Teflnet Forums

A co-faculty and I were discussing the inefficiency of using multiple LMS systems and video conferencing mediums a few days ago. I'm pretty sure a handful of us have already experienced the headaches of logging into zoom, only to realize a few minutes later that you were supposed to use Google Meet or MS Teams.

The same is true with using multiple Moodle domains, Canvas, Google Classroom, etc and etc.

I actually sent this article to our head:
https://blog.quantic.edu/2021/07/22/wha ... t-options/

I think determining a singular, best, LMS-system should be a new practice to be taught in universities. It's much better than juggling and training new teachers again and again on different platforms. Having one unified resource would make it easier to see lapses and improve things too.

Thoughts?

I agree, I did everything to make online learning optimal for my nephew.

Bought her a new iPad, set out her own nook, and even bought some cute 'lil chairs from a cute online store (linked).

But she always gets either distracted or border–online learning is not for kids. College level, perhaps. Masters and Ph.D.? Absolutely.

When you have kids with the attention span of goldfish sit and watch lectures–you best believe they're not gonna absorb everything.

It isn't so effective as offline learning but I know that those who want to learn, they will learn in different methods, I know people who learn 3 languages themselves without teachers and so on, just with books and translation and so on. I learn my job just in practice and it is fine for me.

As a person who had a chance to study both offline and online can say that, yes, learning online is different, and it's not always easy, but I believe that such education is as quality and effective as offline. Mostly, success depends on the person, because online you can find everything for studying, but only if you want it and dedicate enough effort.

PatrickSt wrote: ↑28 Mar 2022, 16:01 As a person who had a chance to study both offline and online can say that, yes, learning online is different, and it's not always easy, but I believe that such education is as quality and effective as offline. Mostly, success depends on the person, because online you can find everything for studying, but only if you want it and dedicate enough effort.

I agree. The Internet is a marvelous tool in the hands of a motivated and self-directed learner.
Computers do not do the learning for us, though.


"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."

Isaac Asimov

Looking at the paper site you mentioned, it seems pretty clear that it is providing a service for cheaters. Having someone write your papers for you is plagiarism, and, when the person writing it has a PhD, it is unfair to the other students in your class if the instructor compares the quality of papers in giving grades or making job or grad-school recommendations. Given the opportunity, would you have someone take an exam for you? I hope not. What is the moral difference between having someone write your paper and having someone write your exam answers? I don't see any. Both are wrong.

You have misplaced priorities. The main goal should be to get a good education. By your reasoning, copying from someone during an exam or bring in a cheat sheet on an exam would also be acceptable.

If you feel compelled to cheat, either the system is perverted or you are immoral -- or both.

OMG! I just looked at the "buy an assignment" website. I guess I must be naive, but I'm shocked. I've certainly heard of people hiring others to write papers for them--I've been approached to do so in my capacity as a freelance editor/proofreader/translator/writer, but I refuse--but I had no idea that a service would baldly advertise online that it happily aids in commiting plagiarism. If a student uses such a service, then I have to ask myself why he or she bothered to study for a degree in the first place. "Saving time" is no excuse. And, BTW, how does the purchaser know if he or she is going to get a quality product or simply a hack job that's been sent to a bunch of other people before? The site claims that "an expert" will write the assignment. Hah! I don't believe it. The chances of the student being found out are vast. And there goes your degree, right down the toilet. I would strongly counsel anyone NOT to engage in plagiarism. It is simply morally and ethically wrong, if one cares about such things; I do. And, in practical terms, you will indeed be found out and expelled from your course of study. The stigma will never go away.

And no, I don't believe that the whole goal is "getting a good grade." The whole goal is for the student to engage in research, to sift through sources, to put what he or she has learned into a coherent and well-written packet. The goal is NOT to pay for a "good grade," which cannot be guaranteed. If one's "too busy" to do the work, then one shouldn't do it. Find another profession.

As to online vs. in-person instruction: I've experienced both. I certainly cannot say that one is superior to the other. I earned my degrees in in-person courses. But my TEFL certification was via an online program, and the course was excellent. I'm currently studying Spanish online, and I'm finding the course to be excellent. I've tutored my Iranian grad student in English both via Zoom and in-person. Both methods seem to work well for him.

Anyway, just my $.02.

Something I forgot: Yes, I have always had to work AND study for all my degrees (my bachelor's degree, two master's degrees, and a law degree). Work and study are not incompatible. If a student feels that they are, then he or she should not be working and studying. Pick one. Pick neither. But cheating is appalling. Why even bother to start a course if you're not going to do the work but rather pass it on to and pay for some supposed "expert" to do for you? I continue to be shocked and appalled.

The purpose of using discussions in an online course is to provide opportunities for students to interact with each other, the content, and the instructor. A discussion forum is a communication tool for dialogue in an online course. They can be initiated with a structured post and categorized along a message thread.

definitely agree with you. in most universities, this is already practiced, so students, in principle, already understand how this happens and there are no problems. Now there are many different courses on different topics that are available to everyone. introducing it as a separate course in the last year of study is a great idea.

online learning and teaching

I did undergraduate and graduate work in-person. I also tried a MOOC to learn Python, and was extremely frustrated and dissatisfied (maybe part of the problem was that were hundreds or thousands of people taking the course and the TAs simply didn't care. It was worse than any course I've taken with 200-300 others in a massive lecture hall. I have also gotten two TESOL certifications online and a master's in TESL online. Some of the certification work was all right. My MAE (from a highly ranked online program) was really a disappointment in some ways. While I got decent feedback from most of the instructors, the course totally lacked meaningful interaction with the other students, all of whom were practicing teachers and probably had a lot that they COULD HAVE shared, and I think would have if we had been in person, but the chat room went unused, with my questions and comments making less noise than the proverbial tree (or even leaf) in the empty forest.

I have also been teaching online through ZOOM. I started with a few students about a year before COVID and expanded when restrictions hit. All of my students are either ones I had taught in person or new students in classes with kids in such classes. I also teach adults using ZOOM when students can't make it to class. In a class-room, I find it irritating switching from white-board to ZOOM white-obard and back; also, we sometimes have problems with auditability. It is definitely not as effective or as efficient as in-person when it comes to kids (except maybe with individual, one-on-one teaching). There is too much lost time and missed information. On the other hand, teaching online has awakened me to quite a bit of very useful online material that can be used in-class and as home-work.

The school where I work uses both Zoom and Google Meet. I have tried many times to explain the uneffectiveness of this approach, but no one listens to me. It's hard to figure out what to use in what lesson, not to mention how hard it is for the kids.

With Artificial Intelligence (AI), it has gone even further. We now have ChatGPT and more (Read https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing ... beginning/). On a simpler note, this morning one of my students in an online class was using Google Translate. It was obvious for various reasons. While I didn't say anything (at least she was trying and involved, in a way; and maybe something would stick), but the other students criticized her. This wouldn't have come up in an in-person class.

But with the advances in AI, we have to re-think our goals and much more. Let's back up a little. Back a long time ago, students could use bilingual dictionaries and phrase books. They could also get help or even completed assignments from class-mates or students in higher-level classes. The use of dictionaries and phrase books was acceptable, even encouraged, for most assignments. The use of help from another student was maybe ignored, not considered, supported, or, rarely, frowned upon for most assignments, whereas having another student complete the assignment was clearly wrong. Much later, along came both Grammarly and the commercial assignments for sale. While hcb2022 and I -- and I would hope others -- clearly find the latter abhorrent, the former is a bit different. Teachers' views on the use of Grammarly and its competitors may vary depending on how and when it is used. We don't want to be denying our learners the use of a helpful tool for checking their work, but we also want them to learn the language. In a sense, Grammarly is a dictionary, phrase book and grammar book all rolled into one and automated. How critical is that last word, äutomated"? Next, we now have AI. For the short-term future, the user of ChatGPT has to at least formulate the objective (but that often can be done by just parroting the teacher's assignment). Voila, a complete, grammatically correct essay, story, or what have you comes out. The student has almost certainly learned no more than an old-time student who handed in a multiplication table assignment with numbers simply copied down from a table in a book without even looking at or thinking about the operators. Is that what we want? Obviously, it is not . . . Or is it? With the easy access and application of AI tools like ChatGPT and voice-to-voice translator software, foreign-language (and other) teachers need to look deeply at what we should be doing. Is our primary -- or even sole -- goal to help people speaking one language communicate in another language, or are we, should we, be after something deeper? "Wer fremde Sprachen nicht kennt, weiß nichts von seiner eigenen“ (Goethe)

Hi everyone. I am newbie here. Nice to meer you.)

Hi! I am working on a project for school where I have to develop, implement, and report the results of an e-Learning course. I built a course in captivate, but I’m wondering if there is a free lms I can use to upload it and have test students take it.

I understand the challenges of using multiple LMS systems and video conferencing platforms. Streamlining to a singular, best LMS system can simplify access and improve efficiency. You might find this article on choosing the right LMS for your institution helpful: https://www.g2.com/categories/learning-management-system-lms. It provides valuable insights and considerations. Additionally, if you're interested in IoT-based GPS tracking software, you can check out this blog post: https://a-team.global/blog/iot-based-gps-tracking-software/. It offers information on innovative solutions in that field.