Online Learning: How Multimodal Distance Education has Supplemented Learning
By Mimi Rothschild Today's world is rapidly changing and so is the way our children are being educated. More and more students each year are switching over from the public school system to alternative schools or homeschool programs. Their education does not suffer because they are not in the classroom with certified teachers, however. Thanks in part to advancements in technology, homeschool students are now able to participate in programs such as videoconferencing, public Internet, and face-to face meetings to supplement their current homeschool program.
Computer assisted learning has also had another benefit in homeschool programs. Distance learning is much cheaper than face-to-face meetings and tutoring sessions with teachers and still provides homeschool students with a quality education. A combination of both distance learning and the occasional face-to-face meeting will keep homeschool students on the right track.
Alberta, Canada is now working to test out and improve upon multimodal distance learning with the help of the BELLE program. BELLE stands for Broadband Enabled Lifetime Learning Environment. They have begun their testing phase of this new program through the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
An example of homeschool put to work is through BELLE's Realtime Writing Program. The purpose of this program is to give homeschool students the knowledge and learning tools to pass their certification in Realtime court reporting. In this program, students learned how to translate verbatim to text, allowing those involved in the event to read, unedited, what was said. Realtime writing records speeds of over 225 words per minute with a 98% accuracy rate.
Throughout this course, homeschool students received a variety of multimodal learning techniques. One of the tools they used was videoconferencing and live web-casting. This allows homeschool students to watch a teacher's lecture and also have the option to text chat, allowing them to be interactive in class discussions with other students as well as the teacher. Videoconferencing is a great tool for homeschool students because it allows them to have their questions answered by the teacher right away in the comfort of their own home.
To supplement the videoconferencing feature of this homeschool class was the use of public Internet in the form of a live forum in which students could interact with one another, working problems out. The teacher also checked the forum several times a day and answered any questions that the students asked.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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