Mystery Solved

     After a whole semester of researching technology in the classroom, I have come to a final conclusion about technology in the classroom and the Florida graduation requirement. I have spent a large amount of time looking through academic journals and academic articles. Psychology will do that to you, get you so wrapped up in the research and science of it all, that you lose sight of the big picture.
     The big picture in this case, is how does this new technology guideline effect students in the long run. So I wanted that first hand knowledge, I asked a recent Florida public high school graduate how technology has effected his current college course work. Attached below is our interview:

Interviewer:  Did your high school require you to take a class online?
Interviewee: Yes, I took a advanced placement class online

Interviewer: Did you feel that taking an advanced placement class online was sufficient preparation for the end of course exam?
Interviewee: Yes, my online teacher was actually my most involved teacher that I have had in high school. I scored a 5 ( the highest score) on my exam

Interviewer:  Now that you are in college, do you think that your traditional " non-online" courses prepare you for your college courses?
Interviewee: I think that my advanced placement courses definitely had a hand in preparing me for college.

Interviewer: You mentioned that the online course you took was advanced placement. Do you think that course was as helpful in preparing your for college as your traditional advanced placement courses?
Interviewee: Absolutely, I did not mention that the class that I took online was Advanced Placement Computer Science. I am now a computer science major because of the interest that I found in it from my AP course.

Interviewer: What do you think made you enjoy this course so much?
Interviewee: Well, I really liked that I could complete the course at my own pace, and my instructor was pretty much available at any time. I did not feel like a number,  my teacher knew me, as a person.

Interviewer: Do you regret not taking more of your advanced placement courses online?
Interviewee: Yes and No. Yes I enjoyed my experience with AP Comp. Science, but I would only want to take more courses online if I could ensure that my instructor was just as knowledgable and as helpful.


I think the most interesting part of the interview was that the college student saw both the pros and cons of the online course requirement. I thought the approach of individually asking my own questions was also much more direct than shifting through countless academic journals, though I understand that academic foundation is necessary in order to make a claim. Overall, I have enjoyed researching this topic and have learned alot!

Lets get down to research, to defeat the distracts!

    My oh my, it feels as if it has been forever since my last post. Though I have not been posting anything new about my research does not mean that I have not been perusing ERIC and PSYCHINFO. Research never sleeps!
    After narrowing down several articles about online learning, I have found one article that has allowed me to think even further about the long term effectiveness of online learning. The element that I have added to my interest is online education for children with special needs. Lucky for me an entire journal is available on this subject. Burdette, Greer, and Woods (2012) conducted non -experimental research on special needs children enrolled in online education. Major findings from this article include that online learning is not near replacing classroom learning, and should be seen as more of a supplement to education. Another major finding that this article found was the break down of what drives distracts encourage online education for children with special needs. What drives distracts to opt for this change is lower costs, more flexibility ( within student schedules and therapies), and providing access to more qualified teachers.
    How does this connect to the online coursework graduation requirement in the state of Florida? Well, this article explains the significance of access to online education to special needs children and their undergraduate coursework.  In years past, several university type institutions have been subject to lawsuits on the count of not providing equal education access to those with special accommodations. Burdette, Greer, Woods ( 2012) gives the University of Montana as an example. The University of Montana's campus was not fit for individuals that use wheelchairs. With the incorporation of online coursework, the university was able to provide an option for those students. Thus, does the online coursework requirement prepare those students for what is to be expected of them in a university setting?
     The only criticism that I have to offer this article is that it is an non-experimental design study. As a psychology major, I am interested in the different variables and the statistics that come with different sample groups. I think this would have been helpful in establishing some statistical validity to the topic of online education and how it effect special needs children.

Don't Forget To Check Your Facts!

Today our lovely librarian, Nadine, visited class to give us some information about conducting research for our Mythbusters project. I was unfortunately recovering from an accident at work that sent me to the ER, three stitches in my hand later I am catching up with the rest of the class. Thankfully, conducting research in psychology, my major, is very similar to conducting research in the field of education. For example, researchers of psychology love nothing more than "peer-reviewed" articles. A peer reviewed article is an article that contains: an abstract, introduction, methods, data, conclusion, and discussion. All of this information helps the psychologist learn more about the experiment that was conducted, but the most essential part is the fact that the research was " reviewed" by at least three experts on the research topic. Peer-reviewed articles can take years to be published, because several fact checking are at hand in order to ensure accurate information. To retrieve these kinds of articles researchers use PsychInfo or ERIC. 

In regards to my project, I prefer to use data sources like PsychInfo and ERIC. I think that it would be useful to see the research that has been conducted on students that have had to complete the " online schooling graduation requirement" and how it has effected their overall high school education or even how the requirement impacts their college options/ university academic career. I think that ERIC will be especially helpful, because it specifically targets research done in the field of education. Additionally, ERIC allows me to specify research done in certain school distracts, which is essential since I am interested in the state of Florida and their school distracts. Maybe, I will even find some research conducted in my alma matar school distract ( shout out to Broward County Schools)! 

Though I am a big supporter of peer-reviewed articles, I also like to read just regular journal articles. Regular journal articles do not have to looked over by an academic and can appear even in magazines. I think that it will be important to use these kinds of articles because these articles offer more of an opinion, rather than scientific logic/data. In my opinion, I think it is important to gather different points of view in order best understand a subject. A good resource for gathering journal articles, is "Education Research Complete". Education Research Complete allows researcher to search for popular press articles in the field of education. Thus, this would be a viable resource if I was searching for a superintendent's statement about online schooling. 

All in all, I am very excited to start the research process and get to the bottom of this online schooling business! 

You Got Answers!

     Since my last blog post, I have shared with some of my favorite Florida educators my topic of research. Surprisingly, many of the educators I spoke with are not as opposed to the online graduation requirement as I am. They brought up how cost effective having classes online is, how convenient online coursework can be for some students, and most importantly how the option allows students to learn at their own pace.  Thus, these points raised some new areas that I would like to research under the umbrella of the new graduation requirement. 

    Ultimately, my research questions is " Why is taking a course online a graduation requirement?" Under this broad question I have several smaller research questions. The smaller research questions include;What are cost-effective benefits of this initiative,  Are these courses equipped to replace "in classroom" courses, How does this effect the state's collegiate level? 

    In order to conduct this research, I think it would be most effective to gather testimonials from students that have had to complete this requirement and are now in college. Though self-report methods can be biased, self-report is the best way to gain a lot of information that is not quantitatively based. Additionally, I think it would be interesting to see if any academic journals have been written about this topic; even, just online schooling in general. 

Florida Power On, Or No Diploma!

        It was not long ago that I was sitting in a high school classroom. I remember taking notes, taking tests, and turning in projects. All of these tasks had one thing in common, other than being school related of course, I did all of these things by hand and in front of my instructor. Four years have passed, and I am hearing all sorts of new thing going on at my alma matar. First, students have been given chrome-books to use during school through the " 1:1 Initiative" . Second, it is now a graduation requirement in the state of Florida for students to complete at-least one course online.  

My research question stems from this new graduation requirement. " Why is it mandatory requirement for students to complete at least one course online?" I am so interested in this question, mostly because I am so against online schooling. I think that it takes a certain kind of student to take an online course and I also think that not all subjects can be taught through a computer screen. I know myself as a student and I know that I am the kind of student that needs the face to face instruction of a traditional classroom. 

I have a theory about why Florida is instituting the online course requirement, which I could be totally wrong. I think that instituting the new high school online graduation requirement is a preparatory measure towards what students at the university level face.  Through my high school classmates, that chose to stay at a Florida state institution, I have gathered that many university students are forced to take a class online. I can't help but feel frustrated for my friends, nothing would make me more angry than taking a Chemistry class online while paying a hefty tuition fee. Thus, because of the large student populations at state universities, students are being forced to take courses online. 

In order to explore this more, I plan on looking at press releases from the school board and statistics from Florida's state universities. I think it would also be interesting to hear from students themselves, at the high school and college level. What do they think about taking courses online? Am I really the only one that needs that face to face interaction? 

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