Asynchronous and synchronous learning are both being used in the online learning environment. As both a student and a teacher of online learning I have seen that although both have many advantages, there are still a few drawbacks. A big advantage that I appreciate of asynchronous work is that you can complete the work on your own time within a given timeframe. Take this blog post for example, I am writing it while my daughter is
sleeping because this time of day is when I can get the most accomplished. Someone else writing the same blog post may choose to complete it on their lunch break at work because that is when they found the time that works for them. Synchronous work is great for connecting students and making them feel like they are part of the bigger group because they are able to converse in real time with each other.

 As great as both are, there are still some drawbacks. As a mother of a newborn and a toddler, synchronous work is very hard for me, especially when the time that seems to work for everyone else is basically the worst timing for myself so I am forced to make arrangements so that my entire focus can be on the class or task at hand. As a teacher I have seen a few of my students stumble with the asynchronous aspect of schooling as they are not having to converse with me daily to have me tell them what to do, it is easy for them to fall behind a little bit and I have to make it a point to check in with my students and the parents twice a week to keep
them caught up with their work. Of course this is all my own opinions and what I personally see as drawbacks and benefits of the two versions of online learning and I am sure as I learn more about it and about more delivery tools (LMS and non-LMS) that my thoughts and opinions will take more shape and may even change. 

It is all about how we view the situation we are in with what is going on with us personally and that is what makes online learning great at times and a struggle at times.


  

This week I built my first ever “unit” in Moodle.  I have to admit, it was a very large learning curve (not as straight forward as I thought it would be) and now I can see how and why my professors in years past have gotten so irritated with it. If you are to just learn everything there is to know about Moodle all by yourself and try to build something from scratch solo, it could take many hours. I am lucky enough to have a preset unit to work with so that made life a lot easier. I also really enjoyed learning about Moodle in a jigsaw fashion and having video tutorials made up by my colleagues to watch and go along with instead of just static readings. Finally, the help of a peer to critique and give me suggestions along the way was something that I am sure not many other teachers get the opportunity to have in other situations. Although Moodle is a very complex LMS, I now see a lot of benefits to it and I am excited to start using it with my own courses and students.

 There were many things that I did not even know were possible with Moodle until the presentations by my colleagues and now that I am more aware I am actually quite excited to start preparing and not nearly as
scared as I was before entering this experience. It was suggested that database would be a great way to complete novel studies and since my students are expected to complete a few a year, I am sure this is one of the first things that I will be setting up in my course. Another thing that I found very helpful was choice; it seems like a great way to help students select a novel and as a teacher I can make sure not everyone is doing the same book but rather they are evenly spread out throughout the term so each time a novel study is being done, the students have other peers to discuss with. Quiz is something else that I think I will be using as much as possible because I find it is hard to get students to physically mail me a test but if I can put them all online and their marks and answers are submitted automatically it saves me the stress of trying to track down tests and the family the stress of trying to get it to me through scanning or snail mail.

 Something that I am not too sure that I will be using with Moodle would be the grades function. I am more of an excel spreadsheet where I can see all of my student’s marks for different assignments and from there do my own calculations instead of worrying about putting in the correct values in the Moodle sections. I can see the value of using grades in Moodle but I also don’t think that I would ever be able to fully rely on it. Something else that I don’t think it worth trying to set up with Moodle would be math type questions in quizzes. The calculated questions I found were really hard to work with and needed to be typed in such a particular way that it really wasn’t worth trying to work with. Another reason I do not see value in trying to figure out the calculated questions is that math is something that has to be written out because if there is a mistake along the way at least partial marks can be given up until the mistake occurs and if you are only giving the students a chance to put in the answer they are unable to show their thought process to get there.

 All in all I am very glad to have gone through the experience of learning Moodle and I am now very excited to personalize it (or another program similar to it such as Edmodo) for my students to use in the years to come!

 There is a debate going that computers and delivery technologies do not necessarily help with student achievement and engagement but it is merely another way of presenting the information and if it happens to engage the students then it will help. I can see both sides of this argument and through some readings I am now aware of more opinions on the matter. We are now in the 21st century and in being in this century, we as teachers need to realize that our students are now utilizing technology more so than in years past, and as technology grows and more delivery systems become available, students may continue to shift toward online learning and e-textbooks and away from brick and mortar learning and print. As a university student, why would you pay upwards of one hundred dollars for a textbook that you may be able to get for half price on an e-reader or even for free on your computer? Through this, I also see how copyright is also becoming more and more of an issue and in the electronic world it will be interesting to see how it changes in the coming years.

 With brick and mortar schools (well all schools for that matter) I have learned that the budget is one of the biggest concerns. With the introduction of e-textbooks for a fraction of the cost of print, it allows for students to have a copy of the book that they are able to access from school and at home while saving money in the budget that could go towards something else. I have most of my students choosing to go for the online e-text versions of as many books as possible because not only are they saving money (they have a certain amount they are able to spend on texts and resources each year) but they are also reusable just like print versions and are not going to have the same amount of “wear and tear” as a print book.  This is also helpful for the online
learning student who has more than one sibling as the family is able to purchase the copy of the book once and use it for all of their children (in the case of one of my families, that is eight children) before giving it away or selling it.

 As a teacher a big benefit of having e-texts is the opportunity to copy a page and send it in an email or post it on a program such as Blackboard to walk a student through a problem they might be having, which eliminates the problem of having to have a scanner to scan and then attach a page and creates more work for all involved. Obviously this would not work to do for the entire textbook but when a student does not live in driving distance to get help, it would eliminate some frustration. I have also found it helpful at the beginning of the school year when resources and texts do not get to my students in a timely manner, I am able to change my personal password for my copy to a student password and give them access to my copy until they receive  theirs.

 The big downside that I can see with purchasing a book and then using it for many years is the fact that I find a lot of publishers change one or two things in a textbook and then reprint the textbook as a new edition.  Although this means that you may have students working from two different editions, the changes I have found to be very minimal so it is more possible to work with. As a teacher this is where having e-versions of texts is nice because you are not having to purchase a full price text and find room for it, but instead you are just having to buy a code or CD that costs less and takes up less space.  
 
There will always be shifts in online learning and the resources and tools we use and I am interested in seeing where that takes us and how it helps support us as teachers in the online learning community as well as our  students.

eLearning has been around since about 1995 according to Stephen Downes which is interesting to me because I remember that computer labs in schools at that time was rare.  I also think how my family has just
purchased our first computer and had dial up internet. I think about how much time I spend each day on the internet for school, work and checking emails and I often wonder how much it would be different if we were still on the snail pace dial up system. 
 
Through my education degree program I did not hear about eLearning or distance education. I remember being a month away from completing my education degree and hearing about eLearning for the first time, not from a professor but actually from a friend of mine who was enrolling her daughter into a distance learning school.  The idea stuck with me and intrigued me as I knew quite a bit about technology and I also knew that I had a child on the way so entering a brick and mortar school was a few years off. I looked into different schools around the province and less than a year after receiving my education degree I was offered a position with a distance learning school teaching the ages that I have always wanted to teach!

 When I think about the evolution of eLearning, it is not only in the world around me but also in my own mind.  The more I explore the topic, the more I am learning about the world of eLearning and in turn my own understandings and opinions are changing and branching off into different directions. Digital Web Magazine talks about the information available to students as “(a) vision of the Web in which information is broken up into "microcontent" units that can be distributed over dozens of domains. The Web of documents has morphed into a Web of data. We are no longer just looking to the same old sources for information. Now we're looking to a new set of tools to aggregate and remix microcontent in new and useful ways”. Through this students are able to pick out the pieces of information that are relevant to them and apply it to their own learning.


 I am a big supporter of student led learning using inquiry and community of learners approach and I am constantly learning that eLearning and the tools available are able to be utilized in a way to help foster the learning that is taking place when the students are given an opportunity. I am excited to see how the implementation of LMS such as Desire2Learn, Moodle and other programs such as Blackboard Collaborate will help students to connect with each other and engage with their peers to expand their thoughts. I believe that eLearning will allow students the opportunity to be in charge of their own learning and Stephen Downes even states “In learning, these trends are manifest in what is sometimes called "learner-centered" or "student-centered" design. This is more than just adapting for different learning styles or allowing the user to change the font size and background color; it is the placing of the control of learning itself into the hands of the learner” which seems to agree.
 
 
Downes, S. (2005, October). E-learning 2.0. Retrieved from http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=1104968

 MacManus, R., & Porter, J. (2005, May 4). Web 2.0 design: Bootstrapping the social web. Retrieved from
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/web_2_for_designers