Week 15 Reusability Revisited and Rich Media

Readings this week started with a revisit to our group project topic. Made a lot more sense this time around. Chapter 30 content on uses of Rich Media was full of information that I can use when incorporating rich media into the design of lessons. I looked at the use of sound and video in a different light after reading. Just because I think something is technologically cool doesn't mean it will help my student learn, and may even distract them from learning.

I got a kick out of the summing up paragraph on page 331 for Chapter 31 where the young girl recognizes the school. The authors defined education and training in that part of the article as the most conservative of fields for years, and yet sometimes I think that is OK. Sometimes what works just works. The choices for the ways that people learn are increasing and in a rapid manner, but hopefully not so rapidly that what is good is thrown out in favor of what is exciting about the future.

Trainer of designers-by-assignment--great job title. I wonder if in fact as Merrill indicated on page 340 that most of the college-trained instructional designers become managers?

Week 14 - Article Reviews and wii

This week was a killer for me and I don't usually feel that way. I had picked out my articles to review weeks ago. The process of researching articles was an eye-opener for me. I read articles on educational technology all the time, but not necessarily from the professional peeer reviewed publications. I used the online databases and came up with so many hits on my search that I realized I had to narrow it down. Finally ended up with six articles that I thought were really interesting, read them and narrowed it to the final two I used. I enjoyed reading all of the other articles and comments.

I was later in the week than usual posting my assignment due to health issues. I tore the meniscus in my left knee and the medial ligament several weeks ago and was in the middle of x-rays, MRIs, etc. this past week. Just got word Wednesday I would need surgery, and then I slipped at work on the wet floor in the commons area and injured the same knee even more. Felt like a real idiot laying there on the floor in front of all the kids--contrary to belief middle school students will NOT walk right over you if you are down. They were so concerned and helpful it almost made it worthwhile. Almost. OK, so to tie this sad story to one of the articles from this week - the original injury to my knee came from playing tennis on the wii!

Week 13 - Group Work

I think our group did a dynamite job with the project, hope the rest of the group feels the same way. Collaborating online is difficult, but I think we worked through all the glitches and ended up with a great product. I'm really learning a lot and appreciating the reinforcement of the material being presented by the other groups. Some of this 'stuff' is finally making sense.

Selected my articles to review weeks ago, but it's time now to write the actual reviews. Found a good handout in the OWL for writing an article review so I feel more comfortable with what I should include.

Teaching an online class that started this week, and one of the students lives in Arkansas. I live in Missouri, and the class is for a college in California. I just love distance education!

Week 12 Ethics

The copyright informaiton this week was so timely. Students are doing PPT projects and want to add music. Another group wants to show a movie afterschool for entertainment and wanted to know if it was necessary to have a public performance permit. Another class is doing trading cards about medieval times, and wants to go out to the Internet and copy and paste pictures. Each teacher has a different idea as to what is allowed by Acceptable Use and what isn't. It was nice to have the refresher on this issue. A year or so ago I found a great book for use on Fair Use. It is called Tales from the Public Domain, Bound by Law?, Keith Aoki, James Boyle, and Jennifer Jenkis frm the Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain. It is written in comic book style. It is available for free online at: http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/.

Week 11 - Interviews

What a fascinating group of people that the class chose for interviews. I enjoyed reading the different papers, and learning about such diverse occupations individuals and occupations. Most challenging part of the week was formattiong for paper~does this ever get easy??? Had a question come up this week that deals with Week 12 readings. If we have an afterschool hangout, is it OK to show a DVD movie purchased by an instructor to students for entertainment if you don't have a public performance rights from the appropriate company? According to the guidelines at DESE the answer would be no. The copyright on YouTube using Disney clips was a great way to address the subject of copyright. I think I will show it at my next orientation for copyright, if it is not blocked through the firewall at school. Copyright is so hard to enforce when not everyone follows the same guidelines.
Looking forward to really getting into the group project this week!

Week 10 - Online Learning

I really enjoyed the text readings this week, and the articles in the course documents area. It was very surprising to see the list of courses offered through the MO Virtual Instruction Program. Most surprising were the online lab courses such as chemistry and biology. I realize there are wonderful animation programs available that simulate the real experience, but I have never been convinced that they entirely take the place of hands-on. I wonder how they are accepted for transfer to universities in terms of meeting science requirements or would students need to take lab component again? But then, what if they are an online student at the university? Ah, the virtual world.

The description of the faculty development position in Chapter 22 sounds interesting. I like the idea of working with adults. I like my 'day job' with middle school students, but teaching adults, for credit or community service, or staff development, is really what I enjoy.

The article by Roper about the study of successful online student sand how they develop online learning skills was interesting in terms of the skills I have developed as an online student, and what my online students develop. Good pointers for beginning online students, or those who may not be beginners, but are not yet as successful as they would like to be with this method of learning.

Week 9 - After the fact and not about class

Week 9 was not what I was expecting in terms of personal life, work life, or school life. My husband ended up in the emergency room Sunday evening, and didn't come home until the following Saturday evening, after several days in intensive care. When he did get home it was with a pacemaker (surprise - his heart was NOT the reason he was in the emergency room!). My week was spent driving to and from the hospital, 45 minutes each way, and sitting by his bedside waiting for decisions from doctors who couldn't seem to make up their minds.

I had to make the decision early in the week that I just couldn't focus on anything else and keep my sanity, so work and school were put on hold. At least that decision was in my control and not anyone else! A good sign that I'm wising up in my older years - a younger me would have tried to keep everything going, juggled time, and ended up frazzled and no good at anything.

Story had a happy ending, he's home and recuperating fine, work was still there, I've just about caught up with reading missed postings in class. Sometimes things do work out.

Week 8 EPSS

Wonder if the clickers we began using this past week fall under EPSS for the faculty? They are supposed to eliminate grading for common assessments, give realtime responses, and in every way possible make life just rosey (salesman's pitch, not mine).

Say a brochure for the summer ISTE conference in San Antonio. Looks like a lot of good workshops, too bad I will be in California. Thinking about joining this group, not sure yet.

Spring Break - plan on getting ahead with the reading - yeah!

Week 7 - Leadership

At last, the readings in the text this week were at least on topics that I recognize the theories and vocabulary. I feel at a disadvantage in so many of the discussions because I don't teach full-time to K-12 students, and most of the class have long years in the teaching field for K-12. I really enjoyed the readings this week, including the articles in the Course Document area. Next week - start working on interview questions, and look for more information on reusable learning objects.

Week 6 - Theorist Papers ~ Sharing

Week ended great with two snow days (Thursday and Friday). That's the up side. The down side is that's seven so far this year; looks like it may take our school year beyond Memorial Day.

One of the things I really like about online classes is the sharing of information, knowledge, insight that takes place among the students. This week I feel like I have learned so much more from reading the theorist papers that I did from reading the text. It is always interesting to see other points of views on topics, and helps when evaluating my own point of view. I still have 2 or 3 left to read, but will finish that up this evening.

Don't know if anyone else feels the same way, but I really have a hard time with references. I bought the revised APA Manual, and I have a Little Brown Compact Handbook, and I downloaded sample APA format from the Online Writing Center (Owl). Feel pretty good about the final product, but can't count the amount of time I spent agonizing over the correct way to cite things. Guess that is what happens when you haven't written a paper for a few years.

The readings for next week are timely. Our administration is pushing to get sets of clickers for all language arts and math classrooms. The response at this time has not been overwhelming approval by the faculty. After glancing through Chapter 11, it looks like some of the issues we are dealing with are addressed in that chapter.

Week 5 - Ascending Bloom's Taxonomy

This week I feel like I'm at the Remembering/Understanding levels, and not doing so good at that. Whew - Constructivist vs. objectivist, design research, holistic theory, Gagne's theory, situated learning theory, cognitive information processing theory, schema theory, and cognitive load theory! I really feel like we covered some good background this week that will help down the road. I'm sure most of the class was already familiar with a lot of this, but having undergraduate classes in business instead of education, this was very good for me. I evidently made a major mistake in our group discussion when I wasn't clear enough in a comment about 'rote memorization'. Hey, that should be worth extra points for illiciting responses :-).

Week 4 - Thank goodness for technology

This week started off great, and then I was hit with flu/food poisoning on Friday and have been laid up in bed since and still. Thank goodness for technology; I have my laptop here with me and with wi-fi I can post my blog without being late, or sitting up! Apologies to my team members for not posting the past three days, but was a little busy :-(.

Our conversations about teacher vs. glitz have been very interesting. In a traditional classroom it is easy to project enthusiasm, not quite so easy in an online classroom. I try to focus on things that make the students comfortable - responding to posts in timely manner, clear instructions, examples, all the things that I appreciate as an online student. Have to consider the enthusiasm angle more - I thought I projected it, but I know I can improve and that is why I am taking these courses.

Started collecting reseach on Benjamin Bloom for my paper. I think I already have more than I need. There is so much information about him and the old and revised taxonomy. It's been awhile since I have written a formal paper, so I am trying to work on it diligently. Write, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite...

Week 3 - Instructional Design

I'm writing this on Thursday from home because - yeah! snow day!! Even though there is no snow, but expectation of 3 - 8 inches later this afternoon. Guess my snow dance worked. I'll worry about having days added to the school year later.

The following statement from Reiser & Dempsey page 14 of reading this week is very relevant to what I am working on right now: "Although the data may not always bring good news, they are always "friendly" in that they provide a rational basis for decision making and a basis for successfully completing the project." I'm helping with data collection/analysis for pre-and post-common assessments for language arts and math classes. The pre- and post- comparison data is used to determine competencies on standards, determine the types of inteventions required, etc. If I am applying the ADDIE model properly, the pre-test data would be considered in the analysis phase, and the post-test data in the evaluation phase. The goal of the project would be to maintain and/or increase student scores on MAP tests.

Evidently I keep a lot on my mind - didn't realize until I was working through the ADDIE project for this week how many steps I work through mentally and never put down in writing. Not altogether a bad thing, but not all that good either. Makes it too easy to assume that others have the information to work from that I have, and obviously that is not always true. Working through something like ADDIE does away with some of the assumptions, because it is all there in print to check and recheck.

Reflections on Week 2

I sat here for 10 minutes trying to come up with a good 'title' for this week's post and finally realized it really didn't matter - it's my blog and my thoughts and I can call it whatever I want! I think that is what has probably blocked me in writing a journal, etc. in the past - being too picky about just putting my thoughts down on paper. So, boring as it may be, Reflections works for me. This will be the last time I will agonize over this.

I noticed a happening on campus that was a Second Life demo, open only to Faculty & Students. Too bad, I would really like to see that. Coincidence, it seems everywhere I read more and more about it being used in education. Note to explore more about the use and see if it would work for my ASI group at school.

Looks like the Beta group has a good start on getting a grasp on our project. Been awhile since I worked online with a group but I love the exchange of ideas that comes with this type of collaboration. Even if I had to go to the online dictionary several times to understand what was being discussed!

Chapter 25 Getting a Job in Business and Industry may be a repeat of things that I have heard over and over in different formats, etc. but some of the information is so good for me right now. I really don't know what I want to do. Most of my experience has been at the community college level – work and teaching. I enjoy working with adults, and that is probably the area I feel most comfortable with, even though I enjoy the middle school age, or else why would I be here for five years. The WorkMatrix is similar to assessments we ask our 7th grades to take from Missouri Connections. Should I be discouraged that I need something like this at my advanced age? I love online instruction/facilitation, you can really get to know your students, but sometimes I miss the face-to-face interaction, so community service classes take care of that need. My full-time job was in management, and my degree is in management. I always looked on the teaching as my 'fun time'. I think the training is probably where my interests are and I should explore that area more.

Semantic web discussions were enlightening. Must do more exploration on this topic, but glad it wasn’t chosen for our group project – way over my head at this point. Although, it would have been good for me if we had chosen it so that I can learn more about it. Catch-22! Not as if don't have volumes to learn about everything else we discussed.

On to ADDIE ...

End of a good week

It may be a false sense of security, but right now I feel like Week 1 has gone really well. I was afraid it would take me awhile to get back in the swing of taking classes, but feel like the assignments this week eased me into it.

Found the conversations about 'clicker' really timely, since my principal just announced he wants to provide them to the 7th grade math classrooms as a start. Hope to view some demos next week at our 4-6 school.

I wasn't really sure which to choose for the paper on a theorist, so I opted for the one I recognized from using Bloom's taxonomy when developing/reviewing curriculum--hope it was a wise decision! Looking forward to group work and discussions in Week 2.

Here I go...

I have setup and used blogs for my book club and other groups, but never a personal one for myself. In the past I was not very good about keeping journals, although I have quite a few with one or two pages in them that were started over the years. Here's to technology and a better way of doing things! I was nervous about starting this course, but feel much better now that I have met my fellow students in the introduction area. So much combined knowledge! It's nice to see the instructor acknowledge our individual introductions.