Importance of Support Personnel in Online Education

Online Education requires the help of many support personnel to be successful.  From technical support personnel, course designers, administration, to recruiters and enrollment specialists, the range of positions exist to aid and assist online learners and educators in multiple ways.  The importance of support personnel is hard to understate.  According to Zawacki-Richter  (n.d.), “…in comparison with traditional distance education, support in online education is of even greater importance…” He gives the following three reasons why:  Learners in distance education have more responsibility than their face to face counterparts; the skills required to do online learning must be developed; and faculty must have support in the areas of promoting, developing, and implementing online learning.  Below is a list of three support personnel with a description of their responsibilities. 

Intake/Onboarding:  These paraprofessionals work with families and students who are new to online schooling in order to assist them in transitioning to the online environment.  They contact families often in the first two weeks of enrollment.  Their primary responsibility is to oversee and provide support, direction, and guidance to these new families and students.  They oversee completion of critical tasks, answer questions, and provide resources such as tutorials, directions, handbooks and more refer students to other support personnel as necessary.  They intervene when progress isn’t being made in order to help families achieve success.  Once families are ready, they are transitioned to a permanent teacher.

Technical support:  Shamsy (2014) reports that tech support personnel provide assistance with many aspects of technological issues which might arise as a result of the technology itself or the experience/knowledge of the user/student.  In some institutions, individuals have been hired with the sole responsibility to offer tech support to students, teachers, and administration.  In other institutions, tech support may be handled by the teacher or a combination of both tech support personnel and teachers.  She gives advantages and disadvantages of both of these scenarios.  Tech support personnel are invaluable as online learning requires technology to operate.  As Shamsy states, “The Internet and associated hardware and software components are the lifeblood of online learning and serve as the medium for content delivery and communication…in an online course or training program, [technical difficulties] can bring the presentation of information, as well as class interaction and collaboration, to a halt.”  In addition to support personnel, many institutions have created online tutorials for using the specific technology (such as software or a particular Web 2.0 technology) their learners will be using consistently or they provide links to the professionally developed support resourses offered by the makers of the software.

Online Instructional Designers:  These professionals create and design online instruction.  According to a job announcement from Iris Educational Media for an Instructional Designer/E-learning Specialist (2016), they often work with other professionals who have been tasked with designing a course such as content area specialist and media production teams and must have strong knowledge of educational technology such as Sharable Content Object Reference Model or SCORM, which, according to SCORM (2008), is a set of standards that ensures all online learning modules and management systems work with each other.  Chapman and Cantrel (2016) explain that instructional designers base their design on current theory and research so the student will experience better learning.

The above referenced support personnel provide a strong foundation for online educators and learners.  It is critical that their services are available in order to ensure that online learning can be the best that it can be.  According to Zawacki-Richter (n.d), online education is innovative when the technologies are used to explore, communicate, and inform instead of just transmit information.  He explains that because of the rapidly changing technology and the availability of online learning, students have become lifelong learners.  These two components, the continuing advancement of technology coupled with more and more students that life-long learning produces demand support.

References

Chapman, S., & Cantrell, P. (2016). What is an Instructional Designer? Retrieved August 12, 2016, from http://teaching.colostate.edu/tips/tip.cfm?tipid=70

Instructional Designer/E-learning Specialist. (2016, August). Retrieved August 12, 2016, from https://www.irised.com/pages/instructional-designer-e-learning-specialist

Online Distance Education [PDF]. Oldenburg, Germany: Carl von Ossietsky University

SCORM Explained. (2008). Retrieved August 12, 2016, from http://scorm.com/scorm-explained/

Shamsy, J. (2014, May). Elearn Magazine: A Balancing Act Part I: Technical Support and the Online Instructor. Retrieved August 11, 2016, from http://elearnmag.acm.org/archive.cfm?aid=2627756#1

Zawacki-Richter, O. (n.d.). The Growing Importance of Support for Learners and Faculty in 

Management of Student Participation in Online Learning

Online teachers encounter several issues in classroom management.  Among them is student participation.  Student participation involves their interaction with the content, with each other and with the teacher.  First, online students complete their study and work in their own environment away from the eyes of the teacher.  How do teachers verify whether or not students are actually reading the content and doing their own work?    Second, online students are usually required to write posts to discussion forums to engage them with other learners.  Teachers often report two problems with student participation in this area:  the posts are not often enough and/or they are not deep enough to address the prompt.  Third, students are often expected to interact with the teacher via online class sessions, telephone conferences, and electronic communications.  Students or parents may want to avoid these interactions or they may not be forthcoming in their communication.

Teachers can be proactive in addressing student participation concerns by doing things before class begins and throughout the duration of the course that will improve student participation.  First, set up expectations and guidelines from the beginning of class.  Be sure those expectations are clearly communicated and what the consequences of not following those expectations will be.  The expectations should include technology requirements so students will be well prepared to meet them.  Be sure to include how non-participation or low participation in all its forms mentioned above will affect grades.  Teachers should monitor and address any issues they find as they find them.  To ensure students participate in the coursework, the coursework should be engaging and high quality and accessible to all students.  For example, it should address many learning styles, provide resources for enrichment and remediation, and be standards based.  It should ask them to complete tasks that are meaningful and well designed.  When problems do arise, teachers should investigate to determine what the problem is and address those issues.  Depending on the situation, the course management system may provide teachers with data on student usage and time on task.  Time logs kept by parents or students report time spent on task.  Both sets of data will help teachers identify students that are not actively participating.  Otherwise, teachers will need to infer student participation based on student work.  High quality work usually indicates students are participating.  Low quality work may be an indicator that students aren’t participating.  Teachers will need to investigate to determine the cause of low quality work.  This involves contacting the student and parent to discuss the issue and uncover the problem.  It may be a technical issue or something else.  Teachers can attempt to help students with technical issues, refer them to support personnel, and reiterate policies and procedures regarding these issues.  If it happens to be something else such as a student needing extra support, students can be assigned to tutoring sessions or other resources to assist them.  Otherwise, it may be personal issues in the home such as sickness or a loss.  Teachers can deal with those issues based on school policy and procedure and a willingness to care and support students.  When an issue arises over whether a student is doing their own work or not, teachers should contact the student and parent and discuss this.  If evidence indicates the student isn’t doing their own work, the student and parent will need to be reminded of school policy and procedure and a consequence issued.  As far as students not participating in discussion forums, Morrison (2012) found three reasons adult students don’t participate:  “poor timing of due dates, reticent students, and student posts that are shallow/lack depth”.  The last two things, I think, apply to younger students as well.  She suggests things teachers can do to alleviate these problems.  For the reticent student, make smaller discussion groups of four or five students, create facilitation teams of two or three students to act as moderators who guide and encourage students, and contact the student via email to offer support and encouragement.  Ko & Rossen (2010) suggest being sure to make the participation required and graded and to create rubrics for the quality and quantity of discussion posts.  Students should understand how many posts or responses they must do and the required depth of their response.  Thormann (2014) recommends that teachers model participation.    As for the third concern, interaction with the teacher, Zacharis (2009) suggest several steps teachers can take:

·         “List contact information on the syllabus

·         Set up communication guidelines and expectations

·         Provide office hours in person or virtually using instant messenger tools or chat rooms

·         Set up a weekly optional chat for students

·         Provide prompt and detailed feedback on assessments and discussion responses

·         Call students to clear up misunderstandings

·         Make frequent announcements to the class”

References:

Morrision, D. (2012, September 03). 3 Reasons Students Don't Participate in Online Discussions. Retrieved August 06, 2016, from https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/3-reasons-why-students-dont-participate-in-online-discussions/

Thormann, J. (2014, April 08). Encouraging Online Learner Participation. Retrieved August 06, 2016 from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/asynchronous-learning-and-trends/encouraging-online-learner-participation/

Zacharis, N. “Fostering Students’ Participation In Online Environments: Focus On Interaction, Communication And Problem Solving” Journal of College Teaching & Learning 6.2 (2009): 25-34. http://www.cluteinstitute.com/ojs/index.php/TLC/article/viewFile/1169/1153

Fun Formative Assessments using Online Tools and Resources

Formative assessment are used to determine whether students are understanding what they are learning.  It can be done during and after instruction (even before to assess prior knowledge) and it should be used to drive instruction.  The Internet provides some exciting tools that teachers can use for formative assessment.  Here are a few of the tools:

1.       http://goformative.com Allows teachers to conduct formative assessment online in real time.  This not only allows teachers to create multiple choice assessments, they can also allow students to submit images or show their work.  Teachers can see student responses in real time and provide feedback and even grade student responses immediately.  This is a powerful tool which will enhance learning by allowing teachers to see immediately students’ understanding and then allowing them to provide immediate feedback.

2.       If you want to be able to conduct a formative assessment asynchronously you can use Google forms or Socrative at the following sites.  Teachers can create quizzes and see results in a chart.

a.       https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/

b.      http://socrative.com

3.       http://en.linoit.com/  Collaborative tool which allows users to post “sticky-notes” or photos to a board called a "canvas".  Teachers can ask students to answer a specific question or respond to a prompt on a sticky note.  Students can respond using their computer, email, or smartphone.  The color of the sticky notes can be changed.  This could be used as an “exit-ticket” strategy.  It would also work well with categorizing items.  For example, students could type responses to a prompt and choose the color of the sticky based on the category their response fits into.  Boards could be created of images which represent what students know about a topic before studying it and then one with images that represent what they now after studying it.  This will enhance learning because it will allow teachers to assess the growth of their students and allows students assess their own learning. 

4.       http://www.wordle.net/create  This tool allows someone to type in a list of words and it will create a word cloud out of the words.  Teachers can use this to ask students to list words that represent their learning in a unit and then create a class word cloud or they can have each student create their own word clouds.  I would ask students to create their own word clouds and then trade with another student.  Then I would ask them to list word(s) in their partner’s cloud that they didn’t use and describe how or why the word(s) fit(s) into the cloud.  This will enhance learning because it will get students to analyze a concept more fully.  Teachers can see quickly whether students understanding is well developed or not by how large their word cloud is.  Students can also self-assess by comparing their clouds with others’ clouds.

5.       https://getkahoot.com/  Teachers can create quizzes, surveys, or discussions for students to participate in real time but it is presented in a game format.  This could be used as a check to see if your class has mastered the concepts presented in a lesson in order to determine if they are ready to move on.  This tool enhances learning because students will enjoy participating and they will be able to assess themselves because they will see their performance.  Also, it can motivate students to study harder or pay better attention during class because they will want to improve their scores or beat their classmates.  It makes learning fun!

Principles of Online Course Design for Elementary Students

Principles of online course design have been developed through research and study by individuals and organizations in the field of education as well as other fields.  One of the top resources in this area comes from the International Association for K12 Online Learning (iNACOL).  They have developed and published a list of standards for online course design which many online schools use to design and evaluate their courses.  Other resources include general information about designing curriculum and courses which can then be applied to designing online courses.  One of those general resources is the Backwards Design model for course development presented in the book Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe and previewed by the online Center for Teaching of Vanderbilt University.  This paper will discuss both the standards and the backwards design model as they apply to young learners in the K-8 environment.

The standards by iNACOL (2011) are very comprehensive and cover five areas:  content, instructional design, student assessment, technology, course evaluation and support.  Each of these areas includes specific standards that provide course developers with information that directs and informs their work.  Following these standards will significantly contribute to the development of well-developed courses.  The following lists some highlights from iNACOL (2011) standards which relate to young learners:

In the area of content, developers must be sure to use clear objectives and align the content to state standards as well as be sure the content is broad enough to meet those standards.  Communication skills should be weaved into the content and many different learning resources should be made available to students.  The content should be multi-cultural and universal (meet the needs of disabled students).  Answer keys and explanations should be included. 

In the area of instructional design, developers should ensure several items.  They should be sure that students are actively engaged.  Interaction and communication between all stakeholders must be available and present.  Content should include higher-order thinking skills.  Lessons and units should have an overview with a listing of objectives, assignments, assessments, and resources.  Readability levels should be appropriate for the grade being taught.  Finally, enrichment resources should be provided.

In the area of student assessment, evaluations should be aligned to course goals/objectives.  Feedback continues throughout the course and is varied.  Assessment informs instruction, apprises students of their progress, and are adaptable to students needs.  The grading policy should be easy to understand and rubrics should be provided to teachers and students.

In the area of technology, instructors should be able to add content to the online course.  Clear and consistent navigation must be present.  Ease of use must be employed for disabled students.  Technology requirements are specified. 

In the area of course evaluation and support, the course provider continuously assesses course and improves it based on findings, keeps it updated as needed to reflect current knowledge, and hires course instructors who are highly qualified.

According to Understanding by Design (n.d.), the backwards design model approaches course design through a process which is different from traditional design.  Instead of starting with what will be taught, one begins with what students will be able to do-or the outcomes.  The model involves three steps:  identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences.  In the first step, the goals, outcomes, and objectives of the course are written.  Second, the assessments are crafted.  Third, the content is written and planned.  In this model, the idea is that if one knows what students should be able to do and how they will demonstrate that, they will be better informed and more prepared to structure the content of the lessons and course.  Hopefully, keeping the outcomes in mind while designing content will ensure content is aligned to the outcomes and that it is not too broad or too narrow.

The standards and design model presented here provide a valuable resource to online instructors and curriculum designers.  Certainly, those interested in providing content for an online school must search out more resources, information, and even certification.  However, understanding and implementing these ideas will contribute significantly to the creation of quality online content and courses. 

References

INACOL. (2011, October). INACOL National Standards for Quality Online Courses (v2). Retrieved July 23, 2016, from http://www.inacol.org/resource/inacol-national-standards-for-quality-online-courses-v2/

Understanding by Design. (n.d.). Retrieved July 23, 2016, from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/understanding-by-design/#resources

Copyright in Education

Copyright protects anyone who creates/makes something (song, book, software, art, movie, play, pantomime, photograph, choreographed dances, digital works or creations, etc.)-even anonymous creators.  It is automatic upon creation and a work does not have to be registered or published for copyright to take effect.  Creation must be in a physical form (if it’s in your head, it’s not copyrighted).  U.S. copyright law is found in Title 17 of the United States Code.  Copyright was not created to make teacher’s lives harder.  Copyright exists because there is incentive for people to create things when they can be compensated for their work and have protections and rights regarding those creations.  Otherwise, why would anyone put in the effort?

Facts themselves are not copyrightable.  For example, you can’t copyright a standard calendar.  However, you can add photographs and create a calendar for sale and copyright that.  Usually, the more creative the work, the more copyrightable it is.  An idea does not become copyrighted until you put that idea into some form of physical medium.-it has to be able to be seen, read, or heard directly or by aid of a machine.  Works created by the federal government or its employees (such as publications or circulars from the US Dept. of Education) are not copyrightable.  You can’t copyright a name, slogan or a phase.  You would need a trademark for that.  You can’t copyright an invention or a discovery.  You will need a patent for that.  The US does have agreements with other, but not all countries. Copyright does expire.  Anything made before January 21, 1923 is in the public domain and can be used freely.  There are some other rules about the public domain.  Some works that were not originally protected may be in the public domain as well.  See this site for a chart created by Lolly Gasaway of the University of North Carolina which contains more specifics on the public domain:  http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm.  The U.S. government has agreements with some, but not all, countries.  Therefore, copyright laws can vary between countries.  Creators should be aware of this. 

Given copyright laws, one might assume an educator would never be able to use anything in the classroom without going to a lot of work to gain permissions.  Fortunately, fair use allows educators to make LIMITED and REASONABLE use of copyrighted works for educational purposes without getting permission from the author/creator.  Fair use are guidelines which are open to interpretation by judges, so be careful when employing them.  The guidelines involve dos and don’ts.  According to fair use, you may use a portion of a work without getting permission if you meet fair use guidelines.  The material you want to use must have been obtained legally.  The use must be for educational and non-profit purposes.  You must use it for factual and non-published purposes.  You must use only a LIMITED AND REASONABLE amount of the work-only the amount you need to meet your educational goal.  You should also use it for a limited time (not the whole year) and for a limited audience-only the students in your class, not the whole school.  The Columbia University Libraries puts out a helpful checklist for its faculty and staff.  You can find a link to it in the reference section of this presentations.  You can and should use a checklist such as this for each material you plan to use and keep a copy of it on file after the use.  Fair use also allows works to be used for criticism and commentary, parody, news reporting, art, scholarship and research.  Some of the don’ts of fair use include that the use must not be commercial and it must not prevent or take away any sales or profit from the creator or copyright holder.

Online educators must abide by copyright law, however, there are some differences in things online educators can do and face-to-face educators can do.  The TEACH act of 2002 covers these differences.  This act is very technical and has many restrictions.  It allows you to digitally transmit material under the following stringent conditions:

If you work for an accredited, non-profit, educational or governmental agency that has copyright policies in place and if you, the instructor, are controlling the transmission

If the work is a non-dramatic literary work (poem or short story) or a non-dramatic musical work (any music other than an opera or music video)

If you obtained the copy legally

If it is only during the class session and not longer

If it is part of an instructional activity or directly related to the content of the instruction

For more information, use the TEACH act of 2002 Checklist from the University of Texas at https://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/teachact.html#toolkit.

Some exciting resources for educators include open education resources and creative commons.  People who create something and want to make it available to others for free and with less restrictions than normal copyrighted materials have the ability to do so through these two formats.  Open education resources can be found in commons such as the oercommons.org.  They include materials that are made available to the public such as software, data, courseware, lesson plans, digital files, and more.  They are usually free, adaptable, and allowed to be redistributed once adapted.  They usually require attribution to original creator.  A Creative Commons license allow creators to provide their work to others under certain conditions.  There are four choices for creators:  Attribution, Share Alike, Noncommercial, No Derivative works.  For example, allowing others to copy, display, distribute, perform, and derive their own works from yours ONLY if they give you credit in a way you deem.  See CreativeCommons.org for more info on the types of licenses available.

Be aware of what rights you have when you are employed by an institution.  Ko and Rossen (2010) report that some have policies that will allow you to use your courses elsewhere and other do not.  They recommend several steps to protect your intellectual property:

using software such as Adobe Acrobat to protect your own work from theft

using and requiring passwords to access your website, or convert it to streaming media because streaming media is housed in an area on the user’s computer which isn’t readily or widely known

always use the copyright symbol to warn and ward off would-be copyright abusers

check for unauthorized use through online search engines

be professional and gracious when you notify the offender, they may not have done it on purpose.  If they refuse to take it down, you may need legal representation.

As a final warning, use these tips to help protect yourself.  Always get permission if you are not sure.  Simply citing or referencing the author or work will not protect you under copyright-you must have permission if it isn’t fair use.  Opt for the public domain whenever possible.  Protect yourself by using a checklist each time you use a copyrighted material.

References

Copyright Advisory Network American Library Association Office for Information Technology Policy. (n.d.). Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://librarycopyright.net/resources/Copyright for teachers. (n.d.). Retrieved July 09, 2016, from https://www.auburn.edu/citizenship/copyright_for_teachers.html

Copyright in General (FAQ) | U.S. Copyright Office. (n.d.). Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

Crews, K. D. (2008, May 14). Fair Use Checklist [PDF]. New York: Columbia University Libraries.

Gasaway, L. (2003, November 4). WHEN WORKS PASS INTO THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm

Harper, G. K. (n.d.). The TEACH Act. Retrieved July 09, 2016, from https://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/teachact.html#toolkit

Hawkins, A. (2016, January 06). The New York Public Library just uploaded nearly 200,000 images you can use for free. Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10723680/nyc-library-public-domain-images-digital

Ko, S. S., & Rossen, S. (2010). Teaching online: A practical guide. New York: Routledge

Starr, L. (2010, May 25). The Educator's Guide to Copyright and Fair Use. Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280.shtml

Teaching Copyright. (n.d.). Retrieved July 09, 2016, from https://www.teachingcopyright.org/handout/fair-use-faq

Multimedia Resources (Web 2.0 Tools) for Online Education

Teaching online allows a greater access to the use of multimedia resources that engage and educate students in twenty first century technology.  There are a plethora of resource available to students and teachers.  Of those, the following three are tools that I would used for third grade and above.

Voki:  https://www.voki.com

Voki allows someone to record their voice for up to 60 seconds and animate an avatar to present the message.  This is a great tool to use in the online school in several ways.  First, it would be a creative way to provide encouragement and feedback to students in a way that would attract their attention.  Often, online education involves students completing computer administered and scored assessments.  Although this provides immediate feedback, it doesn’t meet the need for student teacher interaction.  Using Voki in this way would meet this need.  Second, Voki could be used to send announcements.  Third, it could be used to create an introduction of oneself to the class (either or both the teacher and student) or post a short answer to a discussion question in a small group.  Of course, when students post their voki’s, all should be reviewed by the teacher before it is posted to the class.  This is a fun and unique tool because once students learn to use this, they will almost assuredly go on to use it in their personal lives.  This will allow them to continue to develop communication skills outside the classroom.  Here is a sample:  

http://www.voki.com/site/pickup?scid=12919053&width=575&height=323&chsm=0fd992c5abe8c1101de8fe0e9a66459b

Kidblog:  http://kidblog.org/home/

Kidblog is a blog for kids.  It allows students to publish their writing online as well as photos, videos, and more.  It is a great way to build a classroom community since students can read and post comments on fellow students posts as well as a global community.  There are several application for this tool:  an online portfolio of student work, posting responses to journal prompts, a creative writing journal, a problem solving journal, a notebook to record information on specific topics, and more.  I’d love to use this to have students introduce themselves at the beginning of a class, keep a portfolio of their work over the course of the year, and use it as a pen pal system.

ABC YA:  http://www.abcya.com/

This is a website for students from grades k-5 that has educational games and apps online in the subjects of english, math, social studies, and more.  This is an excellent resource for online students.  Often, students need just a bit more practice to cement a concept.  It can be difficult for teachers to meet this need for the large number of students in their classes with many varied needs.  This site offers that for students in a fun and engaging way.  It’s colorful and creative with lots of wonderful visuals such as cute characters and animations.  Students will enjoy this and it gives teachers an important resource at their fingertips.  They can allow students to pick their own practice activities or assign them based on student need.

Importance of Orientation to Online Students

Orientation is paramount to student success, especially in online education.  Students beginning a new program delivered in a new format, such as online education, must understand what they will be doing, how they will be doing it, and complete some preparation tasks in order to be successful.  Without this knowledge, common problems that arise will impede student progress and most often result in failure.  This seems to be the case for elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students.  Below are three article summaries which contain further information.

Nordine (2016) states, “On average, students’ online course scores are higher in schools where students complete the online orientation course.”  In her article titled, “Online Student Orientation Course Completion Leads to Successful Performance,” she discusses the orientation program used at Wisconsin Virtual School, an online middle and high school supplemental course provider.  Students and parents receive a welcome letter and quick start guide.  They are assigned a liaison who oversees their progress in the orientation course and works with them to ensure understanding of how to use the online course tools, get a schedule set up, and intervene if necessary.   A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of orientation.  It found, “High rates of Online Student Orientation Course completion are associated with stronger student performance in online academic courses.” This is an important finding for online educators and institutions.  If we do not provide orientation to students, we are setting them up for failure.

Lynch (2001) completed a study which indicated, “The attrition rate of online students was reduced to an average of 15%, and re-enrollment increased to 90%” after they completed an online orientation class.  The study was conducted at a “small, private, urban university” to determine how to address low success rates, low re-registration and high dropout rates.  The author identified issues and concerns previous students had had and designed an orientation to meet those needs.  The author makes several recommendations for the online orientation:  it should be required, taught entirely online, introduce the technology students will be using, help students determine their “fitness” for learning online, allow plenty of time for student reflection, give many opportunities for communication with instructors and peers online, and introduce students to adult learning theory.  This study is important because it provides educators with a list of important content they should include in orientations for their courses.

Taylor, Dunn, & Winn (2015) addressed needs of beginning online students by designing and providing “voice-over videos with interactive elements that address the most common technology frustrations” in a small number of online courses at Excelsior College, a not-for-profit online institution.  They intended to improve course completion rates by providing this assistance to students.  Although the authors recommend a wider study to ensure the results are valid, they state that, “the results seem to indicate that a video orientation with interactive elements can improve desired outcomes when inserted into online courses that are frequented by novice online learners, have high withdrawal rates, and have broad grade distributions.”  The implications of this study deal specifically with those students who are technology newbies.  In my opinion, all students should be given access to these types of training videos in order to ensure that those who need them will get them.

References

McVay Lynch, M. (2001, November/December). Effective Student Preparation for Online Learning. Retrieved from The Technology Source Archives at University of North Carolina: http://technologysource.org/article/effective_student_preparation_for_online_learning/

Nordine, D. (2016, June 21). Online Student Orientation Course Completion Leads to Successful Performance. Retrieved from Virtual School Leadership Alliance: http://www.virtualschoolalliance.org/online-student-orientation-course-completion-leads-to-successful-performance/

Taylor, J. M., Dunn, M., & Winn, S. K. (2015). Innovative Orientation Leads to Improved Success in Online Courses. Online Learning, 19(4). Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079576.pdf