Don't Let Your Classroom Become a Learning Desert!
All students deserve the chance to acquire the necessary
tools for future success...
I have been teaching high school seniors for the past four years in a geographically rural area. Throughout my career thus far, I have noticed a need for the inclusion of more web-based learning to be infused within traditional curriculum. Without question, education—particularly post-secondary schooling—has moved greatly into the internet sector. Being able to learn, communicate, function, and establish oneself on the internet is exactly what is expected of high school graduates (whether it is within a college or work force). It is with this in mind that I decided to construct a blended learning course for CEP 820’s online module creation. I am interested in teaching students how to learn online. This is a skill that students are increasingly required to have already learned and a tool that will serve them well as they continue into adulthood.
While there are countless Learning CMS available to the course creator, and many of them provide amazing capabilities to educators, I ultimately decided to work with a site that students already had at least minimum exposure to. I chose to make an online curriculum within Weebly—a website that my particular group of students are familiar with. As a teacher of students who only recently acquired laptops, I did not want to complicate the learning experience with technical difficulties. It was also my intention to boost student self-confidence within web-based learning by allowing them to function in an internet atmosphere they were already relatively comfortable using. I can attest to Weebly’s successful implementation into my classroom since I have already begun utilizing it within my World History class. Students, apprehensive at first at the idea of learning from a school curriculum online, find they can already maneuver the site as they are familiar with Weebly’s functions. Even in its early stages, students are enjoying the change of learning “atmosphere.” It is interesting the way class discussions have drastically improved, simply by incorporating more online coursework. One educator (interviewed in the documentary “Digital Nation”, 2010) makes the comment that “for a student of the digital generation, walking into a classroom without technology must be like walking in a desert.” It is my goal to make sure that my classroom is not a desert, but a chance to foster the interests of learners with both a propensity toward technology and those who may be experiencing it for the first time.
Creating my online World History module this past semester was an extremely valuable experience that I plan to apply further within the next school year. I would like to see all of my social science classes at LaSalle incorporate web-based learning to some degree so that our graduates are equipped with a variety of learning tools that will aid them in all future endeavors. Having created this first complete online module, I now have a better idea how to adequately approach this as a high school teacher. The best advice I could give anyone who is considering integrating web-based learning in their classroom, or is currently in the process of creating an online module, is to relax your tendency to be confined to the mind-set of time. High school (and middle school!) teachers—just like their students—have been trained to think within the limitations of bell-to-bell instruction. It was within one of the readings this semester that an author’s statements finally clicked with me: web-based learning and teaching is not a function of time—it should be thought of in terms of space. That was my “ah-ha!” moment, and my turning point as an internet learning site creator. The internet, that awesome and at times overwhelming resource, is limitless in its opportunities to provide students with learning tools that are only restricted by our imaginations. One must break the thoughts that chain him/her to the processes of providing information and/or chances for learning within the confines that physical classrooms create. Again, thinking in terms of space instead of time is the most important element to remember when shaping students’ learning environment.
Certainly, creating this online course module during CEP 820 was one of the most valuable and immediately applicable experiences I have had while earning my Master’s degree. Regardless of the push by many for incorporating more technology in the classroom, utilizing web-based learning is an extremely worthwhile venture for any educator and student. Making school curriculum apply to students’ personal lives and interests is a struggle every teacher has encountered; what better way to overcome this than to meet students where they feel comfortable, to build their self-confidence by showing them a new world of technological learning, and to allow them to help shape their own learning? I believe that a blended learning experience fosters this on a much more meaningful scale than my courses ever did before.