Skype and the GizmoProject are two forms of technology that help us make calls to others around the world. These two programs are online telephones. Students or teachers can make calls to people around the world cheaper than they can using a landline. I’ve read two posts about Skype and the GizmoProject, one from Remote Access and the other from David. I think that these two programs are effective and useful. I think that if the students are taking a history class or especially a foreign language class then these two programs would help the students learn more efficiently. Students would be able to talk to other students from across the country and find out about their economy and how they live and how they are different from the U.S. If the student was taking a French class then as an assignment to teacher could have the class sign on to one of the programs and hold a conversation with a person that is from France or some other French speaking country.

As I was looking through the feeds, I found one on OLDaily that caught my eye. It is a site that does online tutoring for higher education tests such as the SAT and ACT. It is called eduFire (www.edufire.com). The site offers live video instruction for each test. The students who visit the site see a list of tutors along with a picture of each and they get to choose which tutor that they want to set an appointment with. The prices range from $10 – $40 per session, and students do not have to pay until the session is over. The company takes 15% of the cost per session to pay for the site.

This site gives us another example of distance education. The students get to interact with the instructor and learn what is necessary to achieve a good score on these higher education tests.

In chapter 7 they discuss what it takes to create an online class. The site has to have several things in order to make it a successful course. These things are also needed in the regular classroom as well. The first thing it needs is form and function also known as usability and aesthetics. Users should be able to input information using several methods, use the site at their own pace, and easy for the user to correct any errors. The course should also have documents that students need to be able to access in order to know what the class is about and what is expected of them. Those items would be a syllabus, a lesson plan, and a study guide. The syllabus tells what the course is about, the lesson plan tells the students what is expected of them for each lesson and the study guide helps them learn the material and study for tests. But these materials are also good resources to have in the regular classroom setting as well. Some other qualities that an online course should have are: content, pedagogy, motivation, feedback, coordination/organization, usability, assistance, assessment, workload, and flexibility.

Life what can I say, it happens!  It’s been a long week so I am catching up on some readings and postings. I just started using a blog when I started this class and have never used a wiki before. I know how they are similar but not sure of the differences. I know that with both the blog and the wiki you can write your ideas and then others can leave you comments about them. When I did research on the wiki I found that changes can be made to the posts by other people not just the original author. Also after reading Amy’s post about wikis I learned that they can also erase what others have said and others can add images and tables to the pieces. I think that it would be a good idea to use these in English and math courses because then papers can be peer edited and if there are any errors in the math problems corrections can be made through the wiki.

I never knew that there was a 3D classroom. I knew about chat rooms and websites that you could create to have your own little world but a classroom? I guess it is the wave of the future. I was looking at the sites for Active Worlds, Second Life, and www.oddessey.com and I liked learning about them. If you log into any of these sites you can create your own world, play games, visit other worlds, and chat with other users. The Active Worlds site even has a mall that you can shop and get virtual arrangements, or accessories for your world. Registration is free which, is a good thing. There is one difference that I found among the sites. The Active Worlds site seems to be more toward the classroom and teaching students where Oddessey and Second Life seem to be more for the individual, one who just wants to create their own world for friends to visit. I have actually thought about joining the Active Worlds realm so I can check out the bowling world.