Learning and Communicating Online Reflective Essay for Online Informat

Question: Write about theLearning and Communicating Online Reflective Essay for Online Information. Answer: Introduction In the present tech savvy twenty -first century, the huge impact of online information sources cannot be denied in the process of learning. As a professor of psychology at Cambridge University, I owe to the e-information sources completely. Previously, we professors were supposed to rely upon the books of the university library in order to collect sufficient knowledge on our respective subjects to teach our students (Bakia et al., 2012). Therefore, in this way, we were confined to the limited boundary of knowledge to some extent. Insofar my professional development as a professor is concerned; the useful range of e-information helps me to update my knowledge on psychology. Psychology seems to be a layered and rapid evolving subject where discovery about a new fact happens almost every day (Gikas Grant, 2013). Therefore, as a teacher I largely rely upon the e-journals and articles related to psychology which helps me to diversify my point of view so that I can think more critically. These e-sources of information help me understand the human psychological matter, especially the teenagers more minutely because I can directly apply my learning at the time of teaching my teenage students at the university. As a professor of psychology and due to my friendly approach, I am often asked to guide my students at their mental traumatic situation. Sometimes they open up and sometimes, they hesitate to do so. In such cases, I use my communication skills about which I have come across in a number of online articles and journals (Glance, Forsey Riley, 2013). Undoubtedly, the usefulness of book based authentic learning cannot be replaced; but it also cannot be denied that the book based learning as well as teaching procedure does not offer the latest and updated information and practices (Ni, 2013). Presently, I find myself more self-sufficient to understand the current mental situation of my students with my observation power. After being aware about the effectiveness of non-verbal communication process, adapted by the modern psychologists, I have also developed my communication skills with which I can teach and related with my students in a better way. As a part of my teaching profession, I am also responsible to supervise my students in their research projects. They often choose critical psychological topics like the mental growth of the children of separated parents etc where they are supposed analyze various layers of child psychology. With the help of these e-sources, I often provide them examples where the children have bad as well as good characteristic traits after the separation of their parents. With the help of such examples, I have become able to solve the doubts of my students more easily (Kirkwood Price, 2014). On the other hand, with the help of such technical advancement, I have become able to post my research journals at various online websites for psychology like PsychCentral, WebMD Mental Health etc more easily which can definitely help some other professors, students and research scholars to strengthen their document (Means et al., 2013). In this way, along with being a professor, I have evolved my role as a sha rer, consumer and producer of the online information sources related to psychology. At the time of conducting my online learning process, I often get confused about the credibility of a piece of information. As a professor of psychology, I do have a clear knowledge about the psychological factors along with their impact upon human psychology. However, there are some online blog and article aim to present their papers more in consumer digestive forms rather than with the intension to provide actual valid information which can create misconception among the readers, especially the research scholars and students (Noesgaard rngreen, 2015). If the young generation tends to learn the wrong information, say related to psychology, they can never build their career in this field because they can pass their examinations but would find difficulty at the time of implementing their misconceptions (Olson urt deMaagd et al., 2011). Therefore, the lack of credibility along with the unequal quality of the online information is often regarded as the negative aspects of online learni ng process. For example, in one of the class assignments, I found that one student has given information that boys can think more logically than the girls which has been proven completely wrong in the modern psychology (Omer et al., 2015). When I asked the students, he told me that he discovered this fact in one of the blogs of a famous psychologist. I preferably rely upon the official and authentic sites of psychology where I can get updated and authentic information about the latest regulations, practices and theories of psychology. The students can evaluate the credibility of this online information with the help of learning theories. With the help of Cognitive Constructivism learning theory, the learners can discover a certain fact from the online sources but in this process the learner needs to match the discovered fact with the existing cognitive structure. As a professor, I motivate my students to adapt this method of learning where they can taste the feeling of discovery without having any misconception (Pierce Fox, 2012). Moreover, in this way, the goals of the students to identify the proper information sources appropriately where they can find authentic information. On the other hand, by adapting Social Constructivism learning theory, the learners can also gather information from various online sources through group discussions (Xu Meyer, 2013). I often allow my students to take active participation in the group discussions where every student is supposed to share any new information related to psycho logy with its classmates. In this way, new information can be gathered by both the students along with me and it also helps the other students to contribute their shares in this discussion. As such discussions are supervised by me; the chances to acquire wrong information on psychological matters can be reduced completely. On the contrary, there is another theory called behaviorism learning theory where the learners are supposed to learn information from the public responses on the online information (Wiliam, 2013). Personally, I do not like this learning method and do not promote it among my students as it does not include the own idea, concept of the learner, rather makes them dependent upon the behavioral aspects of other people which can be right or wrong. The introduction of Blackboard Collaborate is definitely regarded as one of the major invention in the online learning and teaching procedure because it enables the teachers to communicate with their students through browser based and high-quality web conferencing medium. The speedy launching feature of this system helps the teachers like me, to make the teaching process easy with the help of sufficient amount of device supports namely Chromebooks etc. The best feature of this system which I like the most is it allow the teachers and students to take active participation regardless to the place and time (Pierce Fox, 2012). With the help of Blackboard Collaborate, the professors like me who want to guide more students through online teaching method can acquire all facilities to develop a proper e-classroom as it allows to include video and audio calls to communicate with the students more effectively. Moreover, the feature of the advanced availability of course material along with in stant feedbacks from the teachers helps the students to learn faster than the traditional classroom process. They can clarify their doubts by communicating with the teachers anytime and anywhere (Omer et al., 2015). The facilities like student trackers, assignment uploading and downloading etc enables then teachers to supervise the learning process of the students. Blackboard Collaborate works in every type of computer forms like Linux, Windows, Solaris etc along with in every internet connections like Cable modem, DSL, Ian etc. However, it also has certain disadvantages because it requires extreme technology proficiency from the teachers as well as students which seems to be challenging and time consuming. On the other hand, the internet speed along with the function of different types of computer systems creates obstacle to execute this learning process (Kirkwood Price, 2014). In addition, Blackboard Collaborate also requires high license and yearly maintenance costs which are also regarded as chief barriers insofar as the implementation of this system is concerned. However, it is the responsibility of the teachers like us to implement Blackboard Collaborate successfully by eliminating the drawbacks as much as possible. With the help of live instruction sessions, the teachers can easily monitor the learning process of their students by reducing the feelings of isolation of the students. On the other hand, the students can identify the advanced computing system with superfast internet speed among any of their classmates with whom they can execute this learning process (Xu Meyer, 2013). In this way, the teachers can also reach to a number of students at a time and can supervise their learning process. Like me, the other teachers can also employ the asynchronous content process by posting a recorded lecture on a particular topic. It will help the students whenever they log in themselves in Blackboard Collaborate (Kirkwood Price, 2014). Moreover, students who have temporary internet or computing system related issues can find the lecture after sor ting out their respective problems. In this way, the online learning process can be proved to be very useful source for the students as well as teachers. 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