PROS and CONS of Online Teaching

PROS:
Student can go at “own pace”
Student has freedom to organize day
Student can live anywhere
Student can attend if ill
Student can learn and retain
information because learning is at own pace.


CONS:
Student must be responsible/motivated
Student must be online for office hours
Student may be online too much
Group/physical interaction is limited
Parents/Students honesty about signatures

Emerging Technologies in the Classroom

The three emerging technologies I found are...

google earth

http://www.google.com/educators/p_earth.html

This was really interesting because as a science instructor, google earth can tackle land as well as oceans. I thought it would be interesting to download this application to introduce a unit on ocean exploration or ocean life. It is also a great tool to use to visualize how land has changed over millions of years. This would be interesting to adapt into a lesson plan on geology or plate tectonics through the different geologic era's.

google maps-locate earthquakes around the world in the past week

http://earthquakes.tafoni.net/

This is a pretty cool site because it lists where in the world, or in the US, earthquakes have occurred in the past week. This would be highly relevant in a geology course. It would link the outside world to the classroom. This could also be included in a lesson plan.

Knol for dummies-writing a knol about

Health Issue - Bacteria decay - Rotten egg smell in well water

http://knol.google.com/k/mark-bowen/health-issue-bacteria-decay-rotten-egg/hq2vomqc6hij/1#

This site was a little different. The idea behind writing a knol is to educate other people about a specific topic or idea. This is pretty cool as a form of assessment. At the end of the lesson, students can write one about what they have learned.