ONLINE EDUCATION
The current trend is to replace textbooks with online education. The "electronic book" has been upgraded into a multimedia learning experience, complete with audio, video, and manipulatives from laboratory environments. Book learning has even been augmented with electronic visits from a virtual instructor. In addition, some online instructional videos are recordings of the instructor in front of the classroom, so it is not always clear whether the teachers or the students are virtual, or even whether all of the students are attending the same class at the same time.
Despite the YouTube boom in recent years, online courses without an educational institution are rarely without financial cost. Two major exceptions are the Creative Commons and open-source software, both of which invite you to share, participate, and license. Without an entity that applies standards and assesses competencies, online education is not guaranteed to be of use to the student, to the employer, or to the industry. Granted, students can pass industry certification tests by using labs and other items that are available online, but most students learn better in a classroom setting, even if the classroom is virtual. Schools are inherently more rigorous than the average "hobbyist", which is why certification became so important in the first place.
When electronic information first became readily available, a person had the option of printing it at their own cost. We are much more accustomed now to textbooks in .pdf form, and there are times when it is still easier to learn from a paper copy or equivalent. Textbooks and Web pages allow the student to read ahead and plan their time, although the course syllabus may have the same effect. Efforts continue to bring "textbook-less" courses into the classroom, with varying degrees of success. Teachers post training videos to sites for later re-use. Videos are subtitled, or have transcripts that meet accessibility standards. Flash cards, games, or plain old ordinary exercises help reinforce learning and save trees at the same time.
There is an incredible time commitment associated with developing classroom courses, for as long as it is still considered the equivalent of authoring a textbook, or an outline from which to conduct discussions. The burden is on the instructor to complete the content well before the course is offered, to provide a smooth and cohesive learning experience.
Despite the YouTube boom in recent years, online courses without an educational institution are rarely without financial cost. Two major exceptions are the Creative Commons and open-source software, both of which invite you to share, participate, and license. Without an entity that applies standards and assesses competencies, online education is not guaranteed to be of use to the student, to the employer, or to the industry. Granted, students can pass industry certification tests by using labs and other items that are available online, but most students learn better in a classroom setting, even if the classroom is virtual. Schools are inherently more rigorous than the average "hobbyist", which is why certification became so important in the first place.
When electronic information first became readily available, a person had the option of printing it at their own cost. We are much more accustomed now to textbooks in .pdf form, and there are times when it is still easier to learn from a paper copy or equivalent. Textbooks and Web pages allow the student to read ahead and plan their time, although the course syllabus may have the same effect. Efforts continue to bring "textbook-less" courses into the classroom, with varying degrees of success. Teachers post training videos to sites for later re-use. Videos are subtitled, or have transcripts that meet accessibility standards. Flash cards, games, or plain old ordinary exercises help reinforce learning and save trees at the same time.
There is an incredible time commitment associated with developing classroom courses, for as long as it is still considered the equivalent of authoring a textbook, or an outline from which to conduct discussions. The burden is on the instructor to complete the content well before the course is offered, to provide a smooth and cohesive learning experience.
This section of my portfolio contains two sample courses for online high-school mathematics. Instructors who have an interest in the subject matter, or in course building, can use these as templates for their own subjects.
- The Technical Toolbox is about trigonometry
- Mathematics 2 is the course that was once necessary to complete high school in the state of Washington, with or without exit examinations.