At this point in my teaching career I have not attempted to
implement online teaching. I have a website that I use as an online reference
for my students, but have not attempted to put part, or all, of a class online.
While I don’t anticipate putting an entire class online in the near future, I
would like to give my students an online experience with a certain unit. One of the
reasons that I do not have an online class currently is lack of support from
the school. If I ask to try something online I know I would be encouraged to go
for it, but there is no push to try something new in this way. I would probably
be the only teacher doing something like this.
In the near future, I hope to put together an online summer class
to prepare students for our 6th grade math course. We have a lot of
new students who are overwhelmed when they enter middle school. There are a lot
parents who ask what they can do to alleviate some of this stress, and I think
I could use an online course to introduce students to the type of mathematics
class they will have. I plan on using a Google Site (I am familiar with
Google’s tools and all of my students would have access to it) to give them a
preview of what to expect and to review some topics they should already know. I
plan to have several units on the site with video lessons, surveys to get a
feel for their understanding of the content, and a schedule so the students
learn how to meet deadlines. I envision it being a preview of the content but
also the expectations at my school.
I agree that going it alone is difficult. For the most part, I run our online experiences all alone without GVSU tech support and it's not always easy. People who have a system in place (e.g., Blackboard) can have students contact IT when things go awry, whereas I have to deal with it all. On the other hand, I choose this route. I think you're wise to progress slowly recognizing the potential issues. Good luck with the summer class idea for online teaching/learning -- I often use summer classes as my testing ground.
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