Josie talked about how new technology is always popping up. This echoed my thought exactly. New tech is popping up faster than we as teachers can explore. Josie talked of having time for staff to explore these resources. We simply just don't have the time to explore all that is out there. I know I have tried a lot of new things in my classroom. Some things stick and others don't. It is a cycle. She also talks about having quality training so that we can stay up to date with new advances in the tech field. PD for me has been a great source of learning out new technology. Sometimes it is the presenter and other times it is just by talking with other teachers that I walk away with a new idea for my classroom.
Dan talked about how trying something new is not always looked highly on by those from the outside. We are always told to try new things but if we do and that new thing fails we are blamed. This does not encourage people to try the new technology that is being developed. Also with trying new things there is always some extra instructional time that has to be given up to fully try the new thing. Learning that new thing though teaches a lot of skills that aren't assessed. It also gives students a chance to learn how to use technology that may be of benefit to them in the future. However, it is hard to convince some people of the benefits. This week I worked a lot to outline my class in canvas. However, I feel very far behind. I still need to come up with all of my assessments. I have the assessments ready for about the first 5 weeks out of the 17 I am planning to do. I have 18 weeks in a semester but want to only have 17 for a built in buffer week before grades are due. I think my first module is almost complete but that means I still have 8 to go.
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Essential Question: How can we manage the change that is inherent in our distance learning efforts?I feel like this week's question was timed perfectly to our change in president. We don't know what the future holds, but we have to be ready for it. I don't think it is very different from our practice in a face-to-face classroom. "But the question we want you to think about—as educators—when you read about technological breakthroughs like this is“so what?” What value if any, can this technology, and the others suggested in this chapter, add to distance education" (Moore & Kearsley 2011)? I was challenged to think about this in relation to science labs. I have used these in class but I have always been present to assist. This would not be the same for a distance class, but I still would need these tools to educate students. "Emerging technologies, online tactile feedback, audio/video and robotic technologies, and even digital scent technologies may provide students with new opportunities for developing hands-on skills that were once mastered in the face-to-face online science course" (Vandermolen 2016). Vandermolen suggests that these online laboratory tools are quickly gaining acceptance as valid alternatives to a face-to-face lab. Especially because you can mess up without fear. You don't have to worry about spilling or breaking something. Now eventually students interested in science need real practice this would be great for introductory courses. I believe online labs will continue to grow in popularity and will become even more realistic. Some examples to check out include:
An area of concern for distance education is the standards they are meeting. There are so many standards and these vary from place to place. If there were common standards, "every institution would save the cost of manufacturing their own, and—just as important—would have raw materials that were of a common standard" (Moore & Kearsley 2011). However with this does come globalization. Globalization can be good but also comes with its downfalls. "Globalization raises many issues. On the one hand it offers the possibility of more choice and so greater freedom and better resources for distance learners. When driven by commercialism there is danger of degradation of both curriculum and instructional programs" (Moore & Kearsley 2011). This is something to be cognizant of as education continues to change with new technology. With all of this in mind teachers also need to be trained on how to apply standards to online courses according to Quiroz, Ritter, Li, Newton, & Palkar (2016). They found that if educators aren't given professional assistance "the outcome is a course that still lacks alignment among assessments and learning objectives." They also found that educators need "support in understanding how to demonstrate the relationship between course activities and learning objectives as well as sharing the purpose of the learning materials and expected response time as it pertains to course." Quiroz, Ritter, Li, Newton, & Palkar use a program called quality matters and assess courses with a common rubric. I could not find the updated version but here is the 4th edition. I think this may be beneficial in guiding my own design of a course for this class. With so much change requires an educator to constantly look for good PD. "Current research and national guidelines recommend that professional development should be authentic, project-based, and standards-based" (Quiroz, Ritter, Li, Newton, & Palkar, 2016). We need to go in willing to try and make mistakes and learn from them. We have to realize that a major goal of distance education needs to involve digital literacy. "Digital literacy goes beyond basic reading and writing skills to encompass being able to input (i.e., type) information into a computer, phone, or other electronic device, and to be able to understand the output of such devices. This includes being able to navigate through screens, operate controls, troubleshoot problems (a big part of technology use), create and process information in multimedia formats, and search for and locate information" (Moore & Kearsley 2011). In an online course you are teaching so much more than just the content and this can be quite the challenge. Sources
Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2011). Distance education: A systems view of online learning [Kindle Edition]. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Quiroz, R. E., Ritter, N. L., Li, Y., Newton, R. C., & Palkar, T. (2016). Standards Based Design: Teaching K-12 Educators To Build Quality Online Courses. Journal of Online Learning Research. 2 (1), pp. 123-144. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Retrieved November 9, 2016, from http://www.learntechlib.org/c/JOLR Vandermolen, J. (2016, August 29). The Science Lab Makeover: 6 Resources to Consider for Your Online Science Lab - OLC. Retrieved November 10, 2016, from http://onlinelearningconsortium.org/science-lab-makeover-6-resources-consider-online-science-lab/ This week Dan, Theresa and I hosted class. I believe we collaborated very well. I was not able to get to the reading right away but was able to contribute once I had the time to complete the reading. I think we divided up the presentation well. Theresa got the google slides set up very fast which was great. Dan came up with some extra resources that were top notch. I helped with some of the tech components like setting up the pre assessment and downloading our slides to paste onto blackboard. There was a lot of info to cover this week and I am happy with the way our presentation went.
Teresa commented on my blog with an example from Grey's Anatomy. This weeks episode challenged the attendings to teach by allowing the residents to get hands on experience. Some of the older ones were not happy with this and did not trust the residents. I believe this is a great example for education as well. Students learn by getting the hands on practice. They need real world examples to connect this practice to. If students start solving real world problems through hands on practice, I fully believe achievement will soar. This is easier done in a face-to-face classroom so in teaching distance education I will have to be mindful of how to incorporate this. I read Teresa's blog and I loved how she talked about Brazil's program, PROFORMACAO. This program educated 30,000 teachers in rural areas. Teresa was wondering if Alaska could do the same. We need Alaska native teachers to educate the native population. The native teachers are few and far between and some of this problem may be due to the lack of technology and internet access. We need a better system. The students at my school really listen to the teachers that are from Toksook or have moved here as a family. Our Yup'ik teacher is an excellent example. The students really respect her and go to her for guidance. We need more of these teachers in our school, even if that means I would no longer have a job. Bridget talked about how China has undergone many changes in their distance education system. It is great to see so many distance education programs become open. This allows higher ed to be accessible by so many more students. However this has also led to an increase in cost. So many programs can only be accessed if you have the funds to pay for them. Hopefully the future will bring more changes that allow more students to access any program they desire. As far as designing my course I feel so far behind. I have literally had no free time and am not expecting much free time until after Thanksgiving unfortunately. Between taking 2 classes, helping our seniors fundraise almost every weekend, trying to fit in robotics, and teaching I am at a lack of time. The seniors are up to about $6,500 so hopefully we can slow down on fundraising. However, I am excited about my online class. It is something I have wanted to look at for a while but have not had the time. Essential Question: What lessons can we take from Global Distance Learning Efforts?I did not realize how far back distance education went. There have been a lot of advances in technology but some of the framework still remains the same. Moore & Kearsely (2011) discuss so many varying options for different countries. Some of the top that stuck out were that at UKOU the tuition is low ($7500 for a baccalaureate degree) and that there are not any prerequisites to get in. I believe education should be available to all who desire it. I think it is also beneficial to have programs that offer 4 year degrees that are fully online. I know that the Korean National Open University (KNOU) now has this capability. Some countries that have fantastic distance programs also have the support of their government. I think that countries that place a high priority on education are seeing bigger results. For example "Norway is also now among world leaders in a new innovation, the setting up of learning networks. The most prominent of these, founded in 2007, is a network called Studiesenteret that provides learning programs in 80 municipalities and seven university colleges." Norvig (2012) talks about a setup that allowed for success in his class. He tried for the 1 on 1 tutoring approach in their videos. This means that he filmed a video as if he were actually tutoring a student. He aimed for videos under 10 minutes an embedded questions. "Students learn best when they are actively practicing." These questions were open ended to provide more application outside of the learning modules. Finally he set due dates to keep students on track. These are easy practice to implement and ones that I plan to use. His audience was over 160,000 students with 20,000 completing the class. When education is global there can be some challenges. One of the top challenges is cultural misunderstandings. Shirvani, Scorza, Alkhathlan, & García (2011) found that in developing countries one is likely to find one or more of the following conditions:
There are so many ways to approach distance education and I don't believe there is one correct way. I think looking at all of these examples just makes me realize that it is important for students to find a program that works for them. Sources
Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2011). Distance education: A systems view of online learning [Kindle Edition]. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Norvig, Peter. [TED]. (2012 June 18) The 100,000-student classroom. [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYclUdcsdeo Shirvani, H., Scorza, J., Alkhathlan, K., & García, F. L. (2011, November 27). GLOBAL: The challenges of global online education. Retrieved November 04, 2016, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20111125211420618 Mariah and I both commented on the checklist from the University of Wisconsin. It is such a detailed and focused checklist that would be easy for anyone to follow. I work by lists and I think many teachers do so I would recommend this list to all instructors. Mariah also talked about how important interaction is. I believe this is very true. Interaction helps connect students and when they are connected they just tend to do better. If you know someone will comment back or ask you why you didn't do something you are more likely to do it. You don't want to let someone down. Now this isn't true for everyone, but I believe for the majority it is true. I think if I were to give one bit of advice to an instructor it would have to be interaction as well.
Bridget talked about how good questioning is key to bringing students in. She made a suggestion of asking students questions they know to build their confidence. I am in total agreement with this. This will help a student to build connection with the course and hopefully set them up for success. She also talked about how the instructor needs to know the content as well. In our district we use Gradpoint for students who don't fit into the schedule but need a particular class. Gradpoint is an online system of courses where a teacher at our school grades them. This is hard because there are so many classes and many times a teacher is just thrown in to be the instructor for the course. This instructor may not know the content and usually has no time to learn it. Our students tend to not do well in these courses. I think both the connection piece and that the instructor does not necessarily know the content are huge detriments to student success in these courses. Teresa commented on my blog about the hiring process. It happens every year that someone you talk with sounds really good but once they get started they quickly don't appear to be what you expected. This really made me think about what you could do as the course designer. I think stepping in an offering assistance or sending reminders to the instructors that you are available for help would be good start. Also emailing out suggestions or resources would be good too. Sometimes we get so bogged down with information to start we forget much of what was taught. I think as the instructor this would be good for documentation as well. If the instructor still does not change things I think that is where administration should step in. Most teachers want to do well and help students so your help would prevent the need for administrative assistance. Essential Question: What would you require of instructors who taught a course you designed? Why?Online education has grown so quickly and not enough training has been provided to online instructors. For many this has led to poorly developed and implemented classes. To avoid this there are some best practices that could help instructors. One resource I would direct an instructor to is a checklist ("Before the online course begins..." 2016). I personally love lists, and this would work really well to be sure an instructor is set up to run a class successfully. There are just so many tips and tricks and this list is a nice way to stay focused. Moore & Kearsley (2011) give a lot of tips in Chapter 6. Here are my favorite suggestions:
A good course has good communication and interactions. So in order to achieve this you need to plan for good discussions. Morrison (2012) gives the following suggestions for creating good discussions:
Sources
Before the online course begins . . . (2016, August 21). Retrieved October 28, 2016, from https://www2.uwstout.edu/content/profdev/teachingonline/before.html Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2011). Distance education: A systems view of online learning [Kindle Edition]. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Morrison, D. (2012, June 22). How to Get Students to Participate in Online Discussions. Retrieved October 27, 2016, from https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/how-to-get-students-to-participate-in-online-discussions/ Josie talked about the 3 phases: guiding, encouraging, and monitoring. I find these phases to be a vary could outline to any class whether online or face to face. First we need to make sure students are comfortable with the organization of the course, then we can work at encouraging them to dig deeper and learn more, finally we can monitor and see what students can do without as much support. This is a good reminder as I am creating the content for the class I am creating.
Dan talked about the need for students to be connected. I think many times this is missed becasue we are trying to create a course with the best content, and we forget to think about the people taking the course. The course is for them and we need to remember that above all else. We as educators get too wrapped up in standards and curriculum coverage. Unfortunately we have to get wrapped up because of our evaluations. However this does not mean that we cannot step back for a moment and consider the student as a whole. I will need to constantly keep this in my mind to create a worthwhile course for students. This week I encountered so many good tip on best online practices. So many ideas are running through my mind. I am first trying to create the course content for my class by creating a CK12 flexbook textbook. This is a very challenging task but I am finding it to be very encouraging. There is so much good material that I have missed out on and I need to to include it in my current classes. I am feeling a little better about creating this online course, but still feel there is an overwhelming amount of planning to do. Essential Question: How can we support students in being successful in our online course?"St. Pierre and Olsen (1991) found that the following factors contributed to student satisfaction in independent study courses: (1) the opportunity to apply knowledge, (2) prompt return of assignments, (3) conversations with the instructor, (4) relevant course content, and (5) a good study guide. Conversely, Hara and Kling (1999) reported the student frustrations in Web-based courses were caused by: (1) lack of prompt feedback from instructors, (2) ambiguous instructions for assignments, and (3) technical problems" (Moore & Kearsley 2011). I find these guidelines to be very true in my own experience. If things are clear and you get frustrated it is hard to get the help you need because you don't ever meet with anyone in person. I became curious about best practice for online educators as I read this week. Here are some of the best practices I found:
Overall, distance education can be very successful if implemented correctly. "One of the unique benefits of distance education is that it is able to provide access to education for many students who would not otherwise have the opportunity. This includes rural populations, disabled individuals, parents with children at home, and the elderly" (Moore & Kearsley 2011). For me distance education has been very beneficial. I am studying something I am interested in. I would not be able to pursue more education if it weren't for distance education until I moved closer to a university. Distance education has allowed me to stay at the same school while I further my education. Sources
Boettcher, J. V. (2013, May 20). Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online Quick Guide for New Online faculty. Retrieved October 19, 2016, from http://www.designingforlearning.info/services/writing/ecoach/tenbest.html Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2011). Distance education: A systems view of online learning [Kindle Edition]. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Sayre, J. (2014, January 08). Building a Successful In‐District Online Program | Edutopia. Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/building-in-district-online-program-jennifer-sayre This week Dan talked about running being like how we run our classrooms. Thinking about workouts you have a few different types of workouts that work different areas and then you rotate these workouts and vary them just a little. The same can be said in the classroom. You don't want to always use the technology to do the same thing over and over again. It would be really boring. My students are very good at letting me know when we have done the same activity too many times really close together. There is a happy medium of repeating things students are comfortable with while not adding too much.
Genevieve talked about how digital items have made things faster. I love digital resources in the classroom because for me it involves less stapling, hole punching, and printing of papers. Also students can't lose their work. They may not remember where to go for it but I never have to print a new copy. The only issue with digital is if they require internet. On occasion our internet goes down and more frequently the internet is too slow to do some of the activities I plan. This is problematic becasue I quickly have to go to plan B and there is no plan B usually set up. I am interested and a little worried about the final project. The task of designing a whole online course seems daunting. It is something that I have wanted to try with some of the current courses I teach that way students could work at their own pace and if students need a class that we aren't currently offering I could still facilitate it. It is hard on students when they have to take courses from other instructors. I can't always provide help because sometimes I am not sure what the student is supposed to do. Essential Question: What assistive or adaptive tools could be helpful as I create my online courses?I think this is a tough question. I might be able to answer it now but my answer will probably be quickly changed. Technology is constantly changing and we must continually be searching online for new technologies that may assist in out classroom. Moore & Kearsely (2011) make a good point that we don't need to know everything we just need to know enough "to be able to ask intelligent questions, make suggestions, know when something isn’t working as it should, and above all know the limits and the potential of each of the technologies." Below is a chart from Moore and Kearsley (2011) that I find to be extremely beneficial. I think I would want to reference this to be sure I am using the right technology to get the material to students. "Our challenge as educators is to be creative in deciding what is the best medium or mixture of media for a specific course or program, and what is the most appropriate technology for delivering it." (Moore & Kearsley 2011) In evaluating which technologies will be beneficial I will keep Bates (1990) principles as referenced in Moore & Kearsley (2011) in my mind. He uses the acronym ACTIONS to present these factors. I see so many benefits to the wide range of technologies available. The difficulty is finding what is useful due to the abundance of materials. You also have to figure out which works the best because there are so many of the same technology. You have to find the one that works best for you and the student. 21 Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs provided a great list of extensions to use. I found SpeakIt! (reads any website), Move It (gives you an exercise to do for each interval you set it for), and SentiSum: Smart Summarizer (summarizes the website) to be at the top of my list to try. I will probably use SpeakIt! first because many students I have shut down when they have to read a lot. This may prove to really help them. On 8 Helpful Assistive Technology Tools For Your Classroom I was reminded of closed captioning and subtitles. The article talked about using it with deaf students but I have found it to be equally as important with ELL students. They actually remind me to use it. I find that they are able to comprehend so much more when they can hear it and see it. There are so many things I want to try out. In creating my class I will have to be careful to not go overboard in trying out new things and I will also have to try to not only stick with one thing. It is will be a hard balancing act for sure. Sources
8 Helpful Assistive Technology Tools For Your Classroom. (2013, May 15). Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/technology/8-helpful-assistive-technology-tools-for-your-classroom/ Curts, E. (2016, October 08). 21 Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students and Special Needs. Retrieved October 14, 2016, from http://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/10/special-needs-extensions.html Moore, M. G., & Kearsley, G. (2011). Distance education: A systems view of online learning [Kindle Edition]. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. |
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