The Sloan Survey

This was an interesting week, discussing various things about DE as outlined in the Sloan Survey.

1.  It's obvious that DE is still considered by many to be "not the real thing" when it comes to education.   I wonder why we think that education can only take place in the classroom with a teacher?  Maybe that's the way it was earlier - but just because we had a teacher at school in the 60's didn't mean that was the only place we learned.. We talked with friends, went to the library, discussed assignments etc.   I think a lot of people dismiss DE because they have never really looked at it and it is different to what they grew up with.


Reading this survey brought up some interesting questions for me.  Why do so few institutions require formal training before putting their teachers online?   We require so much training for a k12 teacher, yet the switch to online is on average a 5 week online class.  Certainly, a classroom teacher already has a large background in learning theory etc, but even then, 5 weeks is barely enough time to scratch the surface.   My real question is more about how training for online teachers will look in the future.  There will be an increase in demand for teachers (and hopefully for librarians) as more and more states begin to require online classes at the K12 level as part of the graduation requirements.  So how will they be trained.  There are three possibilities that I see, and it will be interesting to see which one eventually takes over

a.  teachers can become classroom certified and then do a CE class on how to teach online.  This is the current format and, in my opinion, it's not that effective.   Teachers see it as an easy way to make some extra money - it's not a full time job.

b.  Teachers will be required to get an online certification - in the same way that we now get a certificate to teach a specific subject.   So I would train for and get a certification as an online teacher.    This is possible in TX in 2 different ways.  Once you have a certification as a teacher, you can take the test for another subject.  So if you are certified to teach German but you also speak Spanish, you can simply take the exam for the Spanish Certificate.  If you're already a certified classroom teacher, you could study on your own, or with a variety of CE courses and then take the exam and become a certified online teacher. This would then require a certain number of hours of CE every 5 years to maintain the certificate.

c.  When a teacher is in college and training/learning to be a teacher, then they would decide if they wanted to become an online or classroom teacher.  At the moment, they choose whether they want to teach elementary or secondary and their classes revolve around what /where they plan on teaching.  Education schools will eventually offer online certification classes for each level.  After all, elementary level classes online are very different to high school classes.


Hopefully, online teaching will eventually be considered as a full time position - maybe a district position rather than a job with a specific school .  At the moment, many online instructors are contracted by the semester and receive no benefits.  For teachers in the classroom full time, this is seen as a way to make extra money but it's not a good full time job for those that need benefits.

Until there is a chance to be fully employed, not many student teachers would be likely to select an option that would limit them to only online positions.  Of course, school districts also see online learning, paying only for students taking the class as a viable alternative to keep costs down.  After all, why employ a full time teacher for a few students and pay benefits to the teacher?


I'd never thought about what schools plan to do in the event of mass disaster?   H1N1 is (was?) an issue but who knew that schools thought they could simply go online to keep going in the event of a natural catastrophe?  That's hardly helpful for those who would have to use the library computer in a time of massive flu outbreaks...

Student retention:
It's probably a good idea for students to take a challenging online class in high school to break the perception that it's an easy option.  The problem is that without good teacher training, there probably won't be enough good courses to really challenge every high school student if they all took a course or two.