Group items tagged

I never thought about the community component of an online course until we had to introduce ourselves. I originally was skeptical of collaborating with other people via the internet because I didn't think it would feel like a community or that I would get to know my fellow students. However, I've been surprised at how I already feel like I'm communicating and collaborating with my group members.

This is very important to remember and teach students. It is so easy to copy and paste that we need to remember that citing your work is important

I was helping a colleague with an online statistics course this semester. The instructor did not know how to explain or help students other than telling them to reread the text or what she had already written. I did not see if they were using moodle or blackboard,

I agree that both (content and technology) knowledges need to be pretty sharp. Students are at all different parts of the spectrum on their own knowledge of the subject and need to have the resources from the instructor to help them succeed.

I strongly agree that the instructor needs to know the content of the subject and also needs to know how to teach it as well as have adequate resources to do so. I believe the success of the students depends on the confidence and knowledge of the instructor. I took several online courses in college and without the resources from the instructor or without the instructor knowing how to navigate through the course I would have felt lost! I know several other students in the class that struggled but with a knowledgable instructor they were able to get back on track. I think this is something that can be hard even in face-to-face instruction!...I've had several teachers that weren't sure HOW to teach, while I've had others that were creative and found many ways! This is a vital part of the standards!

With students in our school going 1:1 next fall will help some of them. They will have more access to resources from the internet and the ability to access those resources. I also feel that the teacher needs to be available for the students to ask questions, when they still do not understand for the internet resources.

I taught a course using ISU's WebCT system and found that I was so busy troubleshooting the program with learners some days that the content was lost---I think this standard re-emphasizes that the point of using technology is to enhance content learning...so it's important to not let the technology usability get in the way of the content....

Moodle should make this easier to use different learning styles

Absolutely! What are tech strategies to maximize differentation to make learning more engaging for the student?

I think this area could be boosted a bit. From a special education teaching perspective there need to be a few changes before students with special needs are able to navigate the system easier. I have taught students with visual and hearing impairments, therefore, I am thinking of the print needing to be larger, possible sign language interpretation video links, etc. I hope these are things that are being worked on or that are already in the works that I haven't seen.

It is important that teachers be exposed to different technologies so they cannot only find ones that will or will not work for them, but also know what is available. The problem is finding time to investigate/explore and then implementing them into the classroom.

Before starting this class, I had no idea of the tools that are available. It seems that when I go to investigate one, it leads to looking at another and another. This is a time intensive search process. I would love to see videos of how many of our classmates are already using these technologies.

Agreed. Finding time to keep up on what is out there is important--that's what I like about communities of learning where people can share what works/doesn't work, etc. It helps when people share what they use/like.

This might be something that teachers might find overwhelming. You have 4 section of American History. Each with 30 students and now they are all sending you questions, posting to forums and other activities that you need to check. How much time is this going to take? When will your teaching day end? When you post to a forum, it does not post until after 30 minutes.

This stuck out to me because again it is something that is important in both face-to-face and virutal classrooms! If any of these are missing students will feel disconnected to the course and probably will not do as well. If you are positive, interactive, etc your students will also take action to do these things!

I would like to see more professional development in these areas. In our school we were offered the chance to take this class by an email being sent out by our superintendent, which was great, but unfortunately not many of our staff members took this opportunity. I believe if there were more of a "push" to take these courses or to enhance our learning in technology there would be more advancement in this. I am not much of a "techy" (if that's the way it's spelled) and I've found myself fretting over how to complete many of the activities or if it's done right. If I were expected to teach a course online my lack of confidence would lead to my students lacking confidence as well.

You are so right! What do you think would have motivated your colleagues to take an course?

This is so important, since we all know how quickly technology changes! Staying current is a must!

I have really been struggling with the technology of this Moodle class. Our instructor has been very prompt with her helps and that has kept me going. I am concerned that many of our adult learners (teachers) may be intimidated like me by the technology of this type of learning and therefore not use it. It will be very important to have adequate staff development available in order to make all of the wonderful class content that will soon be available accessible to everyone.

Every class must have collaboration and interaction among all people involved teachers and students. Some students are going have no problems communication via a computer class. Other students not going to be as comfortable communicating via a computer class. Some students will not follow proper etiquette communicating. This concerns me.

My students really enjoy learning when they are doing it collaboratively! All students are putting forth effort because they all want to be using the computers to learn. I need to work more on the student-content part of this standard.

Right now as I am creating my own moodle course I am having a difficult time deciding what materials would be best used online and which would be better used in a face-to-face class. Knowing which materials to use and how to present those materials is very important. On-going professional training in this area would be great. We need to remember that learning online is not going to best for all students.

I wonder how this is operationalized? What do you all think is "evidence" of this standard?

Keeping the integrity in the assignment is always important and respectful to the students. Keeping students' integrity and respect intact is also part of the teacher's responsibility.

I have always been a heavy reader to keep up with research and knowledge in my professional growth but I have just learned through this course of resources like Diigo that will be such a help in connecting with other professionals and what they are also learning.

I think getting to understand individual student motivation through online classes will be difficult unless time is given to getting to know your students. Motivation can be such an individual thing.

It's difficult to appropriately use on-line learning since there is such a wide range of learning abilities and levels of computer knowledge in a classroom. For a student who doesn't know English, for example, this can be even more challenging than a "regular" classroom experience.

The ability of being able to acomplish this is difficult in this area due to the wide-range if the abilities of students just in computer knowledge. In one project I assigned last year that took additional two days because I had to teach the students how to make a power point presentation. Something they should of already known how to do. Those student that still don't have internent at home were at a disadvantage.

I think technology allows students to really effectively interact with each other to create a project. I have my students make and edit videos in iMovie. I have never had such a collaborative and high quality product that we can view and evaluate as a class.

The ability to create and edit a project on-line gives the students a chance to work togeather without having to be in the same room.

Knowing how to evaluate materials and make sure that they are enhancing learning and not just providing "busy work" makes the lesson respectable and meaningful to our students.

Evaluations and feedback are essential for effective design and delivery of a course. Upon completion of every course I teach a survey is made available for participants to complete (the return is around 80%). Questions presented to the participants are related to the course content, materials, connections to the curriculum and state standards as well as instructors knowledge, organization, support and availability. The information received from the survey will often times result in making some modifications within different unit/modules along with changes in the amount of time spent on a specific topic area. A pre-assessment (survey) is also sent to participants ahead of class to gather information on internet access, technology skills, knowledge of content, grade level and curriculum area. There survey includes an open ended question for other concerns. This has been helpful in gauging the amount of time needed for instruction along with customization towards curricular areas.

Knowledge of the content for instruction is significant. Participants for a course rely upon each of us as experts and look for us to provide the highest level of training possible. The worst impression one can present is the inabilitiy to respond accurately to a question or fumble through the content being delivered. We need to be continuously on alert and checking for changes or updates. I will often spend the night or morning before a class checking websites and links to make sure something hasn't been changed or removed.

Technology can be overwhelming to our students and if we are asking them to utilize specific tools we need to be available to provide support as needed. There are a number of databases that are utilized in my courses and teachers sometimes find it difficult to set up teacher accounts, create folders and save content to specific folders. I have already seen the value of creating a short video to walk-through the steps, instead of a phone call or face-to-face meeting. The short video used to demonstrate highlighting and annotations has spark the idea of creating video to set up teacher accounts among other items for certain databases used in my course.

Kathleen, I agree with you that technology can be overwhelming to students…adult or school age….maybe more for adults.  Right now I am teaching the Para Certification class to 42 adults, and I am amazed that some people do not know how to do the basic functions on the computer. But, I am determined that everyone will be successful.  Being new to online learning, I can identify, though, with the feelings of inadequacy or panic that my adult students have felt. When taking Ollie: Introduction, I was so appreciative of Mary's patience and help with technology.  Now Evan is assisting.  The video clips are very helpful.  A participant can see, hear, and then do which is multisensory.

I agree that video clips can be very helpful. My experience in trying to talk my mother through navigating her new iPad over the telephone reminds me of how futile and frustrating for all this can be. Providing a video and screenshots can be extremely helpful in helping to guide people in using technology that is new to them.

I appreciate the flexibility of the feedback and timely grading- when the assignment is done. This has been very helpful in trying to balance a career, household, and extracurricular schedules.

Timely and constructive feedback to enhance learning has been well documented in educational research for face-to-face instruction. I am finding as a student taking part in online learning, it is critical for me to have feedback to enhance my learning.  It is not about the grade.  I want to learn.   I want to know that I am understanding what is being taught and I can apply that learning. 

I think this is really interesting becuase I never really thought about how necessary it is to have a basic understanding of web design when one is an online instuctor. I guess it makes sense becuase you have to figure out ways to visually represent content to your audience. It seems as though the best online instuctors wouldn't necessarily be those with the best understanding of threir content, but rather the best understanding of how to communicate that content in an effective, visual manner.

I think this is a really important expereince for an online teacher to have, and maybe one that is taken for granted. Online teacher need to have the experence of what it is like to be an online learner to understand what works in online instruction and what doesn't.

Test post

At this point in my online learning, as a student going through this class it is very apparent what the differences are between online teaching and face to face. I think that each instructor should be required to take an online class such as this to help guide them in how to be a more effective and helpful instructor.

This has been true for centuries, yet our schools still function with the thought that things must be learned in the classroom. That thought is starting to shift and progress has been made, but we still have a long way to go to change some mindsets.

I love getting updates from friends teaching through outdoor classrooms or non traditional settings.  They always share the successes but also acknowledge any difficulties.  Trouble shooting is key for those making shifts to PLEs.

These are critical steps! We can't just assume students know how to do it. We have to teach them the skills either at first or as you go along. Throwing students into the situation is setting them up for potential failure.

Agreed Kim! I also made a comment earlier about student motivation factoring into this too

I use symbaloo for my library resources. I am able to embed it on my library page. What I like is that it gives the students the direct link to many of the resources without them having to hunt for them. There are times that I want them to do that, but sometimes it just needs to be quick and Symbaloo works well for that.

I like the links readily available for a teacher's specific unit. Symbaloo helps students stay connected to assignments and increases efficiency of finding information.

I really like this idea. I have never really explored Symbaloo enough or thoroughly enough to use it with students. I would like to explore that possibility more as part of my personal learning plan

I thought that was an interesting idea also.  We've discussed Symbaloo for years but I hadn't considered students creating their own.

I like the clean look of it. People get easily lost in many online sites. Symbaloo forces you to find the key sites. This can really force you to find the best of the best.

This is definitely a concept that we need to teach our students. Cooperative/group learning was something that I did not like growing up as I was usually the one most responsible in the group and ended up doing most of the work. We need to teach all of our students how this concept works so that it can be successful for all.

Very true for this to be successful.  I think a step before that is to do an in-depth training for staff.  So many times new methods and teaching tools are dumped in our laps without training, supports, or guidance.  PLEs could have lasting, powerful effects on students so I'd make sure it's all staff not just teachers to benefit from training.

Our teacher librarian uses Symbaloo to organize the library resources like databases, the library link, etc. It's a nice visual.

I saw this being used with Freshman- this was a way for them to organize their resources for a research paper.

I was doing some research on Symbaloo EDU and it looks like they have created something called Learning Paths- https://www.symbalooedu.com/learning-paths/ This would be a way for students to move through learning at their own pace.

I like how easy it is to share web mixes with others. You could use Google Classroom to share different symbaloo's with different sets of students.

This is true of teaching in general, especially when they are doing PLE!

This reminds me of the first grade blogs, I used to have my students do years ago. They loved the feedback from their parents and grandparents.

What would be the best social media platform to use for lower elementary students?

I love Symbaloo and the fact that it is user friendly enough for first graders to use!

In the facilitation course, I learned that collaboration is essential to learning, so this standard is a high priority

Collaborative group work is very important in online courses. I may not be one that looks for this in a course that I take (I am often an independent learner), however the value of that interaction and possibly the challenges to an individual's thinking is important (especially for adult learners) to really grow and learn.

I believe collaborative learning should be done to a certain extent. I have had more students within the last couple of years opt for independent learning. I think they are tired of relying on others for their potential grade. So, how does this equate to online learning?

Interesting statements, I teach science classes and collaboration falls easily into my curriculum; however, I feel like students either rely completely on their partner to be successful or the higher achieving partner gets tired of being the one to earn the grade too as mentioned above. I struggle with collaboration always being the answer. Competition is good too - its what got us to the moon.

I like this idea and work to do this in my current classroom. I feel it may be even easier to accomplish in an online class.

It's critical that we as instructors know how to use the technology and can help our students learn how to use it. That's foundational for learning content and interacting with others in the course.

With technology changing so rapidly, we as instructors must work continuously to stay on top of all the new content that is being created.

I want my courses to be vibrant vehicles for learning, and the design is integral to that.

After reading the article on access and equity I think this is very important as we design our courses to make sure we keep all students in mind.

I so agree with Amanda on this one, and I can't highlight the same one she does. (I wanted to test diigo to see if it would let me, and nope!) The teacher's commitment to the students and to creating a positive environment makes learning fun and engages students.