Many people use distance learning to their advantage, especially homeschoolers. Being able to work from the comfort of your own home and still be able to interact with people in other locations is a major benefit made possible by the accessibility of the internet. So, when creating lesson plans for distance learning using technology, keep the following in mind.
You should consider why you need to use distance learning and why you need technology for a specific subject. Can you get the same teaching materials from a textbook? What technologies are you planning to use? You can use the internet to collect material from the internet, or you can join a “teleclassroom” and watch lectures live or recorded on the internet, but do these tools have an advantage over the traditional way? If you run into “technical difficulties” in the middle of class, will you miss a lot or be able to go back and see what you missed? Will you be able to listen to the lecture or ask questions if you don’t understand what the teacher is saying? These are all things to consider.
Which subjects are best for distance learning? Typically, subjects that traditionally require student interaction, such as teaching English or foreign languages, are not very good candidates for distance learning. Too much is lost in not being able to interact directly with other students and teachers that such a course would not give the student the full experience necessary to be useful. Instead, physics or math courses are pretty good candidates since the student will do most of the studying from within the book. A student can always refer to their book when needed, but the same is not always true for other classes.
With these points in mind, you are in a good position to create the distance learning lesson plan. Remember to consider other options before jumping straight to a technology solution as this can complicate things quite a bit. Sometimes distance learning is the best option, so good luck.
Thanks to Andrew Tsai
