Asynchronous learning environments-Midterm

Being a FIT has been a learning experience. I am currently in the process of working on my master's project. So with being a student in my current IT class, I have had the ability to read articles that gives insight on how to keep your class involved in an online program in an asynchronouse environment. One of the articles focused on the graduate level student. Although that is an age difference from the students that I teach everyday, it has allowed me to see that the same rules apply. First, with the group that I am a FIT, they were very slow to respond and may not respond at all. As with high school students, I see that there HAS to be a requirement. I know that when you put requirements, students tend to do the bare minimum, but in some cases, its either that or nothing. I tell my students guidelines all the time. Whether its applying for 3 scholarships or 5, if I don't give them a number, they won't complete any. The one area that I would recommend to improve my FIT course is the participation level of the students. I think even though they may be graduate level students, they could still participate more. Some of the discussions are benefical for everyone. It requires you to think and respond. For example, one of the discussions that was presented was taking a high school course for credit. I think that everyone in the academic professions should have chimmed in on this discussion. Mainly because financial resources play a big part in the participation of this learning environment. Some students have computers at home, others don't. Some schools have effiecient computer labs, others don't. Some schools have teachers that have been trained to lead or facilitate computer based curriculums, others don't. So there are a varying amount of aspects to look at. With all this being said, we need to be more active in these discussions. We need to be more active in these classes. Although I enjoy the concept of this class, I would like to see more participation. I would like to see responses that don't "ditto" what the next persons said. We need to have more instructional discourse. I guess that's enough for today...

Remember its just me talkin'