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•For example, the teacher was observed discussing a family
vacation experience with
a child during a phone conference, and making connections for the child to the curriculum activities,
which he had previously accomplished online.
•These
activities tied in very nicely with the curricular unit of physical health that some of the students
were taking
The nature of communication between parents and the teacher
encourages the online
teacher to be a reflective decision maker
Quote from Jolene’s journal on
Professionalism for #1….. “
Each
month, we have
Professional Development days where we learn new techniques and deal with situations arising or
at hand. This is a great way to bounce
ideas and even difficult
situation off our peers. I enjoy other
perspectives and it makes me realize
how much I miss the camaraderie of my fellow teachers. This has been probably one of the hardest
adjustments to make going from classroom teacher to virtual teacher. The casual smiles, sharing of a new idea,
feedback (email is so
emotionless), and laughter just isn’t the same in the online environment. It is a challenge to keep the camaraderie going in a virtual
school and build a sense of
community within the virtual classroom.”
Another strength of this online program, as per the TIR’s
journal and the mentor’s
observations, is the parental involvement in the educational process. However, the worry about neglected children hiding behind
this environment is a
scary issue leading to the investigation of these research questions:
•Testing results have been
tentatively good, but will that bear out over time?
• The social activities, and community building that occurs in this
environment is
very encouraging, but the research question that needs to be answered is whether collaborative
activities are occurring during instructional activities since research (Cifuentes,
2001; Dringus, 2000; Gokhale, 1995) demonstrates that higher level thinking
occurs when students collaborate and create new materials.
This herd of questions points to the fact that this field
is a quickly growing steed that
may gallop out of control if not guided by a research base, thus being an encouraging one for
researchers to enter.