Good / Bad Online learning

Lessons online can vary from platform to platform, teacher to teacher and lesson to lesson. Students can be drawn in by flashy graphics, but can be easily distracted by confusing text. This defeats the purpose. If the information is not created in small digestible "chunks" and in text that is easily viewed and understood, then the lesson has failed. Most likely, your intended audience will not absorb the information you intended to teach.
Here are some examples of good material and bad material.

Good material:

1. Organelles lesson from CK-12
http://www.ck12.org/life-science/Organelles-in-Life-Science/lesson/Organelles/

 The website provides descriptions of the cells organelle's in small descriptions with links to more information. It also provides a visual diagram for reference.

2. Youtube link for Jen West's AP Human Geography midterm review. This lady knows her stuff. She makes very complex concepts easy to understand. She uses graphic organizers, documents on a document camera, pictures and descriptions that are catchy and meaningful.
http://youtu.be/VX9XexxD17M









3. Cool Math Games
The website is interactive, and provides great practice. Students almost forget they are learning. They are generally much more appropriate for younger learners due to easier content, but not always.

4. Rosetta Stone
I have been very impressed with the interactive, multi-modal lessons from Rosetta Stone. The software has been through a public marketing push, but in this case, I believe that the praise is well founded. I have watched the program evolve over a period of 15 years, and it continues to improve. I have used this program for many different languages including English for English Language Learners. Now they have even added a GAMES function.


5. Coursera  -- Evolution ( A course for educators)
Not bad. The lessons are well written. Not too much "grey space". Lots of writing in a small typefont can be intimidating. Good graphics from  are included.


I wouldn't necessarily say BAD material, but more like meh... 

1. Mountain Heights Academy - Demo for 11th grade English week 1
http://ohsudev.mrooms3.net/course/view.php?id=174

Most of the instruction was online lecture. I don't care who you are or where you are (online or live)-- lecture is BAD in large doses. The link for the sliderocket instruction for Writing Tips didn't work either.

2. Edgenuity - English
A lot of the material is ok,,, but just OK. A lot of the students just play the lectures but do not listen or take notes. They move directly into the classwork and then do poorly. There is "online content" that is included sometimes, but it isn't always explanatory. On a positive note, much of the online content and instructions can be translated into other languages, which is very beneficial for English Language Learners.