According to Clarie Howell Major’s book, Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, I have learned about the classification chain of online course structures and diverse digital web tools which coordinate with effective course structures (2015). Based on the examples from the book, there are five tools to stimulate students’ passion for learning and increase the efficiency of demonstrating. Overall, selecting the most efficient digital tool is determined by the structure of the online course.

    One of the examples given by Major is an online course about modern western history, taught by Lisa Lane. It is an asynchronous and closed enrollment course which students have little control of the conduction of the course. In this case, Lisa uses the Moodle system to conduct the course, the highlight of the Moodle is presentation and interactivity. For the presentation, instructors will usually post some materials, like audios, images, and videos about the course following with multiple-choice questions to measure how students’ understandings are. Besides, there is a discussion forum in the Moodle. Instructors will post some important document for each topic and, students are allowed to share their ideas and upload images and videos in the forum as well (Major, 2015, p.89). Personally speaking, I have taken a course which is using Moodle to construct a portfolio with overall experience and reflection about that course. Meanwhile, there is a forum and students will answer a few questions which the professor posted. The most significant is every student will receive valuable feedback from the professor, and students are all engaged through the forum. Therefore, it is a creative and attractive way of conveying materials.

    Another example will be an online course which is teaching literature for young adults by Cris Crissman. “An open-enrollment course which means is available for anyone who has reasonable access to the internet to participate” (Major, 2015). It can be either synchronous or asynchronous, then students have strong flexibility of their time management; besides, students have more interaction with their pods. Cris solves the problem of the weekly class meeting by using online virtual space, called Bookhenge. This kind of online communicating tools perfectly overcome the issue of students who are in diverse regions. Furthermore, students can review resources and comment on other’s posts by using VoiceThread, which is an application allows users to leave video or audio comment (Major, 2015, p.98). It not only motivates the interaction among students but they also in an enjoyable way. Moreover, the most beneficial point of open-course is that some award-winning young adult authors will be invited into some real-time classes and some students did not expect that before taking this course.

Learning from fully online courses is at an early stage of development. The latest technologies allow everyone to take a specific course no matter where they are. It greatly reduces their time and money to have an online course. I believe that online learning will be a significant factor in knowledge distribution. 

Reference:

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching online: A guide to theory, research, and practice. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns         Hopkins University Press.