online education news stories

There are fears that the increasing use of computers in schools can disadvantage students who come from poorer backgrounds. Researchers in the USA state that for children how do not have access to computers at home do not benefit from their use in class. This is because they do not understand how to work them properly so spend a lot longer getting started compared to people who have computers at home. These studenrts from lower classes also suffer if there is homework set that involves using the internet.
However students how have regular access to computers tend to be better at analytical thinking and problem solving.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/323272.stm)

The government has said that all secondary schools must publish the reports for students online for the parents to see. This is to prevent students from hiding their reports and not telling their parents. A secure website is used so only the parents of a child can see that child's reports. All primary schools are to have made a similar change by 2012.
The idea behind this is so parents can find out how their children are performing in school and try to help them.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/27/online-school-reports)

online education (fronter)

There are online services which schools can subscrbibe to that the pupils and teachers can log in to. These websites are called VLEs ( virtual learning environments) These services generally provide a closed message system for students and teachers to message each other without having to use an actual email service. This is useful as students can send work to be marked to the appropriate tacher without having to spend a lot of time printing out. The teacher can send a marked copy of the work back to the student in a short amount of time. The message service being closed means that people can only message people in their school. This is useful as it means that students will not waste time messaging their friends.
There is also normally a system that lets students upload files to the site so that they can be downloaded and worked on anywhere. This is useful to get files from school to home and vice versa. A problem that sometimes occurs with this is that there is a limit on file size. This is not a problem for normal documents, but it can prevent movie files or projects with a lot of pictures from being uploaded. This makes it difficult to show teachers what you have done.

An example of this type of website is fronter.

Fronter contains the aforementioned message feature and the ability to upload files.

Fronter also contains a series of pages called "rooms". Each "room" is named after a class or subject and the information in those "rooms" relates to that subject. There are often work sheets or files that can be downloaded in each "room". This is very useful because if a person misses a lesson they can download any relevant information and catch up wiyjout to much difficulty. The main problem with this is that if the teacher forgets to upload the necessary work or the student can not connect to the internet the student not being able to receive the work and could fall behind.

online education

Online education is useful for schools. There are many different types of education resources on the internet. The 3 main types are; free resources open to everyone, resources that the school has to subscribe to that explain 1 or more subjects often with activities and services that the school has to subscribe to that let teachers and pupils upload files to send.

Resources that are free for everyone to use are useful as they enable students to revise what they have learnt in lessons or read about the upcoming lesson. Teachers can use these sites to support there lessons or if necessary to check what parts of the syllabus have to be taught when. The information uploaded is often straight to the point and concise. This is useful because it means that it is easy to revise key points.
The main problem with these websites is that they sometimes do not contain the syllabus being studies for certain subjects. This is problematic because people can not learn or revise what they want to. Also if someone did not notice that it was the correct syllabus they could study the wrong things having a detrimental affect on their education.

An example of this type of website is BBC Bitesize.Bitesize contains information and revision from KS1 to higher education. This is useful because it means that students of any age can go onto bitesize and find work appropraie for there age.

Bitesize has got information on a lot of the common subjects studied at school. A student can select a topic they want to study and then specify what part of the subject they want to study. This is useful as it means that students can go straight to the part of the subject they want to revise and leave all the bits they already know or are irrelevant.

Bitesize revision is designed to be easy to understand yet detailed enough to fully explain the topic. This is good because it means the revision "bites" can be used quickly and often, which is a good method of revision. There are sometimes activities to go with the revision to make it more interesting and to check that the person understands.

Problems can be caused as bitesize does not have all the subjects studied, this can lead to someone finding to hard to revise or look something up. Another problem is that bitesize sometimes does not have all the examining bodies which can lead to someone loading the syllabus from the wrong examining body and therefore not learning what they need to.


Websites that schools have to subscribe to often focus extensively on a particular subject. These are used to check pupils' understanding of the information tsught in class. Often homework tasks can be set from the website for the students to do online which the teacher then received electronically. This can be useful as students do not have to carry sheets of paper that could potentially get lost. It is also easier for the teacher to mark. The biggest problem with this layout however is that if the student can not connect to the internet for whatever reason they will not be able to do their homework which could lead to them getting a detention. Another possible inconvenience is that this websites can be expensive to use and some schools might not be able to afford the.
An example of this sort of website is mymaths.
Mymaths costs a school approximately £450 per annum to use. It provides a single usernsameand password that everyone in the school can use to access various resources. These resources contain the maths syllabus from KS1 to higher education. This is useful as it is appropriate to pupils of any age. When the resources explain how to work a type of problem out it is always accompanied by interactive examples to help students understand what they have to do.

Mymaths enables the teachers to set up an individual account for every student at the school. This results in the teachers being able to set work electronically When the students log in they are able to see any homework that they have to do. The students can have a look at the online lesson before they attempt the homework if they are not very confident. When the homework is done mymaths automatically makes it and sends the information to the teacher. This is good as students do not need to carry sheets around and the teacher does not need to spend a long time maing the work.

The main problem with this approach is because a computer is making a work there is no margin for error. It has been programmed to except one value as the correct answer and everything else is wrong. This can cause problems if a student was taught in a slightly different way compared to how the subject is taught on mymaths. This would result in the student losing marks although the answer could be completely correct.
 Mymaths also has a featue where students can search for topics that have not been set fot homework. This is useful because it means that students canrevise a topic that they go not feel very confident with.