the success of east-learning.

Guideline #4: Give clear instructions. Office of organizing e-learning is clarifying what students need to exercise and how they should do it. Because students are more often than not non in the same room as the teacher and typically cannot ask questions on the spot, the instructions for e-learning tasks need to exist very explicit and models, if available, should be accessible to students. This seems easier than it really is—classroom teachers usually rely on being able to "read" their students to clarify and add to instructions, and it takes practise to write good instructions that do not need further caption. Effigy eight.6 summarizes the guidelines for e-learning.

Eastward-LEARNING TOOLS

Considering e-learning occurs in then many configurations and contexts, many dissimilar tools, lonely or in combination, are used. Electronic tools for e-learning can include whatever of the tools mentioned throughout this text (CD-ROMs, videos, social media, and so on). From printed materials such as textbooks and handouts to uncomplicated audio material such as audiocassettes to the latest computer technologies, almost any tool can be integrated into e-learning. However, almost formal eastward-learning contexts currently include interactive technologies such every bit the World Broad Web, email, and video technologies. It is not within the scope of this text to talk over how to use all the tools that are used for east-learning, but the annotated collection presented in this department tin can aid teachers begin an investigation of common e-learning tools. Nearly of the tool Spider web sites include tutorials and other support for new users.

In addition to an Net connectedness, a Web browser (e.g., Google, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) with add together-ons (i.e., mini-applications or plug-ins) will assistance students listen to audio, see video, and compose and send e-mail. Other tools that tin exist used during hybrid and on-line classes include the following.

Learning environments

Learning environments provide online or "virtual" places to interact and post course content. Some environments are commercially produced, others are complimentary. Some are authorable, or able to be changed by users, while others cannot exist changed. Many commercial environments come with preset content; others allow the use of homegrown (locally produced) content. Each tool has specific strengths and weaknesses that can best be found past using it in context (most offering a demonstration version and technical assistance for evaluation purposes).

Some pop learning environments are listed here. They typically include some preset features such as asynchronous threaded discussion, internal email, document and link posting, and synchronous conversation capabilities. For less structured environments, see authorable platforms later in this section.

Commercial environments

Blackboard (www.blackboard.com)

Canvas (canvas.instructure.com/login/canvas; gratis for teachers)

Nicenet (www.nicenet.org; free for teachers)

Wikis, blogs and other complimentary virtual spaces

Wikis, blogs (spider web logs), vlogs (video logs) and other spaces similar those provided by Facebook, Twitter, and other social media forums can as well function as learning environments where students can get to practice what they learned face to face up, interact with other students in dissimilar locations, or hold form meetings.

For a list of education-based wikis, endeavor the Education with Thinking and Engineering science at https://didactics-with-applied science.wikispaces.com/Wikis+in+Educational activity

Free blogs for students can be found at edublogs (edublogs.org), kidblog (kidblog.org), and 21Classes (www.21classes.com). All of these blogs are evaluated on the Web for apply in classrooms, and teachers are well-advised to check some of the communication that other teachers provide.

Students and teachers tin can both watch vlogs and create their own. Search "vlogs for students" or "vlogs for teaching" to go started.

Web page/ Web site creators

Weebly and Wix (mentioned throughout this text) and many other gratuitous web site creators are available across the Web. Unlike in the past when students had to learn to apply HTML to build their site, these apps allow students to click and drag and make professional-looking pages. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and teachers should attempt the ones they are interested in before having their students use them. Crockett (2016) provides a succinct list of useful educational web site creators at https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/viii-free-website-creator-tools.

Spider web page hosts

All of the following Web sites host personal Spider web space for gratis, although some practice require registration. Instructors and students in e-learning courses can create Web pages to share their ideas and work, whether they are in dissimilar locations or in the aforementioned classroom. There are many more providers across the Web than are listed hither.

Quia (www.quia.com/)

FreeSite.com (www.thefreesite.com/Free_Web_Space/)

Bravenet.com (www.bravenet.com)

Blogger (www.blogger.com)

TeacherWeb (http://teacherweb.com)

SchoolNotes (world wide web.schoolnotes.com/)

Tripod (www.tripod.lycos.com)

Quiz and cess tools

A large number of quiz and survey tools are bachelor to comport pre- and post-assessments with students both online and off. For case:

Quizstar and Rubistar (www.4teachers.org). Create quizzes and rubrics easily with these free tools.

Survey Monkey (surveymonkey.com), Doodle (doodle.com) and other free software apps tin be published to the Web for all kinds of information-gathering purposes.

Video and audio conferencing tools and resources

Not typically as comprehensive every bit learning environments, conferencing tools allow students to meet and talk over as function of hybrid and completely online classes. For case, 3rd graders learning about space tin can call a scientist at NASA for free, or middle school students in an online class tin can concur a videoconference with peers in Germany to compare ideas nearly important earth problems. Unremarkably these resource provide some combination of video, audio, and/or text capabilities, and many are gratuitous. Telephony software, or software that allows the user to make telephone calls over the Net, is currently very popular. Examples of free conferencing and telephony software include:

MSN Messenger with Video and/or Voice (imagine-msn.com)

Yahoo Messenger (http://messenger.yahoo.com)

iChat (www.apple tree.com)

Skype (www.skype.com)

To larn about the benefits of videoconferencing, see https://www.eztalks.com/video-conference/benefits-of-video-conferencing-in-teaching.html.

Digital libraries

Students and teachers tin have advantage of digital libraries in hybrid and online courses. These libraries contain everything from raw data to online texts. Examples include:

Library of Congress (https://catalog.loc.gov/)

NASA Astrophysics Information Organisation (http://adswww.harvard.edu/)

Projection Gutenberg (world wide web.gutenberg.org/)

Visible Human Project (www.nlm.nih.gov/inquiry/visible/visible_human.html)

Observe more resources for both instructor and student use in the Instructor Toolbox that accompanies this text.

Content-based learning sites

Content-based Web sites, along with content-based stand-lone software packages, are mentioned throughout this text and can be integrated into both hybrid and online classes at all class levels. Hither are some useful sites:

National Geographic Kids' Network (http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/)

i*earn Learning Circles (www.iearn.org/circles/lcguide/)

PBS Kids (pbskids.org)

Discovery Channel (www.discoveryeducation.com/)

Library of Congress learning page (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/)

Software archives

These online storage places for software offering costless or very cheap downloads for education software that tin can be integrated into e-learning contexts. Not all of it is the best, and teachers demand to review their selections carefully.

Tucows (www.tucows.com)

WinSite (www.winsite.com)

download.com (home and education; http://download.cnet.com/south/home-and-pedagogy/?cat=education)

One of the all-time sources on the Internet for online learning resource is eastward-Learning Eye's School due east- Learning Showcase at www.east-learningcentre.co.uk/resource. Figure 8.9 summarizes some of the tools available for e-learning. Other tools are gaining popularity equally eastward-learning flourishes.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES: east-learning

As noted throughout this volume, information technology is non the tool that makes the difference, only how information technology is used. This is likewise truthful for eastward-learning. Throughout this text, e-learning activities such as epals, virtual field trips, ask the proficient, and engineering-supported communications have already been mentioned. Like other parts of this chapter, this section looks at the differences betwixt hypothetical confront-to-face (f2f) contexts and eastward-learning opportunities. Information technology describes what an instructional feature or task might look like equally part of an east-learning context. The features and tasks described hither could be office of a hybrid or an online course. The colored text signals adaptations for east-learning.

Feature: Instructions

F2f: The teacher says, "Practice practice 5 on folio half-dozen. Inquire me if y'all have any questions."

e-learning: Written instructions say,

Footstep 1. Read the instructions for exercise v on page 6.

Footstep two. Answer the question in no more than a paragraph using complete sentences.

Footstep three. Post your answer in the Unit 1 discussion thread in the course discussion forum.

If you take questions, email your online buddy for aid. This assignment is due by three pm on Thursday.

For e-learning, the instructions must not only be more precise, merely in writing them the teacher must also try to predict what questions students might enquire.

Feature: Lesson presentation

F2f: The teacher gives a lecture virtually creating how-to (process) essays and points out the important features.

e-learning: The instructor has students read examples from the course Spider web site and How Stuff Works (www.howstuffworks.com). Students then go to the online forum and talk over the important characteristics they come across in process essays. Together they create a features checklist for process essays they volition write.

In the online surroundings, this job becomes much more than learner-centered.

Feature: Lesson presentation

F2f: The teacher leads a discussion based on drawings of how the Internet works from the textbook's technology section.

e-learning: Students work in teams to complete one or more of the Peter Packet missions in Cisco's Packetville at www.cisco.com/. (See Figure eight.x for the introduction screen.) Using external documents such every bit questionnaires and graphic organizers posted to their grade site by the teacher, students tape important data as they notice it. They post their findings to the discussion area of the grade site for other students to review.

The addition of online resources non only pushes students to be more independent learners but also addresses the needs of students with different learning preferences.

Task: Advise solutions for how to terminate earth poverty

F2f: Students read texts virtually world poverty and discuss solutions with classmates.

due east-learning: Through the United Nation's Millenium Development site (www.un.org/), students work with information and people from all over the world to investigate, understand,

and work toward solutions for world poverty.

With eastward-learning integrated into the grade, students can receive information directly from those involved in the issue, which broadens not only their audience merely besides their potential understanding.

Chore: Set to study sharks

F2f: Instructor asks students to look at pictures of sharks in their text and begin a list of what they sympathize about sharks from the photos.

east-learning: Students spotter the shark videos from Nova Online at www.pbs.org/ and brainstorm a list of what they understand about sharks from the videos.

The online videos provide a more than authentic glimpse of sharks and allow students to produce more language and content than the still photos from the book.

Students can learn without participating in e-learning. Nevertheless, it is clear from these elementary examples that, although e-learning might crave more advanced planning and reassessment of important teaching skills, electronic resources and technologies can help teachers to change, in powerful ways, the focus of learning from teachers to students.

ASSESSING Due east-LEARNING

E-learning requires different options for assessment because, particularly in Spider web-based courses, the instructor cannot always observe students. Tests, quizzes, surveys, and other standard evaluations can be constructed and implemented with the tools noted above and in other chapters. Notwithstanding, every bit in traditional classrooms, these assessment tools exercise not provide the whole picture of educatee progress and achievement. Portfolios are one solution to this problem.

Overview of Portfolios

A portfolio is a purposeful, cogitating collection of pupil work. Purposeful ways that it is not a folder that contains everything students take done, but rather it is a focused compilation of student work that is developed with guidelines from both the teacher and the student. Traditional portfolios help students set up learning goals, encourage students to reflect on their growth and achievement, serve as a footing for communication with parents and other stakeholders, and allow teachers to see how students are performing and plan to address gaps. There are many types of portfolios. 2 common types are:

Showcase—Students display just their all-time work.

Developmental—Students show their progress over fourth dimension.

In each case, the binding chemical element is student reflection. Many excellent texts draw the use of portfolios to assess student progress and accomplishment.

eastward-portfolios

Eastward-portfolios are portfolios that are kept in an electronic format (video, audio, computer-based). There are many reasons to use e-portfolios. In improver to the benefits mentioned higher up, e-portfolios are easy to store and admission. They require students to develop multimedia skills that support the NETS standards. In addition, they tin can include sound, video, graphics, and photos, animation, and more, allowing students to demonstrate their learning in multiple ways.

The steps for developing e-portfolios are the aforementioned as for paper-based portfolios, except that east-portfolios require a technological aspect. The full general steps that teachers and students tin take are outlined below (adapted from Barrett, 2000a, 2000b; Chamberlain, 2001; Niguidula, 2002):

Identify the purpose of the portfolio. Is it to showcase students' outstanding work, to prove progress, to share with stakeholders, to demonstrate mastery, or something else?

Place the desired learner outcomes. These should be based on national, country, or local standards and curricular requirements and include learner goals.

Identify the hardware and software resource available and the engineering skills of the students and teachers. Barrett (2005) provides examples of commercial portfolio software and other tools such as PowerPoint (Microsoft) that tin be used in e-portfolio evolution.

Identify the primary audition for the portfolio. The audition could include a higher registrar, a future employer, a parent, or peers, for example. Cull a format—Spider web-based, CD-ROM, video—that the audition will near likely have admission to. Chamberlain (2001) notes that teachers are required to obtain permission from students' legal guardians before posting pupil work online. She provides sample permission letters at world wide web.electricteacher.com.

Determine content. Teachers and students tin can develop a checklist of required content, including the sequencing of the information.

Gather, organize, and format the materials. Students should be required to include reflections on each piece and on the entire portfolio. Figure 8.11 shows a page from a 6th-grade social studies e-portfolio.

Evaluate and update as necessary. Web creators and even Microsoft Word can be used to provide templates for students to enter piece of work samples

and other relevant material.

Eastward-portfolios tin can be evaluated past rubrics that assess each step of the process (run across chapter 3 for a discussion of rubrics) and that focus on meeting the standards or on other qualities deemed important, such equally collaboration and participation. Other examples using a variety of tools tin be institute in the electronic portfolio samples section of www.forsyth.k12.ga.us/ and http://dragonnet.hkis.edu.hk/ http://wp.auburn.edu/writing/eportfolio-projection/eportfolio-examples/.

Conclusion

In 2001, Bailey summed up the focus and importance of e-learning; his ideas are still pertinent:

We demand to move beyond the notion that education is about schoolhouse buildings, schoolhouse days, and classrooms. For united states of america to movement forward with not just e-learning, only learning in full general, nosotros must take the reality that education can at present be delivered to students wherever they are located.

Schools need to become education centers. With distance education, schools become access points to a whole range of educational opportunities. Until schools recognize that their mission is fundamentally changing as a result of e-learning, we're only going to brand incremental progress toward this important objective.

Every educational programme is a technology opportunity and every technology programme is an educational opportunity. While our investment in technology does help schools purchase computers and networks, it is also fundamentally near purchasing math courses and additional online resources and altitude education classes for their students. Information technology isn't about the boxes and the wires. It is nigh teaching and learning. It is the instructional content and its applications that should bulldoze technology, non the other mode around.

Online cess, particularly online assessment with due east-learning technologies, is one of the side by side generation "killer applications" that is waiting for u.s.a. out there. When online assessment results are tied into east-learning systems, the potential benefits become very meaning. The result should exist more effective use of class time and a system of education that isn't based on mass production, but is instead based on mass customization.

Finally, together as industry and every bit authorities, we need to be relentless in measuring and assessing the impact that engineering science has on didactics and on academic accomplishment. We demand bear witness that teaching and learning are improved every bit the result of technology. Using engineering science to teach using traditional methods will only lead to traditional results.

As ameliorate, faster, cheaper, and more accessible technologies are developed and classrooms movement more toward online learning, these issues will be crucial to sympathise and implement. However, nosotros must besides think the face-to-face interactions that students need and value.

FROM THE CLASSROOM

due east-learning

Technology and machines accept become such an integral part of our lives. There are certainly consequences—both proficient and bad—that are a consequence of this. You are probably all familiar with the many online educational classrooms/schools there are now. It but fascinates me when I go to some of their Spider web sites and scan through what a typical "school 24-hour interval" is for elementary and loftier school students who stay at domicile and learn via the computer/online courses. I think a balance is best. I can't imagine how those student graduates of Cyberspace schools negotiate people and peer skills. (Jennie, beginning-form teacher).

It'due south easier to see another angle or signal of view when you don't have those emotional cues in your face! (April, middle school teacher).

Chapter REVIEW

Fundamental Points

Explicate east-learning and how information technology tin can help see learning goals.

Due east-learning consists of 3 basic components: (1) instructional and learning strategies,

(2) pedagogical models or constructs, and (iii) learning technologies. e-learning contexts range from hybrid classes to those completely online and at a distance from the instructor. e-learning can aid schools see the needs of a multifariousness of students.

Discuss guidelines for creating e-learning opportunities.

Although guidelines and tips for e-learning can likewise utilise to f2f classrooms, they are especially crucial to follow in e-learning contexts. Teachers must piece of work toward edifice a community of learners and consider what the subconscious curriculum means for the students in the class. To facilitate online learning, teachers can organize ahead of time and work toward giving clear instructions.

Describe e-learning tools.

Almost whatsoever electronic tool, and many other types of tools, can be and are used as function of e-learning. The tools must, however, support and enhance student learning and not impede it.

Develop and evaluate constructive technology-enhanced eastward-learning activities.

Features of effective e-learning activities are much the same every bit for those in f2f contexts, but with the added elements of engineering science and differences in how time is used. Activities that follow guidelines for good educational activity will exist effective both online and off, as long as the medium in which they are employed is considered.

Create appropriate assessments for engineering-enhanced e-learning activities.

Although this book outlines many kinds of assessment that are bachelor for e-learning, due east-portfolios accept many benefits for teachers, students, and other educational stakeholders.

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How Are E-learning And Classroom-based Learning Similar? How Are They Different?,

Source: https://opentext.wsu.edu/tchlrn445/chapter/chapter-8-supporting-student-e-learning/

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