CEdO555 Posting #1

How have I or my district used e-portfolios? This is the first time I have used an online portfolio. Now that I have become familiar with using Google Sites, I think that online portfolios are so much easier than the traditional paper portfolios. Google Sites provides an awesome environment for artifact organization, reflections and other resources I have accumulated during the program. An e-portfolio is also a great way to provide documentation for my PDP. I can definitely see how an e-portfolio could be used in the classroom with my students. Sadly, I am 99% sure that no one in my district uses e-portfolios. That will change with my classes next school year. I can't wait to introduce my staff to the benefits of online portfolios!

CEdO550 Week 6

My students are gaining 21st century skills by learning how to expand their creativity using web 2.0 tools, working collaboratively with students in other countries and excelling in project-based lessons. Currently, my school district does not offer any type of online learning, however, we are in the process of collaborating with 2 other area districts that are our size and may offer online courses through these districts. My concern with the Virtual Schools legislation in Wisconsin is cap of the number of students allowed to enroll in virtual schools, with no more than 5250 students enrolled in a school year. During this module, I was excited to learn the difference between synchronous and asynchronous facilitations. I'm glad to have received the experience in online facilitation and after practicing with my short class on internet safety, I feel much more confident in my abilities to facilitate an online class.

CEdO550 Week 5

In reflecting on my teaching experiences to date, I would say that the proportion of teacher centered vs. student centered lessons has been 50-50. This is my 3rd year teaching, and as a library media specialist, I try to incorporate many 21st century skills into my lessons, including group collaboration, which is a trait of student centered lessons. I was able to identify more than one authentic assessment when I was trained in PBL - project-based learning and authentic assessments go hand-in-hand. The rubric I created for my lesson clearly defined expectations and scoring so that my students would know exactly what was expected from them for the assignment and they would have the rubric to refer back to if they had questions on if they were going down the right path when completing the project. While working with this module, I had success while doing something new involving differentiation. I did incorporate differentiation in my lessons, but it's more on the fly; I do it automatically as the need arises and don't always take the time to document the differentiation strategies in my lesson plans. IN REGARD TO WEEK 5 WEB CONFERENCE - I like Shawn's comment during his presentation that "everyone's equal on cyberspace - everyone looks the same". That is true in so many ways. If a student is taking an online class, I think there's less prejudice because you don't make the judgement based on the typical "first impression" when seeing someone. I noticed this when my students were corresponding/collaborating on a project with New Zealand students. For 4 months, they only knew their New Zealand friends by what they wrote in their emails. But, when they sent photos and noticed that none of them had shoes on, my kids immediately assumed they were poor...which they weren't, they just didn't have their shoes on when the photo was taken!

CEdO Week 4

I have not experienced any problems using Brainhoney. After the first few days, it became very user-friendly to me and I feel that I am navigating through it just fine. In using this week's module, I tried using many of the features in Elluminate during my facilitation of the last week's web conference. I was surprised at how easy it was to facilitate the class using these features. I love how a ppt or other documents can be loaded into Elluminate and also being able to add blank slides in the presentation for taking notes. I can imagine using Elluminate in working with my grant consortium group to meet online when our schedules make it impossible to get away from school. These examples of online learning have provided me with a good foundation for teaching an online class. I teach in a small, rural district and we are thinking of collaborating with two other rural districts to offer AP classes. This class has given me the experience I need to facilitate an online class with these two other districts.

CEdO550 Week 3

I think the greatest challenge I will face on an online instructor (besides getting over my nervousness!) will be making sure the material I am covering with the class is not too boring. Without the convenience of observing class as I would during face-to-face instruction, it makes it difficult to know if the class is nodding off or actually paying attention. To solve this problem, I would make sure that I am changing modes, asking lots of questions and encouraging class participation to keep them on their toes! I think the most important piece of facilitating my online discussions is to be extremely prepared. I can't just wing it when leading the class. As I prepared my asynchronous and synchronous discussions, I found it very helpful to have a written outline to follow. I believe it will make it easier for me to stay on task with my objectives and keep the class flowing at a good pace. I chose Internet Safety as my discussion because as a LMS, it is something I promote during my elementary library skills lessons as well as with my discussions with my middle and high school students. Developing the rubrics was the most difficult part of the assignment; appropriate assessment is never an easy task. I wanted to make it simple, yet still have point value. Basically, I created my rubrics based on student participation, if they did the assignment, and how much they contributed to and extended ideas of their classmates.

CEdO550 Week 2

My experience with online communities has been primarily with this cohort. It was a little rocky at first, but as we got to know each other by working in groups and became more familiar with the online classes, the classes became much easier. Since being a part of this cohort, I've actually taken what I've learned about online colllaboration and use it in my grant consortium meetings. Our district shares a large technology integration grant with six other districts and finding a common meeting time/place is difficult. We've gone to working on "Go To Meeting" and working on our grant through Google Docs. The biggest benefit of online collaboration is just what I previously mentioned, it is very time efficient to work online when we are all pressed for time with our many job responsibilities. I believe the greatest challenge of online collaboration that I've experienced has been technology issues....could be internet being down, or learning how to use some new tool or software (such as Brainhoney). I've always worried about students who chose their schooling strictly in the virtual world because of the lack of socialization and participation in normal school events (music/band concert, sports, prom, etc.). Even after reading the advantages of virtual schooling, I still am somewhat apprehensive promoting it as the sole education a student receives. But, on the flip side, I can definitely see how a student would flourish more in a virtual class if they are shy...getting their opinion online through discussion boards, blogs, etc. will help them enhance their communication skills and perhaps break through the shyness barrier.

CEdO550 Week 1

Identify 2 Asynchonous and 2 Synchonous online learning tools: Voicethread (Asychonous) is a multimedia web 2.0 tools that allows anyone to comment on individual slides within the presentation. Google Docs (Asynchonous) allows anyone with editing rights to the document to put on highlighted comments. Facebook and Twitter (both Synchonous) are real-time, social networking sites. Four types of activities for online learners: Moodle (start a discussion thread asking each student to respond with their opinion on the topic). Wikispaces (each student create a page on the class wiki the introduces themselves to the class). Twitter (during class, I enter a tweet and ask each student to respond to it immediately as part of the classroom discussion). Wallwisher (during class, ask students to go to Wallwisher and enter their responses immediately as part of classroom discussion). Initial contact warm and inviting? Things I liked about it and could improve on: I thought my initial contact letter was inviting. I started it by congratulating them for being selected to participate in the class, so hopefully that helps them feel that their participation in the class is highly valuable. One thing I will change that was brought to my attention by another classmate was that some of my bullet points seemed to be out of order. I will definitely review it before submitting the final copy because it is imperative that directions for online courses be exactly correct. Initial contact clear and concise? Strategies to make it concise: As stated above, it was brought to my attention that some of the information on the contact letter may appear out of order and may be confusing to my students. I will be correcting before submitting the final copy. One strategy that would guarantee that my directions are in accurate order would be for me to go through the directions step-by-step myself as if I am the student taking the class and verify that I am able to do whatever the task is that I'm asking my students to do.