Today’s technology has opened the doors for new ways to educate today’s children. Teaching online has opened the doors to make education possible for children all over the world, with any kind of schedule and with any kind of situation.
Typically, college courses online were what we thought of when talking about teaching online. However, the doors have now opened to K-12 teaching as well.
While not traditional, there are many advantages to teaching online to children.
One of the greatest advantages to teaching online is that the materials are available at any time no matter the schedule of the child or parent. It is also an advantage to the teacher because it allows them to work full time jobs and post material part time as their schedule allows. This opens the doors for more qualified teachers to become available as they are not hindered by other commitments or schedules.
Another advantage to teaching online is that the teacher can teach children in multiple places without the need to travel. This is helpful because it now gives the ability for teachers with more specialized knowledge to teach more children. This reduces the need for traditional schools to have a minimum headcount in a physical classroom before offering a class. In the online scenario a teacher could teach students from multiple schools or districts from one central location. By opening up the geographic doors there is a greater likelihood that the minimum seat requirement will be fulfilled.
Another great advantage to teaching online is the documentation that can take place versus the traditional classroom. The technology allows for everything to be tracked and audited. Classroom participation can be tracked and monitored. Assignments can be uploaded to a secure location thus verifying that no more dogs ate the homework.
Another advantage of online teaching is it opens the doors to pass knowledge from people who are not formally trained as teachers, but possess relevant information. It may not always be easy for a teacher to have a business person come in to explain something from a real world perspective during class hours. However, the online delivery allows a teacher to enlist a person to provide material at their convenience.
Furthermore, it also opens the doors for other individuals to teach specialized material to a class on a consistent basis outside their normal jobs. A good example of this would be someone teaching IT skills to students. They can still keep their regular jobs during the day as an IT professional. However, in the evening they could create material to deliver to K12 students. All of this material could be reviewed by someone before being released to the students to make sure it can be understood from a teacher’s perspective.
Leveraging the Internet to deliver education has come a long way and has matured as an education medium. It has opened doors to provide fundamental and specialized education to children. And, it has provided a convenient way for teachers to do what they do best without having to worry about schedules, logistics or other concerns teachers in physical schools worry about.