Week 6 of CED 550

This weeks module was about online courses and the shift towards 21st century skills, my school districts current online course involvement, and the Virtual Schools Legislation in Wisconsin.

During the module I was excited to watch the Learning to Change/Changing to Learn video and the Shift Happens video. Videos like these always provide me with the inspiration I need to continue moving forward with the changes that I am trying to make within my own classroom. My favorite part of the learning to change/changing to learn video was the quote at the end. "This is a very exciting time for learning. It's the death of education but it's the dawn of learning, and that makes me very happy". This is a reflection of how we need to change and how this change is positive for our students.

We needed to complete a Scavenger Hunt to determine our districts involvement in online learning. I felt like my district is positively working towards the changes that we need to shift towards 21st century learning. This is a very slow process but I am glad that I am actively involved with this change and I am excited to pilot a flipped classroom next year.

My flipped classroom model will provide my students with an opportunity to gain 21st century skills by fostering their ability to connect, create, and collaborate in an online environment. The students will be utilizing Moodle as their main Learning Management System. This online environment will be a place to watch/read lectures, take assessments, collaborate on discussion boards, complete lab simulations, and share information. I hope to utilize in class time for collaboration on labs and homework. The pacing of the course will be determined by the student. This is a more student centered approach that will hopefully benefit my students and help them develop the necessary skills to become life long learners.

The last assessment that I completed this week was a review of the Virtual Schools Legislation in Wisconsin. It was interesting to read the concerns about virtual charter schools. I have not previously considered the financial concerns that are connected with this trend. I now understand the Virtual Schools Legislation in Wisconsin and am concerned about the lack of focus on the benefits for students. It appears that most people are concerned with districts losing money to virtual schools instead of how a virtual school may benefit the student. Another concern is that outsiders may view virtual schools as a money making opportunity since they typically have lower costs of operation. My hope is that we get all of the political and financial aspects worked out so that we can focus on the most important issue, the students.

Week 5 of CED 550 - Collaborative

This week we listened to more presentations from our classmates. The focus of our asynchronous class was collaboration.

My experience with online communities has been positive. I have primarily experienced these communities through my grad work and I believe that this makes a difference. The communities that I have been a part of have consisted of people that are invested in what they do. They are interested in the topics and care about the group. This is what makes our group successful and my experiences positive.

I believe the biggest benefit of collaborative groups is the chance to hear others' opinions. It is always great to hear different perspectives about a topic. Collaboration has allowed me to gain a more robust understanding of a variety of topics because I have been able to learn from others.

I believe the greatest challenge of collaboration is finding the time to work together. Even though the web 2.0 tools have drastically changed the way that we collaborate, the reality is that we still need to sit down and make a conscience effort to communicate with others. Resources such as google docs allow us to collaborate asynchronously, but we still need to take that step. The hardest part about collaboration is that your group is as weak as your weakest group member. If someone does not share, the group falters.

My biggest concern regarding social development and socialization is that individuals who thrive in an online environment may not be able to communicate their thoughts when they are face-face in a large group. I find that it is easier to text, email, and post my thoughts than it is to vocalize these same ideas when I am in a large group. If an individual chooses to only share his/her thoughts through technology, he/she may not be able to communicate outside the online world. This would be a major disservice to our students.

Week 4 of CED 550

The focus on this week was student-centered online learning, differentiation, authentic assessments, and rubrics. We needed to create a Student Centered Lesson with Differentiation, Authentic Assessment, and a Rubric. I chose to create a lesson on Charles' Law using online lab simulations.

As a science teacher, I believe that students need to experience the content that we are discussing. Labs are an important piece of the learning process. While working on this module I was glad that I had success finding a lab replacement. The online lab simulation was a good replacement and it allows the students to kinesthetically explore the concepts.

This week in class was also my chance to facilitate both a synchronous and asynchronous discussion on blended learning. Here is the 15 minute presentation that I gave on Blended Learning. Here is the topic for my asynchronous discussion. I felt like both the synchronous and asynchronous discussions went well. I was glad that I chose to incorporate a video into the discussion and it seemed liked the topic was well received by my colleagues.

I think I could have improved my synchronous lesson by utilizing a reporter instead of having all of the students write on the whiteboard at once. I found this to be overwhelming and I do not think that the students were able to read all of the good comments that their colleagues posted. In the future, I would also like to use the poll features that Eluminate offers. It is a great way to get anonymous feedback from the students and it also provides great discussion points.

CED 550 - Week 3

This week we prepared to lead a 15 minute discussion on a topic of our choice in one of the upcoming lectures. We also need to prepare an asynchronous discussion thread that corresponds to our topic. The topic that I chose was blended learning. I choose my particular discussion topic because I am interested in flipping my classroom within the next 3 years.

One of the greatest challenge that I am anticipating as an online teacher/facilitator is keeping tabs on all student activity. I will need to carefully monitor the chat window, emoticons, hand raising, technical issues, and whiteboard. I hope to manage this challenge by providing clear directions for student activity and allowing them to control the flow of the lesson. I plan on regulating student conversation by requiring students to raise their hands when they want to talk. I may even utilize the mic restrictions that eluminate offers. I also hope to keep the students engaged. I plan on having all the students use the whiteboard to complete a graphic organizer. While the students are completing this task, I will be able to monitor the chat window, emoticons, hand raising, and technical issues.

As I prepared for my synchronous and asynchronous lesson, I realized that planning a lesson for an online learning environment is very similar to planing a lesson for a regular classroom. Preparation is the main focus of all good lessons (in class or online). I really needed to take the time to research my topic and think about the best way to present my material. I needed to consider my audience and determine the best possible way to keep them engaged. This is a similar check off that I use when preparing any lesson.

We also needed to create rubrics to evaluate the synchronous and asynchronous discussions. My focus for creating these rubrics was to keep it simplistic and easy to evaluate. I wanted to have clearly defined ranges that would allow me to quickly and easily evaluate student participation. I wanted it to be as clear cut as possible.

That is my plan for my synchronous and asynchronous lesson. Check my lesson and my discussion topic. Feel free to give any feedback.

CED 550 - Week 2

This post will discuss a list of statements/questions that we are supposed to be able to answer after this weeks class. I wrote my response below each question.

Identify at least two synchronous and two asynchronous online learning tools that would be appropriate for your targeted online learners.

• Two synchronous online learning tools that I could use with my students are Eluminate live! and Google + Hangouts with the interactive shared whiteboard.
• Two asynchronous online learning tools that I could use are my moodle page or my edmodo page.

List four different types of activities that you might use with your targeted online learners and identify an appropriate online tool to use in implementing that activity.

• Student discussions about Labs - I would facilitate this through the forums activity that moodle provides
• Screencast homework tutorials - I would use screener or Eluminate live! to have the students demonstrate how to do the homework. I chose these two options because they are web based and don't require any software installation.
• Blogs - I would have the students use the wiki feature in moodle because it is protected
• Lab Simulations - I would use http://phet.colorado.edu to complete online lab simulations that demonstrate concepts discussed in class

Is my initial contact warm and inviting? Are there things I did particularly well or could do better in the future? Is my initial contact clear and concise and yet user friendly? What are some strategies that help to format your contacts to make them as clear and concise as possible?

• Here is my initial contact to students about our online course. Read it and let me know if I have satisfied the questions above.

CED 550 - Week 1

This is the first week of CED 550 - Facilitating Online Learning. This course is designed to develop the skills of an effective online instructor. This week we focused on the similarities and differences of online learning, the strengths and weakness of online learning, and how to use Eluminate (a synchronous online learning environment). The main focus of this week's blog is how I can relate the examples of online learning to my own experience.

I have taken a quite a few online course prior to this one. This course is unique because it allows me learn about the skills and the process of creating an online learning environment. I find this to be of great value because I am interested in creating a blended learning environment within my own classroom. One thing that I enjoyed was having the moderator controls in eluminate during class this week. Eluminate is a great way to meet with a group of students and interact in a synchronous online learning environment. Moderators can truly control and guide a productive lesson in an online environment. This is something that I hope to utilize more as I explore the option of a blended learning environment.

I also looked at interactive online science lessons from the online learning gallery. The specific lessons were not as useful as I hoped because they did not relate to my subject area or age level. I did however find them to reinforce the benefits of interactive online learning. This is a great way to test student comprehension of content. Whether it is a quiz, memory game, or labeling activity; all of these activities allow the student to apply their knowledge and receive feedback. I have used interactive simulations from http://phet.colorado.edu/ within my classroom. These have been a great online lab alternative. I hope to continue to explore and discover more simulations and webquests so that I can incorporate them into the online learning aspect of my class.

CED 535 - Week 6: How I plan to flip my Classroom.

This week we needed to answer the following question: What item do you believe you can incorporate from this class into your professional or personal life and how will you ensure that you achieve the goal of incorporating it? If you can discuss it in terms of being a SMART goal for incorporating.

• S Specific - What exactly will you do?
• M Measurable - How will you be able to prove it was done?
• A Attainable - Will you have the resources and time, what might you have to do to make it occur?
• R Realistic - Make sure it is doable, you certainly can add something to a lesson plan or work item, you cannot get to the moon.
• T Timely - Assign a timeline - when will this be done by?

Goal: The concept that I chose to incorporate into my classroom is, screencasting/podcasting. This is something that I envision both myself and my students participating in.

I hope to do more screencasting of my classroom content. This year I specifically want to focus on skills that are not easily translated from the notes (determining significant figures, electron configurations, using Lewis dot structures for ionic/covalent bonding, nomenclature, graph analysis, and math problems). I plan on making the instructional videos accessible on our moodle site so that students can view them at later time if they need assistance.

I also plan on having the students create videos to demonstrate the labs that we are doing in class. The students can then upload the videos to our moodle site and the class can comment about what they learned. This is also a great way to demonstrate the labs for students that wree absent.

My long term goal is to make all of my classroom content available through online resources and screencasting. The students would be able to access these resources and instructional video lessons online so that they can learn the content outside of the classroom. This would allow me to dedicate in class time towards labs, projects, collaborative learning, and individual assistance. Essentially I hope to flip my classroom.

Measuring my Progress: Right now I am focusing on the first part of my goal. This year I hope to create at least one video lesson for each of my chemistry units. I also hope to have the students create at least one lab video for each of the units. This means that the students and I would need to create 9 video each (18 total videos). I believe that this is a realistic goal for this year and I hope to begin working on this during second semester.

As for my long term goal, I hope to continue to work on this process each year. I hope to continue to add more videos each time I go through a course. I hope to have my classroom completely flipped by the beginning of the 2014 school year.

This class has provided me with a lot of useful resources and the motivation that I needed to start making changes within my classroom. I now have a clear goal and timeline for the changes that I want to make. I believe that this process will help make my students become better thinkers and learners. It allows them to move through the course at their own pace and requires them to be aware of their academic needs and behaviors. This is a supportive system that helps individualize learning for each student.

Wish me luck!