Reflections

In this course, I learn a lot about online class and web software. I have taken a soup of online courses at the community college. So, I thought this class will be like the classes that I took. However, the online school of this class was more advanced and well-organized. The online courses that I took were quiet simple. All I had to do was to read the textbook and lecture slides in the course websites. Then, I took the test or wrote the essays about the subject. Typical online class might be still same like the classes I took. In this course, I realized that the online class has been improved a lot. Many web 2.0 software will help the teachers and students of the online course. The learning materials are not limited to the textbooks. Many sources in the internet may help students to understand their subjects in dept. All they need to do is to know how to search their interested subjects.

I thought myself as a person who was using the internet fully before taking this class. However, I was a ‘digital immigrant.’ I knew some web 2.0 like remote-control was existed but I thought they were in testing version or needed some improvement. This was not true. Many web 2.0 are already in public and they work fine. A lot of them are even free. I used remote-control tool to help my friend with his computer problem. It worked really well. I was surprised. All I used before this class was instant messenger, MSN messenger, and e-mails. In this course, I have learned so many things that will help me in many ways.

I thought there was some limitation to teach students through internet. Especially math and sciences have many symbols that cannot be type with normal keyboard. So it was hard to read math and sciences equations and statements. Web 2.0 improves the teaching methods. Now, online class has many tools to teach students with many visual aids.

I mentored three project groups; water desalination, ocean acidification, and PCBs. I searched and learned about these subjects to help my students. They asked a couple of questions about their subjects. One good thing about online tutoring is that I know what I am teaching is correct and I can teach them in dept. I can check the internet to double check my answers. I also can add some more information. It was confident for me to have some time to answer. In face to face teaching, I need to answer questions quickly because students are waiting. In online class, I have a time to look for the right answer. My students to look for the right answer. The students did not ask many questions. It might be because they already know where to look for the information. I hope I could help them more. I was surprised what high school students are doing. They have really nice portfolios and they know more about the internet than me. It was awesome experience that I could learn new advanced technologies and high school students.