If online learning is going to make a real impact in your organization, you'd better have better
reasons to justify the investment than "well, everyone else is doing
it". Evaluation takes a bit of work, but then nothing was ever achieved
without a little effort. There
are many good reasons for measuring the success of your online learning
program. Although there has been a strong push to get educational technology
into the hands of teachers and students, many obstacles to implementation still
exist. Equipment may not be placed in easily accessible locations. Hardware and
software often pose problems for teachers in the classroom, and just-in-time
technical support may be unavailable. Without continuous technical
support, technology integration in the classroom will never be satisfactorily
achieved. Schools across the country are working to find effective and appropriate
methods of integrating technology into their classroom instruction. This has
typically included one-to-one laptop initiatives or laptop carts. Lately, the
conversation has shifted to devices such as tablets. The most obvious reason is
that devices such as the iPad, iPod Touch, or Motorola Xoom allow for mobile
learning, anywhere and anytime. Students and teachers now have tools
specifically designed for learning on the go. Interactive Whiteboards are phenomenal tools. Interactive
whiteboards are used in many schools as replacements for traditional
whiteboards or flipcharts. They provide ways to show students anything which
can be presented on a computer's desktop (educational software, web sites, and
others). In addition, interactive whiteboards allow teachers to record their
instruction and post the material for review by students at a later time. Web
2.0 tools have completely changed the way students learn and the way we teach,
for which a teacher has to be more prepared than the student.
