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.