Dear Team 3 members,
Please know that your assigned team member for this week did not send in the post as yet. Therefore, for this week, you will read and comment on the post titled “Netiquette: Rules of Behavior on the Internet”. Read this post here and then come back to this very page to record your comments.
– Muhammad Adil Arshad
In online classrooms, you communicate with your teacher and instructors, so behavior matter a lot. The guideline for online behavior and interaction is called netiquette.
Some general rules to interact online like, treat instructor with respect in mail, or any online communication, avoid the use of emotion icons, don’t share your personal information etc. In email netiquette, (when you send to your teacher) write your name, and return e-mail address, write a subject line, check it before send it. In netiquette discussion (online) make sure post on the same topic and material you use is reliable. Be brief and always respect the other’s opinion. Don’t make the personal insulting remarks and don’t repeat the things. If you are not clear about something then wait, let other person clarify you avoid assumptions and judgments.
As the classroom is online, you have the classmate from all over the world, so try to be collaborative and appreciate your peers. Be professional; make the correct use of grammar, spellings to avoid miscommunication. Never make the fun of others post.
While, as in online classroom, students give their ideas that enhance online learning experience. But as diversity comes students start ignoring online rules, like use of language (wats up, gonna, wanna etc). So to avoid these situations, it is highly recommended that instructors include in their syllabus an outline detailing his/her netiquette expectations.
Netiquette, a linguistic blend of “Internet Etiquettes” is quite self-explanatory: the set of rules and guidelines one must follow while using the internet as a source of web discussions or interactive classrooms.
Since the tone one uses on the internet is under veil, the only reflective form of mannerism is the way in which discourse is written – the need of implementing netiquette is thus integral! Even though the regulations are very basic, I’d like to shed light on some points they incorporate:
You may have noticed that these rules are to be employed everywhere in our daily lives. How often is it that we put them in practice though? More specifically, have you as a member of this digital forum kept these guidelines in view before making posts? Furthermore, how can netiquette be effectively applied online – should those who carelessly break such rules be penalized?
Virtual learning classes also known as learning platforms which utilize virtual classrooms and meetings which often use a mix of communication technologies. For example conferencing software which enables students and teachers to communicate with each other via webcam, microphone, real time chatting in group sitting. In discussion forums there are chances that students comments each other beyond the limits which can harm the learning environment of the classrooms. Such discussions can decrease students learning outcome and their confidence level.
Now a days as we can see that the demand of the distant learning education is increasing and students worse and filthy comments and personal opinions on others point of view can become a barrier in the growth of this platform. So to save this platform from destruction and to create the social learning environment for discussion in critical way in students’ instructor should develop the netiquette rules or guidelines before the course begin. Then make them a part of students’ syllabus. In my opinion using this way will help instructor to maintain the social learning environment and less conflicts will arise in students. I am not against the conflicts, my point is that students should know their limits to give their critical point of view but in such a way which should not harm the personal opinion of other participant. Then more healthy discussion can be done which will increase the learning outcomes. This is how for the virtual learning classrooms purposes, netiquette deals with notion of respect, harmony and tolerance often manifest in the tone or functions of the interactions. Then students will take more participation in online classroom activities which promote the environment of groupness, cohesiveness and community.
I am inviting my all class fellows to give their own opinions by imagining that if they are instructor of the virtual classroom, which netiquette rules or guidelines would they like to use and how will they make it a part of syllabus? Minimum one suggestion is required.
By Momina HassanAs the technology is upgrading day by day, the method of teaching is changing as well, Instead of blackboard and chalk, now instructors use projector screens and laptops to show and write the content, it’s much easier to read and understand for the students. Tablets have taken over the attention of the world for quite a few years now. The IPAD was released a few years back, and since then many other companies jumped into making different kinds of tablets. It’s the most portable and easiest way out there now to connect with the rest of the world. It is being used in the world of education as well, though there are still many questions and concerns about this method but I believe it’s a great product which has more pros than cons if used the right way. Technology is infinite in all senses. Anyone can have the world in the palm of their hands by being connected to the Internet, a tool that can take you anywhere in a second. A very efficient way to use it, probably the most popular one, is for education. Textbooks and encyclopedias are beginning to be outdated and replaced by computers. Technology goes even further with the introduction of tablet computers, which are even more useful now that they are more practical and portable. The world is taking advantage of these new devices by using them to teach in many more ways than a textbook is able to.
Though tablets are a recent phenomenon, many students in high school and college have been using smartphones for years, and are already well-acquainted with touchscreen technology. Because they’ve become so accustomed to using these devices, students are increasingly expecting to use them in the classroom setting. When classrooms don’t implement what has now become “everyday” technology, we’re doing students a disservice.
The appeal of tablets to a college student is obvious: They’re thin, lightweight, and spring to life without delay, making them much easier to take to (and use in) class than a laptop or netbook. Longer battery life means that students don’t have to worry about carrying a charger with them. Forgot what the professor said at the end of class about the mid-term? Launch, tap the lecture and replay it in just seconds. That’s faster than texting a half-dozen classmates and waiting for what might be an inaccurate response.
It’s a great invention and we need to encourage its use in our education system, it has more pros than cons. We need to create a system which is useful for both students and the instructors, So both can take advantage of the modern education techniques and catch up with the rest of the world.
Dear Team 3 members,
Please know that your assigned team member for this week did not send in the post as yet. Therefore, for this week, you will read and comment on the post titled “An 80-Year-Old Graduate With an Online Marketing Degree Kept His Promise”. Read this post here and then come back to this very page to record your comments.
– Muhammad Adil Arshad
By Nouraiz Nazar“A free world-class education for anyone anywhere”, Khan Academy
One of the most common ways of learning these days is through different apps. Khan Academy, a website and an app available for iOS, Android, and Windows, aims to provide education to anyone, anywhere and anytime. This virtual educational instrument started in 2006, with more than 700 videos on different topics, regarded as great tool for extreme learning.
As a graduate, if one needs to prepare for SAT, MCAT or GMAT exams, and unfortunately met an accident, that person may not be able to go to a preparation class, but with Khan Academy one can always turn on laptop or use a phone or tablet, with an internet connection to learn and prepare while lying on a hospital bed.
I, as an Environmental Sciences student, don’t have sufficient practice with Calculus, and interestingly if next year after my graduation, I get a job in research organization where I would have to do Calculus now and then, I would not be able to come back to FCC, and take MATH 101 with Dr Ron McCartney. I will open Khan Academy app, and watch videos to learn calculus.
It is an interesting platform for the students to learn and teachers should widely incorporate technologies like Khan Academy and other virtual education resources in teaching. What do you think would be the importance of using these resources in your teaching practices? Would you, in near future as a teacher would consider, integrating the resources like Khan Academy into your teaching?
By Wajih AhsanThe tools found in a classroom are pretty standard ticks on the check list. There’s multimedia, wifi and the ever present computer. Despite the obvious attempts the classroom is very much a physical place and very little goes outside. It would be quite accurate to say that the classroom starts and ends by the bell. What more can the teacher do that which is not done? What is the modern tool of the trade? Tracking.
Just like the internet, the phones and the facebooks. (but not tracking as in whereabouts outside of class).
A teacher should fully track each and every student and the method used should be traceable and obvious but most importantly quantitative. I’m talking feedback like nothing before. Modern tech should be used to plot a student’s progress. By way of plots, graphs, pie charts and bars there should be a spread of an individual students academics, behaviour, athletics, etc all graded out and spread across the academic period via a legitimate process. It should all come down to daily activities and lessons, textbook readings and essays all the way to a spell check on a sentence.
Excessive. Maybe. Necessary. Yes.
There aren’t enough parent-teacher meetings as we know it. In the world of today no parent should be taxed with the duty of physically coming to school. Even so, it’s a bi-annual pilgrimage of sorts. Point made it should be instantaneous. The process of waiting for results is tedious and the chances of parents coming to know about bad results are even less. Something quantifiable can be cross-checked. A student can know where he stands and can make improvements.
Other than that a teacher should also make himself available outside his class and away from his special academies (where he suckers kids out of money). He should be fully engaged after hours with his students offering assignments, tasks, creative exercises, tutorials, lessons, conversations, etc and more etc.
Dear Team 1 members,
Please know that your assigned team member for this week did not send in the post as yet. Therefore, for this week, you will read and comment on the post titled “College 2.0: A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man ‘Academy’ on YouTube”. Read this post here and then come back to this very page to record your comments.
– Muhammad Adil Arshad
Nothing can be more exciting than use of videos in classroom. Isn’t it will enthuse all of us and motivate us when we will have interesting short documentaries, still shots and expertise talks instead of listening to our professors with absence of mind? Some of you disagree with me or some will agree as I definitely would prefer of having video lectures in our classrooms in the form of documentaries, short films, clippings, pictures, animation and so on.
In article “the chronicle of higher education” by Jeffery R. Young is written that now professors of different disciplines for example sociology, anthropology, foreign languages etc. assigning students to make video instead of writing term or research papers. As students can express their ideas and logical things more clearly than in written form. Kyle D. Brown has recently designed an IPhone app so that students can submit their video assignments easily as he thinks that now making video is as easy as writing assignments.
Even teachers can make their lectures more interesting by using videos in their lectures. An organization TED has made a web site on which there are thousands of videos from where teachers can enhance their lectures by using them. Also I think video lectures can be given by anyone from any part of the world.it can be more creative if teachers are suggesting and advising students to use videos in their courses because in videos student have to research on his own and he will experience things that he can share with everyone through videos which will useful for everyone. Video making enhance student’s ability to express their ideas as Michael S. Graver said “it’s kind of a way to showcase the talent around the country”
Think, Analyze & Share 