CED0550 week 6

This was our final week, just in time for the holidays.  As always there's things to walk away with.  One of the things in the class that a lot of people commented on was the amount of time teachers work.  My thoughts are that people went from the thought they don't work a lot of hours to the complete other side of the spectrum that they work all the time.  I think it's in the middle, so for me, I'd say no more or less than a traditional classroom teacher. However, their work day would look different than mine.  They also need to be prepared ahead of time.  Based on how I currently do my job no differences other than the medium in which I'd use to teach.  I work A LOT of hours, 7 days a week for my students - no difference.  I check voicemails and emails all day - no different.  I spend a lot of time preparing, realizing it could change in a flash - no different.  Don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of differences, but I feel like many people picked up one person's 14 hour day and have used that as the platform for all online teachers.  Online teaching still intriques me.

In preparation for the facilitation part, Amy and I spent over 2 hours playing and learning Elluminate.  We've used it before, but ours is different - not nearly as many buttons, controls, to use.  We took part of a class earlier on to do this, but I think a good assignment would be really explore it.  We discovered a lot of features we didn't use or really didn't get the full extent of until we took some real time.  This gave us ideas of what we might include if we were online teachers.

This week I had to do my synchronous and asynchronous presentation.  While I feel both went okay, I personally was a little disappointed in my cohort.  There's a reality of online teaching.  Being with this cohort for 1 1/2 years now I know how they interact when they are online.  That did not happen this week for any presenters other than Chris.  Here's what my gut tells me, many of them signed on and walked away from their computers until it was almost time to sign out.  Why do I feel this?  Because many of the people who normally don't contribute, didn't, not even when their names were mentioned.  Also, in group work before I have heard people make comments that they have done it before, especially on nights of presentations.  Disappointing really.  Out of respect for my cohorts I made sure I was an active participant during their presentations and ALL of their discussion threads.  Why did they respond in Chris' then?  Because it was the last one and the class ran past 9:00.  They were all back at the computers to sign out.  Ok so now why does all of this matter?  Well, most importantly it's very difficult to "facilitate" a discussion when very few are listening and/or contributing.  How could this be handled as an online teacher?  By calling on students that haven't contributed anything - chats or writing on the whiteboard.  Give them a short amount of time to get the mic or type and if nothing, you'd take away points for the class and in this case I'd take points away from their presentations.  After class I'd conference with them to find out what was going on and restate the expectations.  I've been taught and teach my students that part of their scores for their presentations include being a good audience and participant for others.  In spite of lack of contribution, I think that all of the presenters did a great job.  Just like everything else I've done this was a good learning experience.    

CED0550 week 5

Again this week classmates facilitated their discussions.  Due to time we were split into 2 breakout groups. Those that I was part of did a great job, as am I sure the others did too.  This coming week will be my turn. As for the work, we had to look at a list of the top 100 Internet tools.  The list was very interesting, because if someone had asked me about those tools two years ago I would have had a completely different response.  Today I can say that most of the tools on the list I have either discovered on my own or through this cohort.  Now ask if I'm proficient?  No, but that will come in time.  I've been taking notes, bookmarking, and taking copies of our syllabus for future reference.  The one I choose to look at was Wordle.  What a fun site.  I can see students having fun with this site and the possibilities for usage are limitless.  Students could use it for descriptive writings, book reports, geography and science assignments, listing activities, ice breakers, etc.  I also explored Jing due to a conversation I had.  Jing looks very interesting.  I like the idea of adding animation.  I will definitely being looking further into that one.

Our other assignment the big one was two collaborative projects.  The irony of the project was benefits and challenges of collaborate learning.  Well, the challenges definitely played out since 2 of the group members chose not to contribute until all the work had been done and submitted.  Personally I like working collaboratively and find myself doing it a lot, including individual assignments and lesson ideas.  I like having someone to bounce ideas off of.  However, the challenges are when people don't contribute or make any effort to.  Should I be the bigger person and not worry about it?  Yes, but I too have a life that's been put on hold in an effort to get all my coursework and schoolwork done.  Oh well moving on. When collaborative learning is at it's best I think great things happen.  My group created a Prezi for our What is Online Learning presentation.  Prezis are a fun way to present material instead of always using a presentation program, ie. PowerPoint or Google presentation.  

This is the final week of this course - hard to believe.  I've learned a lot as always and like the possibilities that this course may allow me to explore, even within my own school district.  

CED0550 week 4

This week our classmates began their online lessons.  Everyone did a nice job, but wow the amount of follow up work in addition to the other work, is insane.  I'm learning alot, but holy cow.  Can you say overwhelmed?  The lesson that stuck out the most for me was Mike's at-risk.  Not because it was better, but just the topic.  It was interesting to hear about other people's ideas about their district's "at-risk" population.

This week's focus was on making student centered lessons.  I felt I almost had to work backwards.  Overall my lessons tend to be student centered.  I think it's because of the population I'm working with and their curriculum.  My classes work at a slower pace than their peers, due to repetition and to help increase retention.  I also spend a lot of time incorporating technology, computers - software programs and the Internet, SmartBoard, iPods, Senteos, etc. into their lessons.  This takes time, but increases motivation and retention.  I feel the same can be true about online learning.  However, online teachers can also fall victim to same ol' same ol' just like traditional teachers.  Online learning doesn't automatically make it student centered, the teacher too needs to make it happen.  Even in this cohort I've sat through courses where it's very much teacher centered.  At times you wonder are your cohorts even tuned in or has someone else just signed them in.  That too can be the case with online learning.  Any good teacher, whether online or in the classroom, needs to be prepared and engaging.  They need to be constantly adding, removing, and changing their lessons.

CED0550 week 3

This week part of our assignments were preparing to facilitate a synchronous and asychronous lesson.  This is something we have not encountered yet in this program, so it's exciting and nerve wracking.  Right now I'm struggling with what's the best way to present and use the tools for my topic.  We have been given 15 minutes.  I'm nervous about it, but excited.  I'm seriously thinking about online teaching in the future, so this is a really good opportunity.  Lesson planning is very similar, but technical issues need to be factored in more so than in the classroom.  In the past I've thought of online programs, less for special needs students.  As I continue to learn and grow in this course I'm learning that's not the case, which is good.