My experiences with Online – Blended Learning

My experiences with online and blended learning in the professional context as it relates to technology integration is minimal, meaning my exposure of both were limited. It seemed each year that covid was alive and thriving in the nation, it allowed me to gain insight into the various technological practices that I had to become familiar with. Luckily, in my first two years of teaching, I was using Seesaw in both of the schools, as well some remainder of each year was spent planning and teaching in-person. In my third year, I had the opportunity to teach my high school mature students through D2L. Overall, I found my experiences teaching my students through these LMS were not very effective because for the most part there was many factors that presented itself like many did not have internet, devices and connecting with them in general posed as a huge challenge. However, integrating through the LMS had it challenges, namely, I had to get myself familiar with the system beforehand. I had to do a lot of trial and error prior to, even having just a meet and greet for half an hour with my students on Seesaw. It seemed that many students enjoyed the meet and greets and the little engagement involved but with the help of their parents of course. The opportunities I would say were, in my second year, I was abit more proficient in the LMS, I was able to upload and add more material, given that it was a higher grade level of course but by now I was familiar. With the D2L, my adult learners were not even present to engage with, even though I found I was growing somewhat proficient at entering content while staying active. I believe many students were not active and interested in online learning because it was a system that didn’t seemed to hold any merit. There was no way to indicate and relay to the students and their parents that they were in fact gaining marks and/or grades for their effort and commitment if they conducted themselves accordingly online. This whole blended and online learning scheme was a waste of time for the most part. Once I got to the classroom, everything had to taught all over.

Advertisement