Educations Portal

Online courses for kids can be a great source of features that can be incorporated in a Learning Management System. This calls for the attention of courseware designers towards teens and kids-centric online courses.

One of the most catchy features of a kids-centric courses is their interactivity. In fact, the features of such courses are being implemented in conventional course methods.

A good example for this is the Virtual High School programme which was started off as a federal education grant project 13 years ago. The number of online students who have enrolled for this semester is nearly 12,000.

What methods do programmes like VHS adopt in order to achieve the desired result? Their response and the solutions they provide to their users, secondary school students, is what has made them successful. Schools that can’t provide advanced facilities to their students are the ones that have reaped the maximum benefit of the online programme of VHS. Small schools can’t offer advanced courses such as AP and computer science.

The needs of schools as well as the interests of students are equally satisfied by LMS courses. Those who have enrolled for the online programme of VHS get to study lessons meant for college students. Don’t criminology, zoology and American multiculturalism sound interesting?

The popularity of online courses is increasing dramatically of late. Still there is no doubt in the fact that the word self-paced will never be received well. There is a notion among people that such courses make students lazy. But these courses have proven such thinkers false by providing a learner-friendly atmosphere for those who take them up. The students need not be constantly monitored under this kind of a learning style.

Online courses succeed in satisfying this need for novel teaching methods. The success of teaching methods such as Montessori and Waldorf has pushed most of the schools to redefine their methodology. This teaching method is fuelled by the students’ interest to learn new things.
‘The Montessori Way’ a book written by Tim Seldin and Paul Eppstein says that children show great enthusiasm in knowing things that would help them achieve their goal and eventually be successful in life. People will have to become aware of many different things when they mature from a child to an adult. The path the person chooses may differ but he/she only strives to gain more knowledge in his/her area of interest.

But progress can be made only when the person feels motivated and given assignments frequently. Certain expectations and standards have to be met by the trainees. That’s the reason behind the existence of things such as projects, assessments, deadlines and quizzes in online courses. The age of the learner does not have a say upon this.

Online courses should go hand in hand with conventional in-person courses. The benefits a person reaps through online courses has to be seen evidently. In a nutshell, an online course is said to be effective only when the learning needs of its users are completely satisfied, and best done with a learning management system.

Here is a related article on learning management features.