My Challenges While Learning Online

Of course, it's a challenge for all of us to make a transition from the real world to the virtual world after covid19 pandemic. Teachers and students have the big impact, and responsibility to complete their work online and not missing anything. 

Being a student, I always get over-burdened with the amount of tasks that are required for a specific time. I face technical issues, most of the time the power is off, weakness in the internet connection, amount of distraction by kids and noises, lack of motivation, and data security. However, I like remote work, because I can watch recording sessions at the time I want with full attention and carefulness, and I can save time that would be consumed while moving between home and university, and between classes and libraries.

What About Technology in Education?

Undoubtedly, technology has a cardinal role in 20st century, especially in education and teaching. It enhances learning, simplifies teachers' work, fosters engagement, promotes collaboration, and saves time and energy. But also, it distracts students, requires skills and training, costs money, facilitates cheating, creates medical problems, and puts privacy and safety under risk. In my opinion, I support integrating technology in teaching as long as teachers control the way the students deal and work with digital devices, and monitor them to reduce the disadvantages of technology as much as possible. In conclusion, technology is indispensable in education, and teachers must be aware about which technology tool should be use, how, where, and when.

EDUC561 Course

Educational Media & Technology is a very significant and effective course nowadays. It prods teachers to integrate technological strategies in their classrooms to enhance learning. It provides some learning theories and their implications and different technologies includes visual media, audio media, internet resources, computer tools, multimedia application, instructional software and much more. I really enjoyed practicing the material, the collaborative work, the activities and knowing new tools that are useful in life not just in teaching. Everything seems clear and easy and very helpful when implied in classrooms. Much thanks for our doctor Mrs. Amal Farhat, that made the lectures perfect and very well organized,  and much thanks for the classmates that were very kind and respectful. 

What students should be taught when working online to avoid problems?

Nowadays, students are more connected to the internet than before, especially after covid19 pandemic that forces teachers and students to work online. And teachers, as well as students' parents are responsible to teach the children about working on the internet. Students may face multiple challenges while working online, and in my opinion, we should teach them two important concepts to avoid the most serious issues. 

First, students might face technological proficiency issues due to the lack of skills and guidance of using digital tools like how to login, to participate in class, to create and submit work, to communicate with teachers and friends. So we need to guide them and teach them the required skills while working in different technological tools, apps, and websites. And we need to follow the online working with the appropriate instructions in order to aid them overcome such difficulties.

Secondly, students might face safety issues, we need to teach them how to stay secure and not to share their personal information readily. Teaching them the importance of securing their mobiles and tablets, and to be careful where they click, and to be aware of the kinds of biases, can do much for preventing them from falling victims to spams, threatening, or phishing.

Moreover, we need to teach them some other attitudes and behaviors in order to adapt to online working. For instance, how to manage their time, and how to be frank and kind with others,  and how to respect others’ privacy.

How to be a Digital Citizen?

The occupation of technology and electronics in education and other business fields forces us to be good digital citizens. It requires professional skills, experiences and guidelines, and to be up to date to every new version and new apps and tools that are innovated. 
The steps that required to be an excellent digital citizen are:

• Follow the golden rule in dealing with people, use good judgment and be kind, and most important is to respect copyrights and intellectual properties
  
• Protect personal information, by being private as much as possible, because sharing details and personal information can expose us and our family reputation for abusing or threatening or any other kind of risks 
• Always be mindful and aware of what you say and do, due to the fact that the computer and the internet make tattoos for every thing we do, text, or say 
• Always be yourself, so your audience doesn't conflict with your picture in the real world.
  
• Carefully manage your digital footprint
• Stand up to cyberbullying when you see it happening
  

Technological Tools for Online Assessment

While many educators suffer from traditional ways of evaluating and assessment, on the other side, technology has already innovated much simpler and easier ways to test students' learning. Hence, numerous tools and apps are very beneficial and helpful to teachers for measuring their students’ grasp of concepts and skills while they are teaching.

Some of the best free assessment tools includes:

• Google Forms: Is my favorite tool, you can engage different kinds of questions like multiple choices, checkboxes, and file upload, you can give feedbacks, you can analyze the responses and evaluate, you can prevent cheating using a number of tips in google forms, also you can use automatic correction and grading.
• Padlet: It's like a blank canvas, it can invite open-ended answers and allows students to design and post reasons and explanations through texting and inserting photos or videos.
• Poll Everywhere: You can create feedback and questions and you can see the results in real time. While students can respond in a variety ways.
• Mentimeter: Students can use smartphones, tablets, and laptops readily to vote on any question the teacher asks.

In addition to other many apps that are convenient and interactive for assessing like Wordwall, Google Slides, Jamboard, ClassPoint, Nearpod, Kahoot and much more.

What can you do now that we were not able to do a year ago?

Studying the teaching diploma benefits me a lot. I became qualified to enter the labor market and to have the opportunity to practice the acquired skills that I learned during the first semester. I have taught enough about classroom discipline, public speaking, presentation, classroom dynamics, technological tools, management, and leadership. So, in this year, I can pursue the desired career of being a preschool director or coordinator, and I can enjoy employing my dexterity and proficiency in the job.

Accommodation of Students Diversity in Classroom

Students diversity is natural and common issue among all schools. Undoubtedly, it has a big positive impact in the learning process and the environment of the classroom. But, on the other hand, it seems as a challenging task for the teachers to adapt their instructions to meet the needs of their multicultural students. 

As teachers, we need first to accept the diversity fact of students, then we need to know more about the students’ characters, and to make an assessment at the start of each class to know what our students already know and what they need to know. Later, we can choose the most suitable teaching strategies that can fit our student’s different backgrounds, abilities, needs, and learning styles. For example, we can incorporate more open- ended questions in the lessons to attract the students’ attention and to enhance involvement in the class, we can offer more wait time for low achieving students, we can utilize visualizing, auditory, written, drawing, or practicing methods technological tools or even we can relate the content to real world situations, so that can cover all the variety of learning styles.  We have to add extra objectives or complex problem- solving tasks to satisfy the curiosity of the fast and high achieving students. Sometimes we have to use grouping strategies, so students can learn from each other and help each other and they will become more motivated and they will be challenged to do their best. In regards to the assessment, we need to provide the students sample exams, and we need to teach them the test-taking strategies, our language should be clear for all, and we have to make special provisions for non-native English speakers. Regarding the grading, we should align the grades with the learning objectives, and we have to maximize the criterion reference of grading to avoid competitions between the students.

Finally, differentiating instructions is essential for effective teaching. And we can do our best to adapt our instructions so it can meet the learning needs of my students.