September 29, 2008

Hello Developers,

Back even 15 years ago, many of our students didn't know how to use e-mail. Papers were allowed to be turned in when they were written by hand and people had no idea what "Google" was. I remember when I would send letters through the US Mail to my friends who lived across the country because it was too expensive to call and I didn't have a computer in my house. Wow, how times have certainly changed! And you are a big part of the change!

These days our students are coming to Globe Education Network with an expectation of being able to take online courses. The courses you are developing are being asked for by our students and as I mentioned last week, more and more students are taking online courses. They are coming to us knowing how to use web cameras, how to put videos on YouTube, how to sync their e-mails to go directly to their cell phones, and so much more. Now, it is even becoming more common for students to be taking online or hybrid courses in high school. Here is a link to an article that discusses an entire high school that offers all of its courses in a hybrid format: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/news-by-subject/curriculum/index.cfm?i=54655

The fact that students have all of this knowledge when they come to us pushes us to do our best in the development of our online courses. It is important that we use the technology that we have available to us to meet all of the student learning styles. Students are used to being able to be a part of a community in the online world through social networking web sites. It is important that we create this type of community environment in our courses. The stage has certainly be set, now it is up to us to create courses that are going to provide our students with the best learning environment possible.

We have 50% of the development period left for this development cycle. I challenge you to push yourselves to be creative and come up with assignments that are going to both challenge and engage our students. I look forward to seeing what all of you have created when I go into check your courses at the 75% completion date!

Have a great week!