Advantages and Disadvantages on

Advantages and Disadvantages on Distance Learning

Nowadays to study online courses is becoming a need to succeed on a professional life. Since communication comes and goes across through the use of internet and it doesn’t matter how distant is one place of the other, communication flows as easy and fast as one person types and the other receives the message. The practicality of this source have leaded the world market perspective to the implementation of important changes on delivering information systems.

Alister Inglis, Peter Ling and Vera Joonsten have pointed out that: The idea of the World Wide Web was the brainchild of Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics. Berners-Lee conceived the Web as a convenient way of sharing documents over the Internet. The Internet was already well established by this time. However, it was being used as means of interconnecting large computers to carry electronic mail, provide remote access, and transport data files. Berners-Lee’s concept transformed the Internet into the transport medium for retrieval of hyperlinked documents. The initial manifestation of the Web still required a certain amount of technical familiarity with computers and network (p.4, 2003).

Telecommunication services are advancing remarkably to grow its industry by the invention of new devices and components which are equipped of sophisticated designs and features. The competitors and the consumer’s demands are the propellers to continue this never ending industry. What is undeniable is that internet comes along with great benefits. By the other hand performs as a tool that helps to optimize time, economize, socialize, work, meet, search for uncountable things, study and bring people together only by having access to it .

Inglis.A, Ling.P and Joonsten V., have stated that: Technology, particularly information technology, is the key component of the change that characterizes the period. Globalization demands the breaching of time and space limitations and draws upon information technology. At the same time, technological development drives globalization. In arguments about whether we are in a period of late modernity or whether we have entered a post-modern period, information technology contributes to both sides. On the one hand, information technology is creating a break with the modern era. It is upsetting the types of relationships that previously existed in time and space. It is breaking down borders. It is increasing the frequency of faceless encounters. Yet information technology relies on science from the modern era for its development. It is in turn a vehicle for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. The pursuit of order and of ‘scientific’ explanations still continues. The mission of modernity is therefore not yet dead (p. 20, 2003).

Nowadays the globalization phenomena is tracing a new path for the worldwide population. Speaking about international enterprises, the marketing and important firms which are looking for people with communicative and technological skills such as the use of internet, the use of different software’s and programs according to its needs which vary from one to the other.

 Today there is a mark tendency that promotes the use of internet to do a lot of things just to mention some of those; to promote services, to purchase and sell uncountable things, to work on projects by interface, to send, receive and share information and to take courses on line for academic purposes and many more… this is due mainly for the practicality and flexibility of its nature like; is not required to attend on an in class course, is less costly, self-organization can be based on  personal scheduled needs . By the other hand the student must possess certain level of autonomy since mostly will be working in solitude.

Therefore the new designs on professional courses must include innovative and technological ideas to fulfill the everyday world demands. Speaking on the traditional design of courses which were held in the old days in a classroom and these same subjects are given on line due to the new demands on training people into communicative technological format. Speaking on a basic level education pre- secondary and secondary to higher levels are incorporating to the traditional schema online classes since there is a marked tendency that proficiency is going on that direction.

Courses on line favor the learning because the learner doesn’t have to participate in front of others, so inhibition can be avoided. This is great for the shy students. Another advantage from studying on line is that the student as long as he/she has what is required to do the activities can work almost everywhere in the comfort of home and saving time and money on transportation .

One of the risks is that the student may drop off the course if he/she doesn’t feel the teacher presence or receive feedback and comments throughout the course. Is important that the teacher tries to reach out the student and encourage his/her to get back in track.

Is important to have in mind that communication is a great tool to succeed on this educative system.

As been shown by: Miller & Miller.,Savin-Baden that: “social constructivism suggests that learning is derived through a collaborative negotiation of meaning through multiple perspectives. A student interacting with other students and their lecturer, in conjunction with engagement with the content, will build his or her understanding of the unit’s principles (2000, p. 34)”.

Therefore for the nature of these courses is important to create a system to communicate one to the other.  Teacher must promote the integration of the e learning community which can be throughout the assignments and activities like working collaboratively.

Most of the courses that are given on a face to face class can be given online too. The important is to choose properly the materials and consider all styles of learning. Is better to be prepared just in case. Is important to remember that the materials chosen need to be for the less capable and get good and reliable sources.

R e f e r e n c e s

Delivering Digitally – Managing the transition to the knowledge media

Inglis.A., Ling.P., and Joonsten.V

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003

Designing Quality e-learning environments in Higher Education.

Lou Siragusa., K. C., Dixon and R.D

Proceedings ascilate Singapure (2007)

6.1 Assessing on an Online Course

How to Assess on an Online Course

Firstable I would like to make a distinction between evaluation, assessment and how assessment has to take place. Michael Harris and Paul McCann have defined:

What is evaluation?

Consideration of all the factor that influence the learning process such as syllabus objectives, course design, materials, methodology, teachers and assessment.

What is assessment?

Measuring our students’ performance or progress in any one of many different ways, diagnosing the problems and measuring the progress students make.

How should we assess?

Assessment must be done constructively, focusing on achievement rather than on failure, it should allow students to demonstrate what they know, rather than trying to catch them out. (1994).

Therefore to assess on line is easier than to assess in a classroom. Because teachers in a face to face class need to take care of every little detail. Some professionals on education have stated that the time to assess is too little so the teacher must consider a lot of aspects like, behavior, positive participation, questions from the students, to clarify doubts, comments on the issue, homework’s, assignments’, projects, working in teams, individually, peer correction etc., And teacher must have always present the time, to present the topic, to do exercises and the wrap up. Nevertheless the aim of the class must be consider as a first place if he/she has reached the goal of giving a good teaching, also the teacher needs to make a reflection on his/her own performance.

Teachers on an online course don’t deal with these kind of interaction on a 50 -90 minutes face to face class.  Teaching on line is already planned environment. Everything has been coldly calculated and the teacher can make a better judgement because the teacher has the time as an allied and the space. Teacher online works before to present the class, to make a schedule, calendar with due dates, upload materials to make them available for the students and all what is required to start up the course. Teachers in a classroom too but they deal with weather issues, attendance, attitudes from the students, classroom management, grouping, coming events not considered on the design of the course and the time is always consuming and never enough.

When it comes to assess on line teacher has a register[U1]  with the date, the hour, if a student has questions teacher on line can answer those questions, to go back as many could be required to the student production, provide feeds back to all the work from all the students is easier on line than in a classroom and the teacher can take more than one hour class in case he/she is not done on the assessment during the class. On the other hand in a classroom the time is limited and sometimes is just not possible.  For the same reason teachers are thinking on new techniques and strategies to assess students like:

“peer editing: where checking of students’ written work and correction of mistakes is carried out by other students.

Peer assessment: where students assess one another during class activities to assess is part of a whole process and is linked to previous considerations and aspects like the learning objectives, what are we going to assess from an element chosen always needs  to have been linked to previous work.

Some strategies and assessing techniques to consider to use on an online course.

Negotiated syllabus: Students’ needs and learning preference are taken into consideration.

Formative Assessment: Type of assessment which feeds back into learning and gives the learner information on his/her progress throughout a course thus helping him/her to be more efficient learner.

Item: Individual question in a test which requires the student or candidate to produce an answer.

Nonlinguistic factors: aspects affecting assessment which are not to do with language, but are more connected with other factors such as attitude, working within groups or cooperation.

Open- ended test format: test format that requires not specific response, but which is open to interpretation.

Strategies to avoid cheating:

Ask students to relate the subject matter to their own personal/professional/life experiences so their answers are personalized and difficult to replicate.

Require students to submit an outline and rough draft of term papers and essays before the final paper is due. This way, a professor can see the work in progress. Give different questions to different students – construct a large set of questions from which an automated testing program can randomly select (i.e. a database of 50 questions with 10 randomly chosen).

Anna Ya Ni (May 10, 2014^th) have stated that:  comparing the effectiveness of online and classroom learning, attempting to go beyond grades and to include a logical assessment of interaction, effective-

ness in achieving learning objectives, and student persistence. The results of this

study indicate that although student performance is independent of the mode of

instruction, certain courses (such as Research Methods in Administration) are

more challenging to students who persist in the virtual environment than in the

classroom. Furthermore, participation may be less intimidating and the quality

and quantity of interaction may be increased in online classes.

The findings have several implications for student learning, course development,

and curriculum design. Online interaction can be used to enhance learning,

especially for students who tend to be reserved in the classroom setting

(Document retrieved on May 10^th, 2014 on the website: page 214).

Bibliography
M. Harris Glossary. Assessment (1994) Paul McCann.

Internet bibliography

Comparing the Effectiveness of Classroom and Online Learning: Teaching Research Methods; Document retrieved from internet May 10^th, 2014 on the website: www.naspaa.org

 http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/.

Strategies to Minimize Cheating on Line, Document “retrieved” from internet May 10^th, 2014 on the website. www.ion.uillinois.edu

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/assessment/cheating.asp

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 [U1]

GOAL 6.1 Assessing on an On Line Course

How to Assess on an Online Course

Firstable I would like to make a distinction between evaluation, assessment and how assessment has to take place. Michael Harris and Paul McCann have defined:

What is evaluation?

Consideration of all the factor that influence the learning process such as syllabus objectives, course design, materials, methodology, teachers and assessment.

What is assessment?

Measuring our students’ performance or progress in any one of many different ways, diagnosing the problems and measuring the progress students make.

How should we assess?

Assessment must be done constructively, focusing on achievement rather than on failure, it should allow students to demonstrate what they know, rather than trying to catch them out. (1994).

Therefore to assess on line is easier than to assess in a classroom. Because teachers in a face to face class need to take care of every little detail. Some professionals on education have stated that the time to assess is too little so the teacher must consider a lot of aspects like, behavior, positive participation, questions from the students, to clarify doubts, comments on the issue, homework’s, assignments’, projects, working in teams, individually, peer correction etc., And teacher must have always present the time, to present the topic, to do exercises and the wrap up. Nevertheless the aim of the class must be consider as a first place if he/she has reached the goal of giving a good teaching, also the teacher needs to make a reflection on his/her own performance.

Teachers on an online course don’t deal with these kind of interaction on a 50 -90 minutes face to face class.  Teaching on line is already planned environment. Everything has been coldly calculated and the teacher can make a better judgement because the teacher has the time as an allied and the space. Teacher online works before to present the class, to make a schedule, calendar with due dates, upload materials to make them available for the students and all what is required to start up the course. Teachers in a classroom too but they deal with weather issues, attendance, attitudes from the students, classroom management, grouping, coming events not considered on the design of the course and the time is always consuming and never enough.

When it comes to assess on line teacher has a register[U1]  with the date, the hour, if a student has questions teacher on line can answer those questions, to go back as many could be required to the student production, provide feeds back to all the work from all the students is easier on line than in a classroom and the teacher can take more than one hour class in case he/she is not done on the assessment during the class. On the other hand in a classroom the time is limited and sometimes is just not possible.  For the same reason teachers are thinking on new techniques and strategies to assess students like:

“peer editing: where checking of students’ written work and correction of mistakes is carried out by other students.

Peer assessment: where students assess one another during class activities to assess is part of a whole process and is linked to previous considerations and aspects like the learning objectives, what are we going to assess from an element chosen always needs  to have been linked to previous work.

Some strategies and assessing techniques to consider to use on an online course.

Negotiated syllabus: Students’ needs and learning preference are taken into consideration.

Formative Assessment: Type of assessment which feeds back into learning and gives the learner information on his/her progress throughout a course thus helping him/her to be more efficient learner.

Item: Individual question in a test which requires the student or candidate to produce an answer.

Nonlinguistic factors: aspects affecting assessment which are not to do with language, but are more connected with other factors such as attitude, working within groups or cooperation.

Open- ended test format: test format that requires not specific response, but which is open to interpretation.

Strategies to avoid cheating:

Ask students to relate the subject matter to their own personal/professional/life experiences so their answers are personalized and difficult to replicate.

Require students to submit an outline and rough draft of term papers and essays before the final paper is due. This way, a professor can see the work in progress. Give different questions to different students – construct a large set of questions from which an automated testing program can randomly select (i.e. a database of 50 questions with 10 randomly chosen).

Anna Ya Ni (May 10, 2014^th) have stated that:  comparing the effectiveness of online and classroom learning, attempting to go beyond grades and to include a logical assessment of interaction, effective-

ness in achieving learning objectives, and student persistence. The results of this

study indicate that although student performance is independent of the mode of

instruction, certain courses (such as Research Methods in Administration) are

more challenging to students who persist in the virtual environment than in the

classroom. Furthermore, participation may be less intimidating and the quality

and quantity of interaction may be increased in online classes.

The findings have several implications for student learning, course development,

and curriculum design. Online interaction can be used to enhance learning,

especially for students who tend to be reserved in the classroom setting

(Document retrieved on May 10^th, 2014 on the website: page 214).

Bibliography
M. Harris Glossary. Assessment (1994) Paul McCann.

Internet bibliography

Comparing the Effectiveness of Classroom and Online Learning: Teaching Research Methods; Document retrieved from internet May 10^th, 2014 on the website: www.naspaa.org

 http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/.

Strategies to Minimize Cheating on Line, Document “retrieved” from internet May 10^th, 2014 on the website. www.ion.uillinois.edu

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/assessment/cheating.asp

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 [U1]

GOAL 6.1 Assessing on an on Line Course

May 10th, 2014

How to Assess on an Online Course

Firstable I would like to make a distinction between evaluation, assessment and how assessment has to take place. Michael Harris and Paul McCann have defined:

What is evaluation?

Consideration of all the factor that influence the learning process such as syllabus objectives, course design, materials, methodology, teachers and assessment.

What is assessment?

Measuring our students’ performance or progress in any one of many different ways, diagnosing the problems and measuring the progress students make.

How should we assess?

Assessment must be done constructively, focusing on achievement rather than on failure, it should allow students to demonstrate what they know, rather than trying to catch them out. (1994).

Therefore to assess on line is easier than to assess in a classroom. Because teachers in a face to face class need to take care of every little detail. Some professionals on education have stated that the time to assess is too little so the teacher must consider a lot of aspects like, behavior, positive participation, questions from the students, to clarify doubts, comments on the issue, homework’s, assignments’, projects, working in teams, individually, peer correction etc., And teacher must have always present the time, to present the topic, to do exercises and the wrap up. Nevertheless the aim of the class must be consider as a first place if he/she has reached the goal of giving a good teaching, also the teacher needs to make a reflection on his/her own performance.

Teachers on an online course don’t deal with these kind of interaction on a 50 -90 minutes face to face class.  Teaching on line is already planned environment. Everything has been coldly calculated and the teacher can make a better judgement because the teacher has the time as an allied and the space. Teacher online works before to present the class, to make a schedule, calendar with due dates, upload materials to make them available for the students and all what is required to start up the course. Teachers in a classroom too but they deal with weather issues, attendance, attitudes from the students, classroom management, grouping, coming events not considered on the design of the course and the time is always consuming and never enough.

When it comes to assess on line teacher has a register  with the date, the hour, if a student has questions teacher on line can answer those questions, to go back as many could be required to the student production, provide feeds back to all the work from all the students is easier on line than in a classroom and the teacher can take more than one hour class in case he/she is not done on the assessment during the class. On the other hand in a classroom the time is limited and sometimes is just not possible.  For the same reason teachers are thinking on new techniques and strategies to assess students like:

“peer editing: where checking of students’ written work and correction of mistakes is carried out by other students.

Peer assessment: where students assess one another during class activities to assess is part of a whole process and is linked to previous considerations and aspects like the learning objectives, what are we going to assess from an element chosen always needs  to have been linked to previous work.

Some strategies and assessing techniques to consider to use on an online course.

Negotiated syllabus: Students’ needs and learning preference are taken into consideration.

Formative Assessment: Type of assessment which feeds back into learning and gives the learner information on his/her progress throughout a course thus helping him/her to be more efficient learner.

Item: Individual question in a test which requires the student or candidate to produce an answer.

Nonlinguistic factors: aspects affecting assessment which are not to do with language, but are more connected with other factors such as attitude, working within groups or cooperation.

Open- ended test format: test format that requires not specific response, but which is open to interpretation.

Strategies to avoid cheating:

1. 
   

Ask students to relate the subject matter to their own personal/professional/life experiences so their answers are personalized and difficult to replicate.

Require students to submit an outline and rough draft of term papers and essays before the final paper is due. This way, a professor can see the work in progress. Give different questions to different students – construct a large set of questions from which an automated testing program can randomly select (i.e. a database of 50 questions with 10 randomly chosen).

Anna Ya Ni (May 10, 2014^th) have stated that:  comparing the effectiveness of online and classroom learning, attempting to go beyond grades and to include a logical assessment of interaction, effective-

ness in achieving learning objectives, and student persistence. The results of this

study indicate that although student performance is independent of the mode of

instruction, certain courses (such as Research Methods in Administration) are

more challenging to students who persist in the virtual environment than in the

classroom. Furthermore, participation may be less intimidating and the quality

and quantity of interaction may be increased in online classes.

The findings have several implications for student learning, course development,

and curriculum design. Online interaction can be used to enhance learning,

especially for students who tend to be reserved in the classroom setting

(Document retrieved on May 10^th, 2014 on the website: page 214).

Bibliography
M. Harris Glossary. Assessment (1994) Paul McCann.

Internet bibliography

Comparing the Effectiveness of Classroom and Online Learning: Teaching Research Methods; Document retrieved from internet May 10^th, 2014 on the website: www.naspaa.org

 http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/pdf/.

Strategies to Minimize Cheating on Line, Document “retrieved” from internet May 10^th, 2014 on the website. www.ion.uillinois.edu

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/assessment/cheating.asp

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 [U1]

GOAL 5.2 PRESENT PERFECT

Hi, to everybody:

I'm teacher Marcela and I have posted a ppt. on the topic the present perfect. Is a good source I hope you like it. In case that you need my assistance please drop me an email on marcela.malagon@uabc.edu.mx

I have added some extra links that you may consult in case you need some extra support.

http://www.easyenglish.com/freetest.asp Try medium 25 questions

http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=aprender

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-games/present-perfect-experiences

http://www.eslvideo.com/newsletter_conf.php

GOAL 3.2 Ways to Assist a Student on an Online Course

Different Ways to Assist a Student on an Online Course

Alan Roper have stated that: “more and more, adult learners are finding the convenience and flexibility of online learning a match for their goals learning and busy life styles”. The public for these courses are adults that work all day long and find difficult to attend to a program in a classroom. So in the comfort of being in home these students can continue their education and accomplish their academic goals without being in presence in a weekday course which may result stressful and exhaustive to their lifestyles. Some of them are committed parents or workers that may arrive home with no extra energy after a long journey at work.

There are different ways to assist a student on a course on line. One of the crucial points on taking a course online is that the learner must have self-discipline and self-organization, no one will be there to remind him/her about the next date of delivery. The student shall create a scheduled based on the outline and dates given by the teacher to hand in.  To plan out beforehand is important to don’t fall behind the schedule given by the educator.

Hugh G. Petry mentioned: from a different perspective, that of alternative schools, theory is relevant to practice with a vengeance. It would not be too much of a distortion to say that practice in many alternative schools derives almost directly from the desire really to live the abstract principles of autonomy and freedom.(2010, p.46)

Nevertheless I must say that certainly there is some freedom on creating the space and setting the time to study but in the other hand it must prevail an environment of consistency and to show some discipline in order to succeed on presenting the practices in the form and term requested by the educator. Speaking in an environment of open distance course the student must have always present the fact that there are many advantages on learning autonomously but it can’t be total freedom limits and controls are important from both sides teacher- student as part of a learning methodology. To be consistent in the actions and to set up a routine may lead to have good results. This means that is important to give the space for reading and to set the day for writing or posting.

Speaking in the definition of autonomous this can shift from time to time. The definition may vary from one to other since the point of view of each one may show some differences on an individual internal concept.

This means that the learner is free to certain point. What it means this? That there is some freedom on how to do the task though this freedom can be only on time and space. By the other hand the teacher practices shall have some requests on the form and time of delivery written on the outline designed. In order to these controls the learner must make adjustments to the way to complete the practices. In this sense the educator has to guide the learning and promote and environment of socialization, interaction and communication among the students. It’s possible throughout the discussion board. This is a systematic pattern of feedback. Comments from others may help the learner to get motivate, socialize or correct mistakes. Reading other works may enrich some previous structures on the subject to study or analyze. It’s possible

trough out the discussion board.

A well designed study plan may not have this space of lack of communication because if a problem arise to the learner the availability from the educator must be always present to give the learner that feeling of being supported by the educator. So online courses allow the teacher to know any possible problem if the student makes the attempt to communicate  only needs to drop off a message to the teacher appointing the problem.

References

Roper A, document retrieved by the web on: March 24, 2014; How Students Develop Online Learning Skills; web; www.educause.edu/ero/article.

You can find the document on:

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/how-students-develop-online-learning-skills

Petry Hugh G; The Philosophy of Open Education, Boston, Mass, 02108, U.S.A, edited by Taylor & Francis e Library 2010

Open and Distance Education teachers and learners some highlights and recommendations.

Important Considerations in Open and Distance Education for Teachers and Learners

Open and distance education from Marcela Adriana Malagon Maciel