the difference within the marking/recording/administration

the difference within the marking/recording/administration was that it was much easier than normal. Tasks were emailed which gave me a record of who submitted and when.
To record the results I used a split screen to view task and electronic bookmark simultaneously. The evaluation was done as a quiz within Castnet and used a variety of types of questions. This automatically produces the results and comments.
All of this made administration of the topic very easy.

track, monitor and review

One of the tasks required in the online course was for the students to make a poster on the computer, this was emailed for marking and the best were printed in colour and displayed around the computer room on open day. The standard of their work was quite high and many publisher skills were acquired.
We have had a number of lessons where we could not get into the computer room and have used the classroom lessons to review and consolidate the online work. This has been a very good way f or them to think about what they learned from the online task.

support and social interaction

The online work is proving very useful for students who miss lessons. It has made it much easier for them to catch up. It also was useful when I had to be away at a conference. Today I showcased the online work at our open day and received very favourable comments from the prospective parents and the students were very proud to explain their work to the visitors.

starting the course

In our first lesson in the computer room I explained all the rules about using the room and the course. I then showed them the 9 Commerce class page I had made on Castnet. This has a class noticeboard for my messages and their questions. It also has my email address for sending work and the link to their MMM course. Their work was done in a word document which was backed up in their own folder and emailed to me. We spent some time at the end of the lesson making sure all knew how to email attachments.

inducting my students

to introduce my students to this online course we had a discussion about new ways to learn. Textbooks with cd's so no carrying required.
Just cd's and no text books.
Laptops instead of cd's.
Having all the info on the internet.
After this discussion they were enthusiastic about the future possibilities. I then told them that their next topic would be fully electronic with no texts or exercise books, pen or paper and would help to prepare them for learning in the future. They were very eager to begin the work.

This is where I will be posting my information about my online course on Financial Literacy. It is called Mercy Money Matters or MMM for short.