Online Teaching – Now and the Future

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Online Teaching – Now and the Future

Online teaching is defined as any educational activity that requires a student to complete some learning or assessment activity via a personal computer and a connection to a network (Murdoch University Academic Council 1999). This network connection is usually to the Internet (Demirdjian 2002). It is a seen by the Murdoch University Academic Council as a teaching and learning technology, not a method of study (2002), but this depends on how it is to be used and by whom. For example, distance education student using online teaching would be more inclined to see it as a study method than a QUT student who uses online teaching to download and print lecture notes to attend a lecture on campus.

The world’s universities make extensive use of online teaching. It is being used to the extent that some predict that in a few decades university campuses will be a thing of the past and that university courses will be done almost completely online (Demirdjian 2002). Online teaching at QUT mainly involves the use of e-mail for communication between students and teachers and the placement of lecture materials on the Internet OLT site for download and printing by students. Some subjects make use of an online discussion forum and also use a course materials database to contain readings and other materials for students to use.

The benefits that this technology offers to students at university can be seen as coming under three broad areas – geographical, temporal and financial (Demirdjian 2002). The geographical benefits are that students can undertake a course of study from anywhere in the country and indeed the world. There are students undertaking QUT courses from other countries such as China and...

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...ontent online. As can be seen, online teaching is going to be even more prevalent.

Works Cited:

Anonymous (May 9, 2002) “E-defining education” in Education Week Vol. 21, Issue 35: pp 8

Blair, J. (May 9, 2002) “The virtual teaching life” in Education Week Vol. 21, Issue 35: pp 31

Bushweller, K. (May 15, 2002) “Report says E-learning redefining K-12 education” in Education Week Vol. 21, Issue 36: pp 10

Demirdjian, Z. (May 2002) “The virtual university: Is it a panacea or a Pandora’s box” in Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge Vol. 1, Issue 2: pp 172

Murdoch University Academic Council: Definition of Online Unit http://www2.murdoch.edu.au/admin/cttees/ac/1999/Nov/onlineun.html (Accessed 20/05/2002)

Open Learning Australia: http://www.ola.edu.au (Accessed 26/05/2002)

TAFE Queensland: http://www.tafe.qld.edu.au (Accessed 26/05/2002)

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