Online Education

This week we had visitors from Manitoba Education, Donal Girouard and Shannon Horne, dress our class on the role of internet and education from a distance ed, and online teacher resource perspective. Online courses is something that I am very unfamiliar with, but I can definitely see the benefits, so the presentation was especially welcome from me.

Although I enjoyed every minute of my small town education, it does have a negative. What is most unappealing is the lack of course selection at a smaller school as opposed to larger high schools, especially those in Brandon or Winnipeg.Distance ed helps diminish the inability of smaller schools to provide these courses as one teacher could teach a specialized course for an entire division from one classroom as opposed to having one teacher per classroom.

On a recent trip to Green Acres Hutterite Colony just south of Wawanesa, I was able to see a form of distance ed in action. The school had an extremely low population and I was surprised by the integration of technology. In one room four students sat with a large flat screen tv and  speaker system. I learned they were being taught by a teacher from across the province, and not only were they being taught via a television screen, a camera and a stereo, but many other students across they province were doing the same.

In my short visit I was able to see how the system was successful, although it has its limitations. Providing a distance education such as this is impossible in a course where hands on learning is the primary focus. In particularly I am trying to envision myself a science teacher engaging the students in a science experiment through a TV screen, not going to happen. The other downfall is the total lack of a teacher-student relationship. The teacher at the previously mentioned colony was trying to teach upwards of fifty-sixty students at a time in over a dozen classrooms across the province making developing a relationships with the students and providing adequate feedback to each student a task even the best educator is likely to fail.

I understand that the implementation of a distance ed program is not a replacement for traditional teaching, and having a school replace their 40S Pre-Calc teacher with someone through a TV is unlikely, implementing any type of system has challenges  that need to be overcome but the benefits are outstanding.