EDLD+5368+Instructional+Design

As utilization of technology becomes more and more pervasive in the classroom having classroom teachers able to design, create, and implement their own online learning environments will be very beneficial. If the teacher can be the creative force in the setup of the virtual classroom the same way that they decide how their physical classroom will look then she/he will take much more ownership in the product and the process.
 * What benefits do you see in educators knowing how to design and implement online learning?**

This course was and is an experiment for me. I have created and used other classes in platforms such as Moodle, but those classes have been for secondary aged students or adults. I set out this time to create an online class for middle elementary grades specifically 5th grade science. As I worked on the project I found it was much more difficult that I had imagined creating content for students that young. I am not at all sure that I have succeeded at this point in creating something that is useable by students. My plan is to continue using this course as a test bed for some of the ideas that I have on how to implement online learning for the younger grades. In addition I will be looking for articles showing where others have had success and I will try to emulate their practices.
 * How will you professionally use your course that you designed?**

I will definitely continue to integrate online learning into my training of my staff however I think the integration of online learning for my students will come more slowly. As I observed earlier it is very difficult to create high quality online content for upper elementary students. There are a variety of reasons for this and none of them are insurmountable but some of them require a commitment from the community that I am not sure they are quite ready to make yet. This does not mean that I will not continue to look for ways to introduce this approach to my students because, after all, they are the first true digital natives and in instances that I have given them opportunities to partake of online learning the vast majority of them have enjoyed it very much.
 * Will you integrate online learning in your role as a teacher/staff developer?**

I have several questions regarding online learning centering around the security of the data that is gathered and stored on sites that are outside the firewall of the school district. When names and other data about students is being entered into a system that is not controlled and protected by the school district what assurances do we have that the information that is entered is secure and will remain secure. In addition I can anticipate issues arising over copyright and control of materials that are entered into online learning sites. Is the material created by the teacher and uploaded to the site the intellectual property of the teacher who created it or does it become the property of the online learning site or because it is published on the web does it become part of the public domain? Until there is some definitive answers to this I am concerned that the usefulness of web based online learning sites may be severely limited.
 * What questions do you still have about online learning?**

As I said above I will continue to integrate some form of online learning into my training of staff and I will continue to look closely at how I can incorporate online learning into the classroom. There appears to be great potential for online learning as a tool in the educational process for many of our students but I am hopeful that it will continue to mature in a way that will make it even more useful as a tool for the education of all of our students.
 * What will you do with this new learning?**