Distance learning platforms require a number of traits in order to help students stay organized, achieve success in their courses, and ultimately learn. My familiarity with distance learning technology include the UR Course platform, Sask Distance Learning Centre (Sask DLC) Moodles, and Google Classroom. Each of these has aspects which I find positive and negative. The characteristics which I find students thrive from the most is a layout in which the information is readily available, easily to find, and tracks their progress. For example, on the Sask DLC platform, students can easily see what they have completed, what grade they earned on each task, and what their upcoming tasks are. The information is organized chronologically and broken down into sub unit sections. This is important as most high school students are visual learners. 

Katia’s strategy of keeping URCourses clean and having all information located in external Google Docs links is beneficial as Google Docs can be easily saved/copied from year to year and keep the URCourses platform easy to navigate. 

For all students, the area I see lacking with all distance learning platforms is a convenient (perhaps scheduled) way of meeting with the teacher or professor. The term “anxious generation” as described by Jonathan Haidt refers to the growing inability for our teenagers, especially since 2010, to cope and function in the real world. With a generation of students who struggled to communicate in the real world, I constantly see high school students struggle to succeed in their online classes due to an unwillingness to contact the teacher for assistance. For an online teacher, the out of sight out of mind attitude hampers our students’ ability to learn and have success. Students follow a trend of struggling on one unit or lesson so they move onto the next one and ultimately fall behind. If online platforms had built in software to connect the student to the teacher in an instant, students may be more apt to contact the teacher. Sask DLC also needs to be more proactive in reaching out to students on at least a weekly basis to help students’ achieve success. This is partly a fault of the online platform and partly the fault of humans taking the courses. 

As a user of Google Classroom, I appreciate how easily it integrates with the rest of the Google software, including Docs, Sheets, Forms, and Slides. I’m able to correct and add comments to students’ work. I’m able to assign certain tasks to certain students and collect information from students using Google Forms. The use of Google Classroom has transformed the way I organize my classes and deliver my content. It’s created a bit of a double edged sword in the sense that students can stay caught up when they are absent, but also feel less of a need to attend in person classes. Creating a balance of maintaining a desire for in person learning while providing some content online seems to be a new challenge.