Thoughts about New Teachers

Recently I have had the honor of supervising teacher candidates (student teachers) for Grand Canyon University. Being in the classroom again, even briefly, floods my mind with memories of the most difficult and challenging job there is.....teaching kids!

As I provided resources for these new teachers and collaborated on their evaluations, I realized anew the enormous responsibity that a teacher has. EVERY student must be valued the same and formative assessments must show progress for each child. I am privileged to assist these new teachers and rise up to my responsibility to inspire and motivate them to work with young people and administrators and other teachers on a daily basis.

Touch Screen Natives

It occurred to me that the Digital Natives generation is now replaced by the "Touch Screen" Generation. I witnessed a two year old using a touch screen - making the screen graphics bigger, then smaller.  This generation will grow up not having to right click and find the "zoom" to increase or decrease percentage size.  The Touch Screen Generation will not have a need for cameras - photos taken by their hand held devices will get better and better quality.  Email may even become a thing of the past as short 140 character posts in Twitter will replace long text.  Library books?  Who knows - for awhile parents will read traditional books to their kids, but in the long term, the touch screen on the e-reader will take over.

Personal Learning Networks

Working on your personal learning network can take up a lot of your time during the day. You feel like you are getting caught up on your tweeting and blogging, then you realize that the technology and/or the social network sites have changed and opps, you've gotten somewhere, but you are behind...again! At work I waited and waited and waited to get administrative rights on my laptop and desktop. After four years I can download a tweet deck by myself! Sorry, I am complaining, but what a relief that I will be able to use twitter during conferences and workshops now. I can use the "back channel" feature and hashtag everything. Sometimes educational institutions hold up learning by controlling the networks and computers way too much. I'm ready to celebrate this one - the ability to download from the Internet onto my laptop! Sometimes simple breakthroughs make me happy.

Where did the summer go?

Wow! When I look at my last blogpost I wonder where the summer went. Last I knew I was at ISTE in Denver - hobnobbing with Second Life avatars and docents and experimenting with project based learning. Now I'm back at work, reworking our resources webpage (http://medianet.caboces.org) and trying to pick up wifi networks with an ipad.

The future of education is a wonderment to me. Our country is in such a financial dilemma - people are laid off, school districts aren't hiring new positions and our schools are definitely practicing atrition when it comes to anyone leaving or retiring. At this point federal and state funds are being distributed almost routinely, but that will end by next year. Or, so I am told by keynote speakers at our respective curriculum camps and opening day ceremonies.

Schools need to find ways to minimize costs. Some services should, perhaps, be privitized. Services need to be paid for collectively and regions, as well as districts, need to merge.

So far it's business as usual for me and my department. Fortunately, in this rural area, the districts still purchase our CoSers (cooperative services). We provide hardy, beefy, media and distance learning services, so it is to the district's advantage to participate in our services. There is a huge push for streaming media. Districts can make money, also, by hosting distance learning classes. I feel sorry for the districts that don't have the availability of these resources.

Reflections of ISTE 2010, Denver

It was great to attend the conference and to connect with other educators attending for the same reasons - to learn, to connect, to re-connect. It was especially fun to meet the real person behind the avatar in the second life / virtual world forums. (Although, it was a little embarrassing to meet the ISTE docent from ISTE Island who had to help me detach my flailing purse in Second Life two weeks ago.)
My feeling is that the "avatar" learning for K-12 is in its infancy. It will grow slowly, and then perhaps boom. I want to be ready with a virtual environment to offer students and teachers. Second Life-type environments (Reaction Grid, Active Worlds, Second Life Teen Grid) are available; some are more costly than others. Some teachers will use this simulation area while others refuse it. Let's be ready in our Distance Learning departments to meet the challenge.

Brick and Mortar vs Online

I saw a YouTube video that was really thought-provoking. It was about the large lecture-style auditorium as a college classroom. I remember dropping my first college class that was hosted in an auditorium so big that it must have held 75 students. That class did not fit my learning style. Today, online learning is best for me. Taking classes online enabled me to follow the syllabus, look ahead, and see the online rubrics. I always had a good understanding of the class expectations and could refer back to them at any time. The online schedule was helpful for keeping me on track. The scoring rubrics helped me get an "A" in every class. The rubrics served as a checklist for my work. When will more educators realize that students today will not respond to that style of teaching?

Virtual Environments

I'm looking forward to attending a special interest group webinar at the ISTE Island tonight.  My avatar is dressed in rockstar wardrobe and ready to go!  The series of webinars are held in Second Life for visitors that are attending the ISTE convention in Denver next month.  I'll finish this post later....

The virtual webinar in the ISTE "auditorium" was interesting.  My thoughts are this...There is not a lot of usage of virtual grids for high school classrooms yet.  Remember when not too many people had an email address?  Is there going to be a sudden boom, an explosion, of virtual, second life-type classes?  If nothing else, today's educator needs to be prepared, have created an avatar, and have "tried out second life", so to speak. 

My Second Life experience has been thrilling, to say the least.  I can't wait to attend another ISTE virtual forum tonight - one for media specialists like myself.  Knowing how I feel about going into Second Life makes me realize how powerful a tool this virtual environment can be for students.  I'm not even a digital native and I can't wait to go into the grid.  Just think how motivated a student will be to study in a second life environment.  Safe, secure virtual environments are needed.

Study Island Regents

It's Regents Prep time in New York State.  Yesterday I trained seven teachers on the use of Study Island as an online assessment preparation program to prepare high school students for the end of the year Regents exams.  The questions that teachers have never cease to amaze me.  They always come up with something new to try and stump me.  Fortunately, there is live support at Study Island and I can use that chat messaging system right while I'm teaching.  I know the Study Island website very well, however, it is created by such a progressive company that the website and program is constantly changing.....improving, enhancing, adding.
Questions that the teachers had surrounded accumulative scoring for students, use of data to inform instruction, use of the new, live view, and creating classes and assignments in general.

I have made note of the teacher questions and will email each, inviting them to meet me, separately, in an Adobe room for follow-up, individual assistance. My greatest frustration in teaching in the districts occurs when there is not enough time allocated.  The curriculum directors set the time...and 45 minutes is not enough time to prepare a teacher to use Study Island or any other web program. By the time the teachers get logged in (and there are always problems with that - or they haven't been issued a username and password) there is very little time to do the program justice.  Note to myself: remember not to trust the district leaders to send out the usernames and passwords to the teachers prior to the training.  Find a way to have my digital team do it so the teachers will be ready on the day of the training.

Mobile Device War

This link to Rob DeLorenzo's Education and Mobile Devices Blog shares light on an interesting theme....Apple vs Microsoft vs Google.  I tend to agree that small, hand-held devices will rule in the future.  The Ipad is just a preview to how desktop computers will be obsolete.  I want to buy an Ipad but will wait until a laptop "device" can do more and download other types of apps, not just Apple apps.  I want a device, the size of an Ipad, that will do more across the board, not just limited to Apple products.  Thanks to Don for the link!

Using Twitter for CoSer 501

During the Tech Coordinators and Integrators Forum for Cattaraugus Allegany BOCES I saw Mark typing from time to time.  Today I see that he was tweeting the information about the agenda and good info from the meeting  - sending out the links to pertinent educational websites, etc.  After talking with Mark, Don, and others, I am thinking about establishing a twitter site for CoSer 501 - the media CoSer.  Currently we post announcements of new resources for teachers on our webpage.  Why not tweet the news....some of our tech coordinators, curriculum directors, principals, etc., will get it?  Just a thought - if businesses can do it, I guess a school can also.

ISTE 2010 Denver

My colleagues and I are getting ready to attend the ISTE 2010 (International Society for Technology in Education) in Denver, CO.  The special events and workshops look great this year.  I am signed up for:

• To Catch a Thief for 21st-Century Learners: Teaching Digitally
• Collaborative Web Tools
• Engage, Enrich, and Enhance Professional Development with Online Learning
• On-the-Fly Virtual Lessons
• Anywhere Computing: Enabling Scalable 1-to-1 with Open Source

We will also be attending a breakfast for Media Specialists.  David Warlick will be present.  I have heard him speak once before (at NECC 2007, National Educational Computing Conference, now called ISTE).  He is a terrific speaker.  His thoughts on literacy.... that we are more than just about literacy, we need to live and learn literacy; make literacy a habit....are very compelling and certainly pertinent to our work here at Learning Resources.

The hotels for the conference filled up fast and we ended up with lodging that is 80 blocks from the conference center.  Fortunately there are shuttle buses between hotels...estimated time to reach the center: 20 minutes.  Somehow, I think it will take longer with other hotel stops and traffic.

Week 8 - Classroom Management: Special Issues

Until I read this chapter I really had not thought about problem students in an online class. It seems the instructor must be a psychology major, in addition, to detect odd personalities in an online situation.  Bullying, cheating, identity theft, controlling, and conniving, can all take place in this type of classroom situation. It is important that an instructor do some reading about the different types of personalities, as depicted in Chapter 11 of Online Teaching, and then be ready to inform the administration if a student is not acting normally. The instructor should be sure and save copies of all correspondence with any unusual student. An instructor can also possibly ward off problems with a personal and private email to the student, trying to lead him or her down a different path or get off a certain subject. However, bear in mind that anything typed into a discussion forum does not necessarily reflect the context in which the student meant the words. "Some instructors post their own classroom codes of conduct at the beginning of the class to help set boundaries for students." (Ko and Rossen, p. 229)

Week 8 - Classroom Management: General Considerations

When I think of classroom management I remember all the trouble I had teaching vocational 11th and 12th graders in person! My management skills were lacking. I hope that it is easier in the online environment.  Somehow setting rules for email, chat, rules for group participation and "non-rules" for attendance at a certain time seems silly in comparison to setting rules for language in class or permission to use the facility.
However, all kidding aside, the amount of paperwork and software management (here is a site that will offer software and billing capabilities for your course http://www.jackrabbitclass.com/home.cfm) that an online teacher faces is tremendous. Things like synchronous and asynchronous time can cause minor inconveniences. Advanced planning is of the utmost importance as well. Even keeping students on topic in a discussion area must be well- thought out.

Week 8 - Preparing Students for Online Learning

A good facilitator must "lead the way" for the online learner. You must assume that every student is brand new to online learning. They must be walked step-by-step through what is expected and most importantly, how to use the technology available and how to navigate the course. New students will be very uneasy the first couple of weeks. I remember how scared I was to take my first online course. And I had many technology skills already! Think of the learners that are "slow" with technology tools, or even keyboarding. Here is a link to Ball State University's orientation tips for online learners. It's great, short and sweet: http://www.bsu.edu/web/iandt/tutorial/orientation8.htm

Week 7 - Chapter 8 Copyright and Intellectual Property

So you have become a great online teacher!!!! Better protect all that work you did preparing a terrific course. You can try and protect YOUR property in some of the following ways: using password protected sites or course management systems, use software that allows you to protect your work from being copied, use Adobe Acrobat for some protection capabilities, use streaming video that can't be copied. Here is a site that we use where I work in a school district: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/scc/legislative/teachkit/.

Week 7 - Chapter 7 Creating Courseware

The actual design and homepage of the webpage is the most important tool for your online course. It can make or break you. A webpage must have a nice look to it with a simple background and lots of white space. You need consistency and repetition within a website. You also need contrast. Text should be mainly left-aligned (the normal way) and you shouldn't be forced to scroll forever to read things. Be reasonable with your choice of fonts and don't clutter a homepage with lots of links all over. Don't use too many graphics and too much multi-media. less is more. I loved going to http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/webhound/index.html to surf with the webhound for "the good, bad and bandwidth-hogging ugly". This link is a riot and gives you great examples of what not to do. The financial support of the institution you work for will also help determine how you create your site and how professional it may look.

Week 7 - Chapter 6 Student Activities

This chapter was of particular interest to me as I am planning to create a lesson plan about collaborative, group learning in the online environment. I don't have it all planned out yet, but this chapter in Ko's and Rossen's book, Teaching Online A Practical Guide has helped me start planning my lesson. Group work can be designed to be a lot or a little work for the participants, but it must be guided very specifically by the instructor. For example, the instructor must prepare the way by getting the class to introduce themselves early on. Then the instructor should choose the groups to work together (considering things like time zones and interests) and leave specific instructions and rubrics for the group to work together. (For rubrics see http://www.sjsu.edu or http://webquest.sdsu. ed u/rubrics )The instructor should make sure they are evaluated separately as well as evaluating the group work. Reflection of the group assignment is also important for the individual's learning process.

Week 6 - Chapter 4 Creating an Online Syllabus

If students are going to be successful in an online situation, it seems that the syllabus becomes the most important part of a course. Because of no face-to-face contact and because of asynchronous time, it is important that the learner can find all information he or she needs at the time when he or she wants to find it. The syllabus should be easy to find and then well-organized. The syllabus should include all information about the facilitator, a thorough description of the course, pre-requisites, and learning outcomes. From my personal experience, a week-by-week list of assignments and due dates is always preferred in a syllabus for me. A good syllabus should include all required textbooks, software and technology tools needed, as well as where to get them. If collaboration with peers is going to be needed, this should be listed in the syllabus. Students want to know if a student has a lot of interaction (between students and teachers or students and students) versus interactivity (between students and tools). (Interactive Course Design Rubric http://www.westga.edu/~distance/roblyer32.html) For pre-planning purposes, in particular I would want to know which week I had to allow my schedule to be influenced by the schedule of others. Grades seem to be universally important. I would want to know how the grades were figured as well as the total possible points for an "A", etc. I would want to know ahead of time if extra credit is given or if points were deducted for late assignments.

Week 6 Chapter 3 Course Development

Instructional Design for an online course must planned out in a similar way to a traditional-style class in that you need to outline the needs of your learners, your goals and objectives, assignments, readings or "lecture", assessment and grading rubric. This quotation is from Standards for Quality Online Courses ( http://standards.mivu.org/) : "Understanding our Instructional Design Standards we approach the process of designing and evaluating the Instructional Design of a course from a Performance Objective standpoint. In other words, online courses can be broken down into Units and Objectives." This shows the similarity in instructional design of both traditional and online classes. The difference will be in how you deliver the material and especially in the use of online learning tools. You simply cannot take the syllabus from a traditional class and type it into the web. Classroom tools will not necessarily translate to the online classroom. For example, when using a discussion tool or chat tool, the rules for discussion and chat must be layed out ahead of time for the students. As a facilitator, you cannot redirect conversation as easily in asynchronous conversation. Also, specific guidlines must be published so the students will have a greater understanding of what is expected. You must also narrow the topic or give guidlines on the topic so that precious time and space is not wasted on non-specifics to the assignment.

Week Four: Review of Instant Messaging

Article: Sotillo, S. M., Using Instant Messaging for Collaborative Learning: A Case Study, Innovate: Journal of Online Education, Feb/March 2006, Vol 2, Issue 3.

This article explores the use of the online tool of "instant messaging" for giving corrective feedback in teaching foreign languages. Advantages: 1.Corrective feedback through instant messaging can certainly enhance learning in a non-traditional way. 2. It can also encourage a sense of connectivity for students through informal collaboration. Disadvantages: 1. Students must be trained prior to the collaboration; must receive thorough training in the use of instant messaging. 2. Students must be trained how to save audio files, if that is required. 3. The process may breakdown, technologically speaking, and frustration with technology can negatively impact learning. 4. There may not be enough bandwidth for connecting to the Internet, causing more technological problems. 5. The scheduling of students to all use instant message at the same time could be a potential burden.