Barriers To Online Teaching In Post-Secondary Institutions: Can Policy Changes Fix It?

This article portrays the advantages and barriers of Online Education. Increasing access to quality education has been one of the main justifications for the use of distance education. Use of the Internet in education is to provide an efficient way to collaborate with others. Experts and educators all over the world can become collaborators with the teachers and students in a classroom. But even with the advantages that occur under certain conditions, there are still critical barriers to distance education and specifically to online education at a distance. Many barriers to learning and teaching at a distance are caused by lack of access to resources and people, difficulties in assessment. The barriers reported in this article indicate that an additional area of policy interest should involve technical or infrastructure needs in the educational system. Author says that online teaching and learning will fail without strong administrative leadership to support the many changes necessary to fully implement online educational activities and to overcome the barriers expressed by the teachers and by other educators.

Berge, Z.L. (1998). Barriers to online teaching in post-secondary institutions: can policy changes fix it? Retrieved from

http://www.westga.edu/~distance/Berge12.html

Prepare for Impact

This article ‘Prepare for Impact’ is related to anyone connected to K-12 education and mainly focuses on the growing use of open source software by schools. Especially in these hard economic times when our schools are hit hard by the budget cuts and irregular fundings they can still integrate technology with the use of open source programs which are available at no cost. One of the major things that drive up school district costs is running proprietary software on proprietary operating systems. Schools can save lots of money with this free software. Even in the richest countries, schools are short of money. Free software gives schools, like other users, the freedom to copy and redistribute the software, so the school system can make copies for all the computers they have. Apache is the most used web server and Moodle is the leading course management system for districts that cannot afford blackboard. OpenOffice is another most talked about open source alternatives of Microsoft Office.

This article ‘Prepare for Impact’ is very useful and informative. But the Author of this article also makes a point that although open source applications are free, the cost of staff development, implementation cost, and training may make the no cost option more expensive in the long run.

Waters, John k. (2010). Prepare for impact. THE Journal, 37(5), 20-25. Retrieved from

http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.chapman.edu/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=108&sid=8f74c367-3a42-4b0d-8e65-7061ea5f7dbe%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=50504174#db=aph&AN=50504174

Adolescent Learning and the Internet

This article ‘Adolescent Learning and the Internet’ is a useful article because this is what all the educational institutions and we all teachers are struggling to implement in our classrooms. Adolescents have different attitudes regarding the use of internet and for them internet is the most important resource for learning rather than learning through books or other resources. Most of the schools have internet access but only fractions of students are using it in classrooms or for their homework. The article suggests urging educators to explore ways the Internet can contribute to learning in a digital world. The authors of this article show that it is well researched and concluded that that Internet homework is helpful because assignments increase understanding of topics. Students also seek Internet training for research. It was found that parent involvement and teacher readiness are important factors of achievement as well.

Strom, Paris, Strom, Robert, Wing, Charlotte, & Beckert, Troy. (2010). Adolescent learning and the internet. Education Digest, 75(6), 10-16. Retrieved from

http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.chapman.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=111&sid=1255ea41-6635-4259-999c-c785374397e6%40sessionmgr113