ETAP687

The video “Did you know” is not new to me, however, this version has been updated.  One of the most striking parts of the video is the statement that the fastest growing age group for using the Internet is 2 to 5 year old (Netday News, 2005).  I see this in my own home with my 3 year old.  Just turning 2 years old, he has used the tablet functions of my laptop to draw amazing paintings in a digital medium.  He is now approaching 3 and he regularly uses our laptop to play games, drawing and navigate mazes on the internet.  What will his world look like when he reaches school age and how will educators design activities that will keep him interested in learning.  Other interesting statistics show how large of an economy China has but how much challenge the country faces with their growing population.  Interestingly, nurses are paid less than teachers in China but the video does not state if this is a result of supply and demand or if China places more value on education than on health related professions.

Reading through the SLN statistics the first thing that pops out to my eyes is the high percentage of women taking online classes.  Another statistic stat that draws my attention is the main reason that people take online classes due to personal schedule conflicts and that 43% of people are employed fulltime.   Flexibility of an online class does seem to be of great benefit when you consider these stats.  From this information, I should expect students to most female, married, and fulltime employees needing flexibility within their courses.

From the statistics it seems that the majority of students that I could expect in an online course would be from the US and would have access to high speed internet connections.  This is an important consideration when designing an online course since I would expect that content rich in streaming media would not work well with slower band widths and probably would not attract students from developing countries that lack this access. (4)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.