While I am very excited to be wrapping up all of my activities and being done with this class, I am going to miss the opportunity to explore new technologies and get great feedback from my classmates. The discussions we have been having, as a class, have really given me a renewed focus and forced me to look more critically as I am creating activities and/or looking for resources to share with my students.
This week's discussions have really caused me to reevaluate the way I am using assessments, currently, and the way I will use them in my future online course. I need some time to digest and reformulate my grading system, but some of the suggestions like William's idea of allowing students to retake quizzes and exams have really intrigued me. I am going to do some soul searching and figure out different strategies that will help the kids LEARN, I do not want "tests" to be a punishment.
Overall, the discussion on promoting student success have given me much to ponder. I am looking forward to the coming weeks of researching and developing assessments that increase my students' success!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
1 Week to Go!
This week's topic of Facilitating Discussion and Student Collaboration brought up many things that I have not thought about before: Is it an instructor's job to assign groups? What if a group can't get along? Along with the introduction of more tools that an instructor could utilize to make group work more efficient for students.
I had a tough time participating in this topic, because I've never been an online instructor and because this is my first online class, as a student. The only opportunity I've had to work collaboratively, online, is a small project that we completed for this class. My experience was wonderful, we got together utilizing Elluminate, hammered out the details and did the work. It seemed like a rather easy process. Would it have been as easy if we had not been able to pick our group? What if I was assigned to a group that one of the people worked second shift and wasn't available to meet at a scheduled time? My limited experience with discussion boards and group wikis have shown that it is much more difficult to come to a consensus and final product, meeting asynchronously. I truly believe that we need that feeling of connecting to "real" people, even when participating in an online course. Synchronous meetings make me feel I have much more input into projects than simply posting something and hoping that others take time to read it.
For these reasons, I plan to incorporate as many live interaction possibilities as possible when I am the online instructor. There are many great tools available, so part of making things successful will be to investigate which are the most cost effective for my employer and allow the greatest number of students to utilize them.
From an instructor point of view, it is very important to encourage collaboration, in any form, by making yourself available to the students. Not only by posting comments or attending synchronous sessions, but sharing real-life experiences and situations that you have encountered in your online experiences.
The one thing I really like about this group of classmates is that people taking the course have a variety of occupations that cause different view points. It is much different then taking a class with other K-12 teachers. Although I still don't have the answers to many questions that I have, I have gained much "food for thought" and have been forced to consider situations that I never imagined.
I had a tough time participating in this topic, because I've never been an online instructor and because this is my first online class, as a student. The only opportunity I've had to work collaboratively, online, is a small project that we completed for this class. My experience was wonderful, we got together utilizing Elluminate, hammered out the details and did the work. It seemed like a rather easy process. Would it have been as easy if we had not been able to pick our group? What if I was assigned to a group that one of the people worked second shift and wasn't available to meet at a scheduled time? My limited experience with discussion boards and group wikis have shown that it is much more difficult to come to a consensus and final product, meeting asynchronously. I truly believe that we need that feeling of connecting to "real" people, even when participating in an online course. Synchronous meetings make me feel I have much more input into projects than simply posting something and hoping that others take time to read it.
For these reasons, I plan to incorporate as many live interaction possibilities as possible when I am the online instructor. There are many great tools available, so part of making things successful will be to investigate which are the most cost effective for my employer and allow the greatest number of students to utilize them.
From an instructor point of view, it is very important to encourage collaboration, in any form, by making yourself available to the students. Not only by posting comments or attending synchronous sessions, but sharing real-life experiences and situations that you have encountered in your online experiences.
The one thing I really like about this group of classmates is that people taking the course have a variety of occupations that cause different view points. It is much different then taking a class with other K-12 teachers. Although I still don't have the answers to many questions that I have, I have gained much "food for thought" and have been forced to consider situations that I never imagined.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
3 Weeks Down...
Week three was all about Direct Instruction. What is direct instruction? Thank you to Matthew for clearing up the distinction between "DI" and "di." Evidently, they are instructional designs that have very specific steps to follow. I assumed the direct instruction was a more general term that referred to materials provided to students that would lead them to a specific goal. Dr. Kovalik pointed out this is the general definition she uses for the activities that she wanted us to post. Obviously I will have to do some more research, so I can better participate in discussion of "DI" v. "di."
I am a little disappointed that only two classmates have taken the time to look through my Building an Element Gizmo. I will try to recruit some more reviewers, this week.
Jake's discussion topics on different tools available for direct instruction was very nice. I am going to look into DimDim as a potential resource, to use in the future.
I was glad Ashley and Sara presented their topic in a blog, because I had been wondering how it would work. I have to admit, I absolutely hated the layout. I know now, that I will not use this format for class discussion, in my courses. It was clunky and a pain to open up comments and try to follow the conversation. Maybe a Wiki is more appropriate? Although, I'm not thrilled with the way our class wiki for ITEC 67438 is working, either. Maybe I'll have an epiphany in the last two weeks.
I am a little disappointed that only two classmates have taken the time to look through my Building an Element Gizmo. I will try to recruit some more reviewers, this week.
Jake's discussion topics on different tools available for direct instruction was very nice. I am going to look into DimDim as a potential resource, to use in the future.
I was glad Ashley and Sara presented their topic in a blog, because I had been wondering how it would work. I have to admit, I absolutely hated the layout. I know now, that I will not use this format for class discussion, in my courses. It was clunky and a pain to open up comments and try to follow the conversation. Maybe a Wiki is more appropriate? Although, I'm not thrilled with the way our class wiki for ITEC 67438 is working, either. Maybe I'll have an epiphany in the last two weeks.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Week 2 Reflections
Two weeks down, three to go... Time is flying!
This was an interesting week because I worked as part of a team and we put together activities to show students the importance of communication, in an online class. The experience of working together virtually (synchronously and asynchronously) was very interesting. I was amazed how much we could get done by meeting in Elluminate, working on our own, then touching base to discuss problems. It was truly a team effort and a great first experience working with virtual partners.
For my portion of the project, I had our classmates create a communication policy to use in their online classes. I was truly surprised by how many people chose to use "the old standby," email, as their primary means of communicating. A few offered virtual office hours and one student was available via text messaging, a brave soul. I envision myself being available, as much as possible, but I'm very interested to read the research paper about text messaging, it seems a little intimidating to me. In this answer me now, technological world, I'm really surprised no one volunteered to use Facebook or any other social networking site! I tried to offer feedback that would be constructive and lead to new thoughts about improving their policy.
Whitney's project on accessibility for students' with disabilities was an eye opening experience. As a high school classroom teacher, if I run into any problems, I simply hand it off to the "special ed" teacher and let them deal with it. I now realize this is not a real option for college instructor and they must develop their own set of tools to deal with different situations.
I am looking forward to this week's project on direct instruction, I want to see what kind of feedback my planned activity will receive.
This was an interesting week because I worked as part of a team and we put together activities to show students the importance of communication, in an online class. The experience of working together virtually (synchronously and asynchronously) was very interesting. I was amazed how much we could get done by meeting in Elluminate, working on our own, then touching base to discuss problems. It was truly a team effort and a great first experience working with virtual partners.
For my portion of the project, I had our classmates create a communication policy to use in their online classes. I was truly surprised by how many people chose to use "the old standby," email, as their primary means of communicating. A few offered virtual office hours and one student was available via text messaging, a brave soul. I envision myself being available, as much as possible, but I'm very interested to read the research paper about text messaging, it seems a little intimidating to me. In this answer me now, technological world, I'm really surprised no one volunteered to use Facebook or any other social networking site! I tried to offer feedback that would be constructive and lead to new thoughts about improving their policy.
Whitney's project on accessibility for students' with disabilities was an eye opening experience. As a high school classroom teacher, if I run into any problems, I simply hand it off to the "special ed" teacher and let them deal with it. I now realize this is not a real option for college instructor and they must develop their own set of tools to deal with different situations.
I am looking forward to this week's project on direct instruction, I want to see what kind of feedback my planned activity will receive.
Monday, June 21, 2010
1 Week Down... 4 To Go!!!
Alright, so to be quite honest I only created this blog to help document my participation in ITEC 67444, Teaching and Learning Online, at Kent State University.
Week 1 was very busy, but thought provoking. This being my 1st online course, there were many issues that I had not considered, from both the student and instructor points of view.
First from the student point of view:
Being able to fully utilize the technology available can make or break you. KSU utilizes FTP servers so students can upload documents to be shared with the instructor and their classmates. Having spent hours creating a narrated tour in Google Earth, I was ready to share my life, but there was a problem... I could not upload my file and therefore could not get a link to show off all of my hard work. No matter how many times I watched the tutorial videos or searched the Support Topics, I could not get the file off of my computer onto the server to share with others. At my wit's end, I resorted to calling the KSU Help Desk (mind you this is the equivalent of actually stopping to ask for directions) only to be told that they would resolve my problem in 24-48 BUSINESS hours. Mind you, 48 business hours could be 6 days (24%) of not being able to fully participate in a 5 week course.
I made an end around and posted the tour to my KSU Google Docs account, my classmates watched and responded, I was relieved for the moment. But my instructor had an assignment due the first week, requiring us to use the KSU FTP servers. After three agonizing business days, I received an email from the KSU Help Desk that my account had been created. First thought: Relief! Second Thought: I've paid you over $2500 dollars for the privilege to take a couple of classes and you didn't even bother to create my account? After all of the frustration and nail biting, I guess it worked itself out.
It was nice to see some of my classmates' brief tours of the places their lives have taken them. It was refreshing to see that I wasn't the only one who had moved around a few times, only to return back "home."
I have mixed feelings about the Jilligan's Island activity. It was well conceived and a good activity, but I think it would have fit better in a semester long course. From talking to others in the class, we felt like it was one more thing to do and did not have the time to devote to it that it deserved. I'm sorry for the guys that designed it, they were probably short changed by a lot of people in the class.
From the instructor-to-be point of view:
How is there enough hours in the day to do it all? This week's discussions on Social Presence, Adapting Traditional Activities, and the activity "Jilligan's Island" were thought provoking but very time intensive. Just trying to keep my head above water, as a student, was hard enough but trying to keep on top of all of the topics, read hundreds of discussion thread, all the while being bombarded by student questions seems like an impossible task.
I guess I'll get a small taste of the multi-tasking needed, this week, as my group is leading a discussion on Communication for online courses.
Following the discussion on Social Presence has been an eye opening experience. With six years as a classroom teacher, establishing a social presence has come easy. Being in close proximity to the students has allowed my to share my life with them and become a part of their lives, I really never considered that it would be more difficult to establish the same type of relationship only meeting students online. There were some really good tools and strategies shared and pointed out in the texts.
One week down, four more to go... I'm anxious to see what this week brings.
Week 1 was very busy, but thought provoking. This being my 1st online course, there were many issues that I had not considered, from both the student and instructor points of view.
First from the student point of view:
Being able to fully utilize the technology available can make or break you. KSU utilizes FTP servers so students can upload documents to be shared with the instructor and their classmates. Having spent hours creating a narrated tour in Google Earth, I was ready to share my life, but there was a problem... I could not upload my file and therefore could not get a link to show off all of my hard work. No matter how many times I watched the tutorial videos or searched the Support Topics, I could not get the file off of my computer onto the server to share with others. At my wit's end, I resorted to calling the KSU Help Desk (mind you this is the equivalent of actually stopping to ask for directions) only to be told that they would resolve my problem in 24-48 BUSINESS hours. Mind you, 48 business hours could be 6 days (24%) of not being able to fully participate in a 5 week course.
I made an end around and posted the tour to my KSU Google Docs account, my classmates watched and responded, I was relieved for the moment. But my instructor had an assignment due the first week, requiring us to use the KSU FTP servers. After three agonizing business days, I received an email from the KSU Help Desk that my account had been created. First thought: Relief! Second Thought: I've paid you over $2500 dollars for the privilege to take a couple of classes and you didn't even bother to create my account? After all of the frustration and nail biting, I guess it worked itself out.
It was nice to see some of my classmates' brief tours of the places their lives have taken them. It was refreshing to see that I wasn't the only one who had moved around a few times, only to return back "home."
I have mixed feelings about the Jilligan's Island activity. It was well conceived and a good activity, but I think it would have fit better in a semester long course. From talking to others in the class, we felt like it was one more thing to do and did not have the time to devote to it that it deserved. I'm sorry for the guys that designed it, they were probably short changed by a lot of people in the class.
From the instructor-to-be point of view:
How is there enough hours in the day to do it all? This week's discussions on Social Presence, Adapting Traditional Activities, and the activity "Jilligan's Island" were thought provoking but very time intensive. Just trying to keep my head above water, as a student, was hard enough but trying to keep on top of all of the topics, read hundreds of discussion thread, all the while being bombarded by student questions seems like an impossible task.
I guess I'll get a small taste of the multi-tasking needed, this week, as my group is leading a discussion on Communication for online courses.
Following the discussion on Social Presence has been an eye opening experience. With six years as a classroom teacher, establishing a social presence has come easy. Being in close proximity to the students has allowed my to share my life with them and become a part of their lives, I really never considered that it would be more difficult to establish the same type of relationship only meeting students online. There were some really good tools and strategies shared and pointed out in the texts.
One week down, four more to go... I'm anxious to see what this week brings.
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