A thought about on-line learning... an ongoing discussion.

Hello!

Pardon me for a second as I tie this email in with last weeks Parsha (reading from the Torah).....   (I have to earn my "Rabbi" points with some of our Heads of School!!!  :-)   )

In the Torah reading from last week, we read about "sin offerings" that were brought when someone made an unintentional transgression.  As outlined by Rabbi Sacks, the former chief Rabbi of England, when the Torah discusses the offerings of the Cohen (Priest), the Sanhedrin (the courts system) or the Individual, each section begins with "If..... a sin...."  In the section that deals with Leaders (King, ruler, etc.), it begins with "When.... a sin....."  You see, the leader is EXPECTED to make mistakes that will need a "sin offering."  Commentators point out that "Happy is the nation" ("Ashrei" - in Hebrew) that has leader who is not afraid of leading and making mistakes.

At our schools, we are all education and technology leaders and it is impossible to do what we do without having something not work properly.  Should we fear this? I would suggest not.  Indeed, we need to plan for times when what we try goes "burp" and we do not succeed. "Bugs," errors, "burps" are EXPECTED and are, for us, teachable moments.

While the "wonderful world of eLearing" (sounds like a Disney ride!!) is being touted as the "next best thing since sliced bread," one should not expect that - especially in these "early" years of the program - for everything to work perfectly.  Even so, the power of eLearning is something that, I would suggest, will change the way we all teach and learn in the 21s century.

The article below discusses the "failings" of a specific type of on-line teaching and how we can learn from these errors to make future experiences even better for our students!

As always, please feel free to share and you comments are most welcome.

Enjoy!

Yossie

http://www.eduwire.com/technology/i-failed-my-online-course-but-learned-a-lot-about-internet-education/

Yossie FrankelDirector - Consortium for Information and Academic Technologies
Member Schools:
Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy - yfrankel@hillelhebrew.org
Oakland Hebrew Day School - y.frankel@ohds.orgShalhevet High School - y.frankel@shalhevet.org Arete Preparatory Academy - yfrankel@areteprep.org
Yeshivat Yavneh - www.yha.org