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~I continue to be astonished every week with how much I am growing and learning in this course.  Not only am I learning how to be an effective online instructor and everything that it entails, but I am also learning a lot about myself.~

I lose track of time and hours have gone by without me even realizing it. 

“What young children perceive that their teachers do plays a more significant role in their socio-emotional outcomes than what teachers report they do” (p. 30).  We have an EVEN bigger impact than we thought!

“Am I providing a bridge for my students from their prior knowledge to where I want them to be and where THEY want to be?” “What am I doing to facilitate their growth not only in building a positive self-image, but also as learners in general?” “Am I REALLY taking into consideration their interests, passions and motivations?” And finally, “What Would Alex Do?”

“I really like how you tell them you are there for them.  A lot of my teachers give us confusing assignments and I never feel like I can ask them questions.” 

When she was done going through everything she said, “Are you actually going to teach this class? Can I take it when you do?” 

  I was spending so much time figuring out the tools that I felt like I wasn’t spending time on content.  I realize now that I needed to spend that time and those tools were part of the content of this course. 

I LOVE learning in general!  I liked learning before…well I never disliked it anyway…well unless it was math…or science…I had no idea what it was like to truly LOVE learning.  Its sad to me that it took me 30 years to experience this.  Did I work A LOT in this course?  Did I give up much of my social life?  Did I stay up too late?  YES, YES and YES.  Was it worth it? Absolutely!  Did I mind? NOT ONE BIT…Reflecting on the fact that I worked so hard and so much on something and not only wasn’t bothered by it, but enjoyed every moment was a HUGE wake up call to me. 

You just have to have passion and a belief in yourself.

This was the only course I have EVER taken in which I will walk away having truly internalized knowledge.  I know that I internalized what I have learned because when I was reviewing my classmate’s courses I didn’t have to refer to a book or a checklist, it was all in my head.  When I look back at my undergrad education, I have always said that I didn’t feel like I actually “learned” anything until I student taught and learned by DOING.  That’s exactly what happened in this course, I learned by doing.  This is only course that has ever provided me with this type of experience and it has shown me what quality education should be, not only online but in a face-to-face situation as well.

We(myself, my classmates AND Alex) worked together in this course to contribute to the construction of our knowledge. 

It wasn’t until this summer when I turned 31 that I finally experienced being a student in a student-centered, constructivist environment that actually got me to THINK.  Not just think, but think critically…It took 31 years for me to experience a true community of learners!  I don’t want other students to have to wait 31 years to experience what its like to REALLY LEARN!

I want to CHANGE someone the way that Alex, ETAP 640 and all of you have CHANGED me.

I believe if I didn’t have this opportunity to reflect, it would have been a thought but I would not have acted on it. At first I thought blogging and journaling was just busy work and I wasn’t too excited to do them, but I have found great benefit from thinking about how I learn, why I learn and how I can use this to improve my contributions as an educator and student and that deflated feeling is going away with every week that passes and it is renewing my faith in education and where it is headed.

The course was developed in a way that the harder you work and the more you participate the better the experience and the more you will get out of it. I can guarantee that all of us were nervous and scared the first time we entered this course. The first day we knew that it was going to be a challenging, but we have made it to the end with a lot of rewarding experiences and a lot of lessons learned along the way.

On top of it is that it allows the Professor to reach to individual student in a personal tone. I am so used to read assignment and feedback in written format that I don’t remember when was the last time a professor went through my assignment in front of me. Almost always the case that the feedbacks were scribed down on the tiny margins of the papers, with often less then eligible handwritings. I did the same thing to my students when grading their papers and exams. So, using Podcast to give feedback is marvelous. It can easily create a strong sense of connection and trust between the instructor and the student. It helps out the most for those students who may be on the brink of feeling isolated from the learning community or fall behind in the middle of a long and demanding semester.

, I also assign a discussion forum dedicated to the topic: how does the online learning work? How to succeed

guess I am not the only one in the class who feels weird not be able to share thoughts and reflections as we’ve been doing for weeks. I miss it very much.

Larry was right

detach themselves

Peirce suggests that, since students come to class with loads of opinions about the topics (even more so moral issues, I’d say) whether they are well-informed or not, a way to generate interest in assigned readings is to take a survey of their opinions, or to pre-test their knowledge of the information. (p. 310) I find this suggestion interesting and it leads me back to my earlier reflections on quizzes. Quizzes may not be needed in taking attendance, nor reliable in assessing whether students come to class well-prepared or not, but quizzes may still be useful in inspiring curiosity among students.

Provoking discomfort (point 5) is very useful.

Creating cognitive dissonance is also a very useful triggering event that may eventually lead to the completion of the cognitive inquiry.

I’ve been trying to reflect on my learning process in a very personal way, and I will continue to do this even after the semester finished.

Given the opportunity, the learners are more likely to express their true selves on consistent basis.

These ideas are the modern theories in action,  of the students new role in the classroom, whether online or f2f. Professor's have said in the past "this is our class", but these ideas I have mentioned are really creating an "our class" type of atmosphere where the teacher and students are more equal participants in the learning process than the traditional model of the teacher being the boss, and the student being the subordinate.

Randy Pausch

This also shows the teacher asking the student to be an active participant in their own learning,

letting the student do the heavy lifitng. Professor Pickett told me that it is a hard concept to implement as a teacher and I am seeing that.

I am so glad I took this class. I learned so much, I feel so much more confident in my job as an instructional designer, and I feel more confident to take my skills to a new job envirnment. ANYONE HIRING OUT THERE?

I learned about some really important concepts for teaching online, like; -supply the students with a lot of information, module overviews, due dates, contact info, detailed explanation of how to complete assignments, rubric describing what type of work constitutes a Grade of A, B, C etc, -show your teacher presence in the course, by answering questions fairly quickly, posting in the discussion to guide, engage, provoke the student to do more research, asking for student input and using it, -Let the students do as much as possible instead of giving them everything ona silver platter. -Let students play the role of teacher in some of their assignments

After the first two weeks of this course, the first module, I learned so much, and grew so much more confident in my ability to work with faculty developing online courses.

online learning in k-12 students

part.

am having a hard time picturing my unenthusiastic, too cool for that, high school students being responsible enough to take an online course.

community.

August 4, 2012

By doing these activities I have become even more challenged and feel even more uncomfortable.  Now I am dipping my other foot in to the online course world.  I am inserting my knowledge to this new forum.  It’s as if I’m putting my quarter in and watching the wheels turn until they stop on something. What will that something be?  I must have felt that I was in some kind of comfort zone. Then I was understanding and proving myself valuable to the other student’s learning.

I am going to have to think very deeply about. That suggestion is to give more freedom to my students. The students in my course can better express their creativity by having to create their own activities!  Wow!  This is going to be hard…

Creating PDFs takes lot of time

222

If discussions wane then I can take one of these questions out and use them to stimulate new discussions

seeismic did not register me properly

Therefore I will continue exploring what I have learned in this course and consider the possibility that there may have been things going on in this course that I did not learn because I did not internalize them.  (3)

half of the requirement for this class.

I was given this gift: show your students the importance of reflection. 

There was absolutely nothing about my course learning activities that was learner-centered, or, one could argue, learning-centered!  I was being extremely teacher-centered in my approach! 

  Because of that, I need to embrace these tools, explore new ideas, and for goodness sake- think about the STUDENT.

the more effort you put into it, the more successful you’ll be.

One thought I had, as I look forward to getting a PhD, is that theories come from practice which means that theories about online learning come from individuals creating courses, teaching courses, and collecting feedback from courses over and over and then after all of that work is finished, turning right around and working at analyzing the data, and attempting to answer research questions.  In order to have credible research, the questions must be relevant, the measures must be valid and thorough, and the analyses of results must be comprehensive. 

Reflective Writing: I have to admit, at the beginning of the course I thought the blogging activities were just busy work.  I viewed the assignments as busy work, and treated my entries as such.  As time ticked on, I started getting into the blogs and realizing that it was my personal space in which I could reflect on my work on my course and my learning throughout the week/module.  So much of life and learning in school is sort of thrown at you, and if you don’t take the time to intentionally deconstruct the events and make sense of them, then you’ll never grow and improve.  I’d rather grow.

If I don’t place intentional emphasis on something (like making it worth a portion of their grade) then I am sending a message that it’s not important. 

Nothing should be an accident or “just because” in the online teaching environment. 

Students don’t want their time wasted.

My present ideas never look like version 1! The result is that the ideas I handed up in the proposed learning activities resemble very little of what I actually have now

Confucius

One of the insights has to do with letting go as a teacher.

Reading Sue’s

I agree with Sue.

I really don’t know why I do things the way I do. Is it from years of routine as to this is how it needs to be done? Is it from no one stopping and helping me break these habits?

At first my fear was that I was a “dead-thinker”

I was predispositioned to not question, to memorize and regurgitate information. I was scared that I was passing this trait on to my students.

I’m losing that with all the hours it takes to create these.

I really began to question whether I am a teacher or a web designer.

After Alex asked me to think about how this may hold true in my daily life and routine I realized I really don’t speak up any where let alone in class.

I think this is not only my biggest challenge in this class but in my life as well

I think I’m just scared. 

Ya know Alex, I love you and all and this class has been amazing but I honestly think you are killing my laptop!!

Well no more soul searching I have a course to design. Best of wishes to all my fellow classmates as we begin to wrap up this amazing journey!

Lisa, I can’t believe how amazing your course is! I want to take it!!

Less than 24 hours later this article appeared in my inbox. At first I was really aggravated by this article because it seemed like it was ripping to shreds everything I have been working at this summer and I felt like he was sitting at home with an “I told you so” smirk. This quote just floored me “In terms of learning on the college level, the Department of Education looked at thousands of research studies from 1996 to 2008 and found that in higher education, students rarely learned as much from online courses as they did in traditional classes.” Really, what study? Everything that we have read seems to be in the complete opposite direction of this statement! I agree that for some there will be a financial obstacles and internet issues like we’ve all had but that’s where as a teacher we come into play and offer solutions and options. Upon reading it for a second time I feel that this article and any other article discrediting online teaching should be looked at as a challenge! I am strong and passionate about this endeavor of mine and no article or fuddy duddy teacher is going to come in the way of that. Well I hope you all have an amazing weekend. I will be attempting to cool my boiling blood as I sit by the calming cool waters of the Kinzua Dam with a delicious glass of Riesling.

As this class come to an end and I look back at where I was in May, I can only say I wish I knew then what I know now. This class has given me so much academically, personally and technologicially, lol. In only a short time I feel like I have grown so much as person and as a teacher.

I have to squeeze a lot of material into an online course

doing it

intent

Thinking back on my experiences, I can say that I developed a support system and friendships through working with classmates in online classes, but before this class, I never realized that may have been the

How do I know this?  Because I just told you that I did. AND I did it verbatim from memory—that’s how I know.  How else do I know that I learned this?

I have been changed in many ways, particularly in how I think, how I will teach, how and what I will study in the future.  I was a proponent of online learning before I took this course, I am a greater fan now that I understand the flip side of the equation.  I love the course I built and want to keep working on it and improve on it so when I am ready (in the near future) I can teach it.  I still do not think that I am quite ready to teach—there are a few things I need to work on. However, I am confident that I will be ready relatively soon.  I feel confident and empowered!!!

The only point this article I thought wasn’t accurate was the point that online learning is an intimate community. I think the opposite. I have not continued my friendship with anyone really from my previous classes, where I might have with traditional classes.

August 4, 2012,

Well one thing I have learned is that to get students thinking you need an interesting prompt like this.

12th?

To really have learned something I think it means it will stay with you, you will use it. It will be in your thoughts after the class has concluded.

 Coming into this class I thought I was a technology native. I thought I knew a lot about the internet, its uses for the classroom and ways I could utilize it. This class has pushed my limits showing me there is endless posiblities and things I will do even in my face to face class. For example, I was introduced to vociethread. This I will use to connect my classroom to another and make an authentic population for my students to present to. I would even use it to show student work at an open house.