Activity 1

Personally, I think virtual courses can be useful since you can improve your knowledge at home. What Module 1 teaches us is how to use virtual campus as a learning tool. If interested in the course, the learner needs to have some previous knowlegde about surfing the internet, since the course requires so.

On the other hand, Module 1 starts from a very basic point. This course lets the learner know how to use the internet in order to be able, in the future, to learn autonomously.

There is something I don't agree with: the exhaustive chart learners are required to fill in. I really think that the aspects asked in the chart should be disscused personally with a teacher that could help the learner at the moment. I do think these aspects are important to take into account, but they should be dealt personally with the teacher.

Activity 1. Virtual course

This module 1 gives you an introduction to how to use virtual campus in order to learn autonomously. I think that you virtual campus is an intranet where the instructor holds on activities which students do through online learning. Also, Students interact to each other and sometimes they receive feedback from the instructor.
This module 1 makes you know about internet vocabulary that helps you to understand what is in a website. It gives you some web tools to check your answers.
However, I do not agree about taking notes about how much time an activity or task takes you. This time varies according to several factors such as people's mood, people's knowledge, and so on.

Activity 1: Virtual Courses

When I started reading and they said the course was addressed to improve the level of English I thought "well, are they able to read this introduction and understand what is expected of them?". The introduction to an English course should be adapted to very low levels, especially in this kind of courses where you don't know the level of the students.

And after that, I find it quite guided. Maybe it's more free because the students should work alone, but as I said, it's very guided and they even have deadlines. I think that if you want an autonomous learning the students should work at their own paces and not be under the pressure of a deadline.

Activity 1: Virtual Courses

In my opinion, online courses offer the opportunity of studying at home with your own timetable. It is a good idea for people how cannot afford to stop working but still want to study, usually people with very busy days and unable to attend classes in regular schools or universities. An online course gives freedom to both the student and the teacher since they can work wherever they want as long as there is an internet connection.

On the other hand, people who choose to do an online course have to be very responsible, they have to do all their assignments at home and before the deadline. Students have to set up a daily schedule and follow it, otherwise all the assignments will pile up and then there will be no time to do them all.

Personally, this course will be helpful in certain skills such as acquiring grammar or vocabulary but will fail in others like speaking. In these kind of online courses it is very difficult to plan speaking activities (even though nowadays it is becoming easier with Skype and other programs that allow people to talk online and record it). It is also difficult to have an immediate feedback from the teacher. To sum up, online courses are a good option if you don’t have time to go to a regular school, but you have to think twice and be sure that you’ll be diligent with all your tasks.

Activity 1: Virtual courses

Analyze general aspects of a virtual course: Learning to learn

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If I were taking a subject like this one, in which you don't always have someone to rely on or ask for answers, I'd feel much more reassured if at least I knew that every task I'm doing on my own it's done for a purpose and which purpose is that. In my opinion, for a course in which the role of the teacher is (partially) transfered to the learner himself, students must have some knowledge on how they are or will be learning, in order to make them feel confident and keep them from ending up disappointed or simply dropping the subject.

On the one hand, the study plan for module 1 is well-structured as it gives the students as much as it can give them. It provides charts for them to check their progress and promises to teach them to use the virtual facilities that would be needed during their learning (I wish someone had explained to me how to use the Campus Virtual when I started this degree, actually).

On the other hand, I understand that for some of you It doesn't make sense the fact that deadlines are still there (even for an autonomous-learning-focused subject like this one) but a course of these characteristics is obviously limited by time. It might not be the ideal situation for an autonomous learner to be constrained by time but, aren't we, college students, all in that same position? I think this deals with the basis of our learning system, which are memorising as much as we can before the time's up and then take an exam that won't measure at all our efforts. I suppose deadlines are needed for evaluation, and evaluation is needed for... some reason.