Distance Learning

1.Identify and briefly discuss 5 advantages of distance education
There are many advantages that distance learning provides. It is very beneficial to students to feel ostracized at school and find themselves being picked on. It, when implemented appropriately, allows students to go at a pace that they find appropriate for themselves. Also, along those lines, it can be easier to construct a classroom with diverse learners, or not diverse learners based on how the teacher plans to instruct since the pool of students is much broader than a single school district. Online courses also allow for a lot of freedom in time. So students who find it easier to focus late at night or early in the morning are more accomodated. Lastly, technology allows for a variety of different learning styles to be accomodated by itself, and since distance learning is done on a computer students have more ready access to a plethora of excellent tools.

2.Identify and briefly discuss 5 disadvantages of distance education.
A lot of the problems that have to do with distance education have to do with the learners engaging in it. Distance learning is very much about self-motivation, something that I know I was not great at and am still not great at. With distance learning, it is possible that students are missing a huge part of the adolescent experience in that they are not interacting with their peers face-to-face. While this might differently affect many students, I think that overall it would be of considerable detriment to them. There are also issues with distance learning in terms of teaching it. It is very easy to create a curriculum that is too easy or too challenging. And, since there is potentially less feedback and maybe less signs of ongoing struggles, the teacher can completely miss seeing this and consequently students could fail. Also, on the flipside, the teacher could easily create a curriculum that is not challenging enough and if the learners aren't vocal about it or they don't mind the easy route, the teacher could also be oblivious to this. Finally, there is a possibility that learning disabilities might not be diagnosed by teachers and appropriate measures are not taken to help students because it becomes much more difficult to identify these sorts of problems without seeing the student in person.

3.How you would determine the readiness of students to participate in distance education?
In order to ready a student for distance education I would first work on getting them to be able to regulate themselves. So, I would have them work on keeping a schedule and holding themselves to it. Also, as a parent I would take time while they were in class to make sure that they were keeping up on the work.

4.What would you need to do to be ready to teach in an online environment?
I think to be able to teach in an online environment, you would first want to try out your content and the pace of your content in a real classroom. Also, in preparation, I think it would be a great idea to get a sense of where your learners are at and what learning they benefit the most from. Lastly, I think that it is very important to establish some sort of connection with your students so i think that calling them up for a few minutes prior to the class is a fantastic idea.