WebEx 5

This week's presenters: Paula, Meiya and Sarah, and I.

Paula:  Mindfulness can benefit us in every part of life.  The classroom is stressful for teacher and students.  Mindfulness reminds us that we must be centered and aware of what happens around us to truly benefit from it.  Keep cool in class and all benifit.

Meiya:  I now know more about the Chinese New year than ever.  What a rich tradition that is reflective of so many values in Chinese culture.  I was amazed at how many parallels their are to American New Year's celebrations.

Sarah:  A real way to stretch teaching time - yoga.  I love yoga and Sarah gave some great moves that are simple enough to do in class. 

Me:  I taught a lesson on writing Haiku.  It went well and was well received.  I liked how successful the pallet as a work desk was for motivating writing in students.  Teaching on line in a synchronous setting isn't as scary as I thought.

WebEx 4

This weeks presenters: Caitlin, Caitlyn, Jamie and Mike

Caitlin:  An in depth view at Class Dojo.  The presentation itself was well done. I don't like the program.  It takes all of the teaching out of behavioral management.  Too often I have to deal with middlw school age students who are looking for a reward for every little thing they do.

Cailyn: Fakebook is my new favorite way to do character study.  This a great way to get students to engage literature in a way they are comfortable with and to see how writing transcends the time it was written.

Jamie:  It is time to get moving in the classroom, literally.  I think it is so important to remember that active mind and body are connected.  We all know that taking a walk is a great way to get thoughts moving.  The same is true for students in any classroom.

Mike: Photography, a lesson on photography that felt like I should have paid for it. Mike presented in a very professional and accessible way.  I loved the camera setting simulator.

WebEx 3

This week presenters were Karrie Krystal and Kim.

Karrie:  I am now much ore aware of the fact the dangers of the internet exist in more than just email phishing scams.  The presentation was informative and we got to hear from fellow classmates about their internet scam mishaps.  I've had my own.

Krsytal:  A well done presentation on Turtle Diary.  I practice game site for k-5 students that allows teacher and parents to see the student's progress.  This is bellow my gade levels, but i liked the site design.

Kim:  We learned about Google extensions.  Awesome.  this brings a whole new level of usability to Google Chrome.  I am excited to get Ad Blocker onto all the computers in my school soon.

WebEx 2

This weeks presenters were Charita, Becca, and Joe.

Becca: Holy cow, what a presentation.  Super professional.  I love Nearpod, but you really showed how to make it work on every level.  Great use of time in having us create something and share it.

Charita:  A bold choice.  I never thought of letting students loose on pinterest.  The techniques you showed made it easy to see the educational uses.  This would fit in well with conectivist learning environments.

Joe:  Thank you.  So much of what is in useful youtube videos is distracting.  These are great resources for making online content even more classroom friendly.  Good pace of presentation.

WebEx 1

Tonight we got to see presentations from Julio, Joey and Cathrine.
Julio: Well, organized.  Nailed it like a pro.  Nothing felt booring or slow.  Newsela is a cooll rescource I didn't know about.  This would be great in a classroom for pulling in what matters in a student's personal view of the world.

Cathrine:  Way to go.  Your presentation was easy to follow and instructive.  I felt like I would have no problem using livebinder as a resource.  Great idea gathering questions to guide your lesson.

Joey: an excellent presentation on how to get organized using EduBlog.  What a great way to help parents feel involved with their student's learning and part of the learning community.  Great speaking voice.

The Moodles

Tonight we got to see the finished moodles.  I was impressed.  Everyone put a ton of heart and effort into their work.  I was really impressed with Joe's, knowing that he shifted his  topic midstream.  The various resources used were not redundant as one moodle used technology asset in a totally different way from other uses.  The content and the instruction were really at the forefront and the technology just seemed to melt into finished products.

Here Comes WebEx

The goal of this week was to get comfortable with WebEx in preparation for the online lessons we need to teach to the rest of the class.  We also looked at a lot of online sources for things like surveys and how to flip lessons. All were quite useful and inspirational.  We also talked about how to make sure a synchronous lesson is engaging and effective.

The Moodle has Landed

I finished my moodle.  It is amazing.  I think I put close to fifty hours into it total.  I learned more from this project than from any other portion of this class.  The use of Nearpod and Ted Ed have me sold me on delivering electronic instruction.  I am even seeing how this could lead to flipped lessons in the normal course of my teaching. I did things to create content for this project that have changed the way I think about student centered and student driven learning. I am especially excited that my school is considering turning my work into an online course offered to our students.

How to be Good at Distance Learning Instruction

What you need to know above all is that any type of distance learning instruction needs to be miles more engaging than live teaching in a classroom.  If the content and instruction are weak the learner will find ways to distract them in their given learning environment (do the dishes, surf the web, get another coffee). 

Distance learning comes in two flavors, Synchronous and Asynchronous. 

Synchronous instruction needs to be focused on learning of simple concepts and planning for projects and further learning opportunities.  Instruction during these types of learning situations can lead to excellent discussion as students are more psychologically activated for response to one another. 

On the other hand when students will be required to deeply contemplate or research a topic it should be left to asynchronously structured learning plans.  The difference in the styles is reflective of traditional classroom learning.  Discussion and instruction of skills are done during class and the heavy contemplative work is done by students at home.

If you want them to think go asynchronous.  If you want them to discuss or share go synchronous.

In other news I got to evaluate some classmates moodles and got feedback on my own.  I was impressed with what my peers did.  I saw some simple and effective ways for delivering content that did not distract from learning.  The feedback I got was helpful and inspirational to make the final push and make my course shine.

Online learning

Online learning is not a clack-and-go process for instructors. Many assume that online learning is done for convenience of the learner and to some extent it is. That tends to be the case when it comes to asynchronous instruction where work is largely turned in by a post and learning is done independently.  with the rise of widespread broadband connections it is becoming more an more popular for online learning to by synchronous and in real time.  The instructor and students are in active discourse during a meeting time but in separate locations.  The downfall of this being that students can easily go off do what they want while instruction is occurring.  The key to combating this is to have synchronous instruction that is engaging and requires active participation by the learners.

Connectivist Learning Environments

The week started off with making my first GIF file ever.  I always found GIFs impressive and mystifying, however they are much easier to create than I thought.  I made one for my moodle using pictures American civil rights movement leaders.

The reading for this week was incredible.   Connectivist learning environments are coming and in my opinion not fast enough.  I like any tool that aids in the effective dispersion of knowledge and skills to as many potential learners as possible.  The other thing about them that I like is the student driven aspect where the student is largely charged with their own learning.  My response to the reading is here.

Vocaroo. Who Knew?

Not me. Vocaroo is an amazing audio recorder that also stores a recording online and allows it to be

No need for solid gold recordings any longer.

posted or embedded anywhere. Also, its free.  I love this tool and will use it frequently in the future. It allows for auditory learners to feel comfortable and could function as an accommodation for the visually impaired in a distance learning course.  It is a great way to get directions to an audience quickly.

I made some real progress with getting a working syllabus together for my moodle. It isn't quite there yet, but the process helped my organize my thinking and fill in some gaps that existed in what I wanted for my moodle design.

Bad Science

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning.  This government sposored meta-study

was disappointing.  Not because it showed that on-line learning and in class learning have similar results but because the studies that were analyzed were so non-scientific that the results cannot be trusted.  I think it is time for the government to fund an unbiased, scientifically controlled study comparing face-to-face and distance learning.  The distance learning field is ever growing and educators need a clear, reliable study on distance learning validity and best practices.

Week Two

Wait, it will be animated and I wont have to draw 

ALL of it?

PowToons is awesome.  I finally got caught up and made my introduction video on powtoons.  The program appears overwhelming at first, but is really quite simple and powerful for a drag and drop application. I took me two hours to finish my project from start to finish and I was more than happy with the result.  I really appreciated the design and interface.  Adding a narrative to a presentation makes power points useless to me now, not that I ever had any love for them I can definitely see myself using this in the future in class or as an online resource for my students to get refreshers on course content or writing techniques.
Take a look at it here.

My Moodle is killing me.  I choose a topic that is important to me, but one I will need to build all of the content for from scratch.  I keep chipping away and it will get there.

Learn while you drive, from any distance.

Week One Reflection:
Distance learning is no big thing. Well, it is a big thing, but it is not the complicated mess it is made out to be.  Distance learning has existed for as long as humans have been able to write information down on some portable object that could be taken somewhere else.  Distance learning was born from the issue of learner being in one location a teacher being in another and some issue such as geography keeping them from getting together.  In the very beginning the form of correspondence was a letter, but as soon as the telephone was popularized people were using it for conferencing.  Correspondence courses may appear to be thing of the past while in reality they are alive and well in the online course - either synchronously or asynchronously.  Distance learning is an ever growing percentage of instruction in education and them more it increases the more comfortable educators are becoming with it.