Web- based courses

Donald and Shannon provided us information in regards to web based courses. I myself have not had a whole lot of experience with online courses, besides a partial one that I did not complete. During the time that I was working on this online course I found it extremely difficult to stay focused on completing it along with everything else in life that was going on. I felt extremely stressed out by doing the course online because I learn best with someone standing in front of me and actually teaching me. Donald had mentioned LMS- blackboard to learn which he had said that over 1000 teachers, and over 9000 students use it, as well as over 50 % of teachers use WBCs as a resource for teaching/professional learning. Web based learning is for supporting learners/teachers, assure congruence and to model good pedagogy for E-learning and in assessment strategies. I think that for students who are not able to complete courses in a classroom that this is a great resource for students to succeed and complete courses. Don had mentioned that it is important for accessibility which is a great aspect of the web based courses. The fact that a student with a disability can easily learn just like any other student is great! Engagement I can see would be a problem for some students and they may find that web based courses don't work for them- but they have set it up so that students can easily access help at their finger tips, they can use blogs or wikis, and whiteboard and chat so this allows students to stay connective and communicate easily through blackboard so that students can easily do all the necessary things. It is to the teachers discretion what tools they want to use, which I think is great so that teachers and students can get used to the program! The question was asked to us on how we would engage students in our own class if we were teaching an online course? I think that personally I would prefer that students have more creative assignments rather than tests, essays, or questions that are to be answered. I think that students would be more engaged if it was creative assignments that can be done using an online source. I think that as an early years teacher it would be more difficult to include something like the blackboard in my classroom because the students are not quite at that level yet. Students in middle years and senior years though would definitely be able to benefit from the blackboard!