What did you learn about the design of online courses this week that will affect how you think about this form of instruction in the future?

When it comes to online courses, I was most afraid of courses that may simply put a textbook on your screen. That's exactly what I found on one of Aventa Learning's Geometry lessons. This could be a very detrimental learning experience to many students. If students could read (or be read to) from a math textbook and teach themselves the materials, they wouldn't need a teacher. Aventa Learning provided zero interaction (at least in the demo) and read the lessons to you from the screen, occasionally highlighting portions of a diagram, which can also be easily done in a textbook.

Other demos, such as from K12, Inc., offered a little more interaction (I understand that interaction in an online math course is, by nature of the subject, difficult). They used multiple modes of delivery of content and made it very possible for students to really learn at their own pace, referring to previous lessons if reinforcement is necessary and advancing to subsequent lessons when ready. I see such uses of technology to be only the beginning and really look forward to ways technology will not only supplement, but change the way we learn.