In a traditional classroom teachers tend to talk a lot. In an e-Learning classroom there should be less 'teacher talk' and more 'student talk'. Here is an example
Scenario One: Science Investigation (Traditional approach)
Children are sitting on the mat in front of the teacher. Teacher has a sheet of newsprint pegged to the white board with the 'Purpose' of their science investigation written on it. Teacher asks students 'What are the keywords?' A couple of kids will raise their hands and answer. As they find a keyword, teacher asks them what it means and adds that in brackets above the keyword in question. Teacher repeats last step many times.
Then teacher has students turn to TV set and they watch the first part of a youtube video, teacher asks the question 'What is the independent variable?' A couple of students try to answer and more discussion goes on, toing and froing between those students. The rest are by now quite restless and squirming. This last step is repeated twice more. 40 minutes has gone by and only 50% of the class has truly been involved.
Scenario Two: Science Investigation (e-Learning approach)
Children are organised into groups (3-4 in a group). One member of the group will open the shared presentation.
They work through the following presentation with the teacher moving around working with individual groups. After 45 minutes, the groups all meet together and share their findings.
The activity provides a similar result to the traditional method but it is a lot more interesting for the children and allows more students to have a voice in answering the questions. The Youtube movie can be wound back and forward when needed and the teacher has time to spend with those students who need the extra help.
