In the light of what I have experienced in this course I think that online learning has educational values and also problems. Of course ICT is here to stay in the modern world, and even if teachers dislike it they have an obligation to teach their students how to use it properly and wisely. It will be part of their work and leisure.
The values are that the students do enjoy it at times. That it is immediate, can be used to foster collaboration as in my Year 7 and Year 9 blogs where the students can have discussions with each other whenever is convenient. The technology support teacher at school has set up my year 9 blog so that it looks extremely beautiful and is easy for me and the students to use - it will email me when there is a posting and it will be easy for me to email the students. I have been able to post games, music, pictures, film and also set up discussion exercises. Some of these seem to be attracting the students' attention
I have yet to see whether this is really helpful to deeper learning on the part of the students. In my experience, with the sort of skills and insight that English aims to teach, the class discussion, group work with butchers' paper and the use of film in the class room are the technologies where I have the most satisfying and deep lessons. However, I have enjoyed the technology and it makes it easy to present things beautifully.
My main concerns are the amount of time it takes and how difficult it is to get something right initially. Just to take one example - arriving late today (of course this was my fault trying to do one more thing on a busy day) i had to try four computers before one worked (this is very often the case when we use laptops in the class room) - so there are inevitable frustrations. Then I thought I had practised redoing all the necessary parts of a Blog over the weekend, but had not run through uploading Inspiration, so although I could do the Inspiration mind map I couldn't unload it.
Moreover I find that when using technology it has a seductive quality. I can spend hours making it look pretty and finding the perfect picture (almost always art) on Google Images - but then I may not have sufficient time to develop the content. It is also extremely easy to cut and past - so one may just fall into the temptation of grabbing something that looks suitable and pasting it in without really considering if it is the best. I am afrai, working at the pace I do, I often grab a poem from the internet without checking whether the text matches a good edition of the poem. We live at such a pace it is hard to do everything well and I think the pressure of technology only increases the pace.
And then of course there is the damage to the body. I know that Iwill be a complete physical wreck tomorrow - back, eyes, hips, hands, shoulders all aching from overuse of the computer pounding away solidly for two hours. Studies show that there are physical changes in peoples hands and eyes as a result of using mobile phones and computer screens. Obesity is another issue.
A worse one in schools, and one particularly facilitated by ICT is plagiarism - barely an issue when I was an undergraduate - something I had not even really heard of - but now something that happens all the time - and sometimes you just have to Google a key word to find the source. But sometimes students get away with it. It is so easy.
Yesterday a dear friend and I who are working on a book together started to get a roll with our writing. We went to the cafe intending to get a takeaway coffee and return to work. But instead (partly because of my hatred of disposable cups) we went in and sat in a booth talking and writing with a pen on paper for at least an hour. And about half way though I wrote on the paper that we would not have achieved so much if we had taken the coffee home and started using the computers - the worst danger for me with computers is that they encourage non-sequential thinking - a sort of cherry picking where you browse and pluck bits and pieces from here and there. Computers and ICT are useful tools, adding immediacy and variety to learning, but I am far from convinced that they really encourage deeper thinking than the old technologies.
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