Collaborative Interactions

This week I will be discussing the element of "Collaborative Interaction" and how it has evolved. When looking at the progression of online education the collaborative aspect of it has progressed tremendously. Online education began as a lonely road where the only interaction that occurred was between the student and the professor but as online education as expanded so as the collaborative sides. Now, students are able to communicate with one another in a variety of ways. They are able to learn from one another based on discussion boards, wiki groups, blogs, and social networking. There are many tools that facilitate this type of learning that are more readily available now. Some of those tools are skype, facebook, twitter, blogs, wikis, and personal websites. Collaboration is key to truly learing from your cohorts and developing a deep level of understanding.






http://vidamartin.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/collaborative-interaction-in-distance-education/


http://minerclass.edublogs.org/2010/12/31/collaborative-interaction-in-distance-education%E2%80%A6/

Module 1 Discussion

In Moller, Huett, Foshay & Coleman's articles they discuss the need for an evolution of distance education. I teach at an alternative school that serves middle and high school students so I focused primarily on article three( K-12). In this article they discussed why the need for more distance education programs was needed. Some of their top reasons was teacher shortages, funding issues, and meeting the needs of all demographics of students. I totally agree with their position because I feel that in our society not all children are able to learn adequately in the traditional classroom. Some students benefit emmensily from online education for a plethora of reasons. For example, some of our students are considered "at risk" students because they are lacking credits or have missed school because of varying reasons. Due to this factor we offer online credity recovery classes that allow them to receive credit by completing courses through this online program. They are able to access the program both at home and at school and they can progress as quickly as they can if they put in enough effort. Many of our students have said that if they were not able to use this program they would have dropped out of school because they felt hopeless. Online education can save some of our "confused" students by showing them that they still have an opportunity to be successful if they put in the hard work that is needed.

http://dx.doi.org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1007/s11528-008-0199-9