Research topic for EDEM630

This is a hard one......There is so much I want to research. I am constantly reading about new ideas on how to use ICT in the classroom and I am always curious as to what ideas work.

My research topic is:

"The effectiveness of online tutorials as a learning tool"

The specific digital technologies I will be looking at are online tutorials as a tool.

I chose this topic because: 

- I hear about it - people are referring to 'youtube' as a teaching tool if they are unsure how to do something

- I use it - I access a lot of online tutorials in my Microsoft partners in learning professional development

- I have recently started to bring it in as a teaching tool in my classroom

It interests me because I wonder if it raises student achievement, is it motivational, does it allow students to access new skills when they choose to, does it make some peoples jobs obsolete, or if anyone is generating income from it. I also wonder if the tutorials are always meaningful, as anyone can post a video on youtube. I would be interested to find educational videos on youtube similar to teacher tools tutorials (as the video links on www.teachertools.co.nz all link to youtube.) in other curriculum areas.

I feel as though the information providers will be people I talk to, my own experiences, students and educators who publish information on the topic. I think Microsoft will have some information on the topic, as they  have so many tutorials available. Also Apple have itunes U courses, so I am hoping there will be some information there. I have had a quick search and there is quite a lot of information about achievement and online tutorials which I am very interested in. I feel as though everyone who is studying in this day and age in developed countries is affected by my research topic. We all find information online, and in our course notes our lecturers have left vimeo tutorials for us to use. I would like to think most educational providers in New Zealand are using online tutorials, but this is something I would like to look into further.

The major questions for this topic are 

Is there a shift to a flipped classroom teaching and learning style using online tutorials?

Does online learning promote a new way of learning?

Do online tutorials make jobs obsolete?

Do online tutorials support classroom teaching?

What kind of learning style does this cater for?

Will it make classroom teachers lazy?

Are there students that have difficulty learning this way?

I think it is important to consider the teacher and the learner in this research, I am not looking at online tutorials exclusively, I am looking at them as a teacher resource.

I feel that this topic is important on an international level, anyone with internet access can use online learning. I would like to look at this specifically in relation to education in NZ, but that will depend how much information I can find.

My topic is definitely important now. Education is changing, and we are seeing a shift towards an online environment.  I will be interested to see how far back I can find research on this topic.