Di\’s blog

Palloff, Rena M. & Pratt, Keith, 2001, “Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom: The Realities of Online Teaching”’ Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

Watkins, R., 2005, “Preparing Learners for online success”, Learning Circuits

I have found that the reading byPalloff and Pratt (2001) which was written in 2001 is dealing far more with the learning styles online and how they can change fromface to face instruction. There is an assumption that if the teachers decide to run an online course that the student will automatically know how to follow. This has not been the case as most students have sat and been taught to. It is very hard to encourage students in a collaborative environment. One word that is cropping up is ‘motivation’ as stated by Palloff and Pratt(2001) that it includes decision making styles, values, and emotional preferences. This processing and transfer of information can take new learning styles for this to be carried out. Motivation in an isolation can be very hard to find,as students are expected to take responsibility for their own learning. A students’ attitude towards the subject being taught can impress upon the discipline required to achieve the results. Teacher awareness is paramount to the success rate of an online course.

I was interested to read that the majority of students are older and working so this theory of only younger students embracing the e-learning is completely changed. Does this bring about more reflective learning as suggested? Because there is more time in an online situation to sit back and reflect, then this in itself brings far deeper thinking and so the learning style changes again.

The reading by Watkins (2005) being more current, finds a similar set of issues. He refers to the transfer of skills in the e-learning capacity in whether a student is technologically savvy to be able to participate. Adapting old skills to new. The design of e-learning courses so that a student does not feel unable to participate due to lack of technology but more to the use of what is readily available to them in the way of emails, the internet, chat rooms and such. this encourages the student to be far more interactive in their learning without the pressure of face to face confrontations. the quiet student in a classroom environment can become quite ‘noisy’ in an e-learning environment.

Watkins (2005) recommends a ‘readiness survey’ so that the student can self assess, so that they monitor their own ability. This can also be a little daunting for the student who may not want to admit inability to grasp new technology and so may hold back from a course thinking they are not good enough and this leads to lack of motivation.