Module 4 Engaging Learners with New Strategies and Tools

Both Students and Teachers need new approaches to learning.  There are new Educational tools being developed and used on a daily basis.  Everyone wants to use the most current and up to date tools.  We are constantly searching for the next better and updated tool to use with our students to capture and keep their attention.  One of the largest trends in education is the ipad.  With the use of the ipad, the students do have access to websites, games, videos, blogs, skyping, and many other tools used for collaboration in the classroom.  Many schools are now using cell phones in the classroom as learning tools.  This is something the students use on a daily basis in their own lives so they are familiar with them when using them in class.  Being able to talk across the room, school, town, state, country and world with the use of programs such as skype helps the students to reach out and find out how students do things outside of their small circle of friends or community.  It helps them to find experts in what they are trying to do and also helps the students to get their ideas out into the world.  When students use tools that they are familiar with, they become more involved in their own education.  They stay focused longer in the class. 

Finding content the students are interested in is important.  Using a variety of videos help to ensure that the students can use what type of information helps them learn the concepts.  Websites help to scaffold learning.  Guest Speakers can give many different views of the same subject so the student can find out what he believes in and can relate to.  Blogs can help the students to work together and to see what other students are finding out which can help if a student does not understand what they read in the course readings. 

Communication tools are important.  Being able to get the students point across a certain subject is important to the student.  They want a voice to be heard.  They can do this privately through email or openly in a discussion board, wiki, or blog.  With skype, they can see the people they are collaborating with if they feel that is necessary in order to succeed in their education.

Collaboration tools are important since this is how the real world works.  We all work together to create one project.  Each person can be an expert in a certain part of the work and they can bring it all together to make one excellent project.  Having collaboration rooms in a virtual setting is the best tool to use.  Using blogs and wikis that others can edit are readily available on the internet.  Cell phones are at most students disposal now.  Students feel comfortable using their own technology.  They can take it home with them and work on projects and then bring it back to school with them to continue working.

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Module 3 Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Module 3 Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Assessment while students are collaborating can be achieved in many ways.  Dr.  Siemens discusses a few  ways to assess student while collaborating in an online classroom.  One suggestion is to have the peers assess each other rather than the instructor assesses the students.  In my experience with peer assessment at the elementary level, the students are very critical of the others.  I think if students are assessing each other in elementary school, they would have to have strict guidelines and be taught how to assess others.  Another way Dr. Siemens suggests to assess others is for students to receive feedback from online communities.  I teach at the elementary level and feel the one that would have to assess a student would be one that is trained at this level.  Untrained people assessing the students could hurt the education and expression of students at this level.  The last one he discussed was that Educators assess the students based on the student’s contributions.  I feel this I the best way to assess the students because students can see clearly what they did and did not do and with feedback from the instructor, they can see what they will need to do the next time they are in a collaboration group.  . 

There are students that will request to work alone rather than in collaboration groups.  Many students in classes have asked to work alone.  These students seem to be ones that are leaders in the class.  They want the work done their way or have experienced groups that they have completed all the work due to lack of participation from others in the group.  When this happens in class, I will usually have the student participate in a collaboration group but will try to match them up with others that have the same work ethic as the child requesting to work alone.   This seems to work most of the time.  Sometimes I will have as many jobs in a classroom as there are students so that each student can be an expert at one part of the project and then the work will come together as one big project.  Students need to learn how to work with others due to the fact that this is how the real-world is working in their jobs.   Instructors have to recognize that students have needs while working with others and need to be sensitive to the students needs. 

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). "Assessment of collaborative learning". Principles of Distance Education [DVD]. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Siemens, George. (2009).  Assessment of Collaborative Learning.

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Module 3 Updated Story Board

Sychronized Interactions in the Virtual Classsroom
Introduction	powerpoint slide with title
narration	video me speaking
Using technology in the classroom
introduction ot Dr. Trombetta	picture of Dr. Trombetta
key speaker	Video clip Dr Trombetta speaking
narration	video me speaking
whole group instruction
introduction of students in sychronized class	video of students working in class
narration scaffold learning	video me speaking
introduction of students in large group	video of students in large group in class
introduction of students in breakout rooms	video of students in small groups collaborating
conclusion	powerpoint closure
references	scrolling references

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Module 3 Story Board

Sychronous Interactions in the virtual classroom

Introduction

Using technology in the classroom

Using technology to scaffold learning

Videos of students collaborating in math class

Videos of expert on the synchronized classroom

Conclusion

Module 2 Elements of Distant Eduction Diffusion

Module 2

Elements of Distant Education Diffusion

George Siemens discussed how the acceptance of distance education is growing in the corporate and educational world.   One of the elements that he discussed was the use of collaborative interaction.  Collaboration is important in businesses and in education.  With the use of web 2.0 technology, businesses and individuals and groups in the educational environment have been able to reach new levels of communication.  People across the city, state, country and world can work together on projects so that they can produce the best outcome available.  Siemens says that The "Growing acceptance of distance education is fueled by the increase in online communication, practical experience with new tools, growing comfort with online discourse, and the ability to communicate with diverse and global groups".    Distance education is impacted by the new technologies such as being able to collaborate with people across the world.  The use of tools in the classroom such as multimedia, games and simulations, makes it able for students to progress in their education at a better rate. 

The use of collaboration tools has increased communication to people around the world.  It has made it so students can think outside the box by seeing how people in other parts of the country think and work.  Through increased usage of user friendly applications which support collaboration, people have gained a sense of comfort and even discovery that meaningful relationships can develop using online medium (Siemens, 2009).  I teach in a cyber school and we use collaboration on a daily basis.  Children are able to learn about other children's culture and beliefs while being educated in their daily courses.  With the use of collaboration, each child can have an input into a project which could have been something the other child never thought of including.  Global diversity, communication and collaborative interaction are key elements which are uniquely individualized from F2F classes, ultimately enhancing the learning experience (George Siemens, 2009).  Students are used to communicating through technology with the use of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter.  We should incorporate this into their education by letting them collaborate with others their age rather than inhibiting their education.  According to Siemens (2009), the growing acceptance of distance education is largely due to “more of us having experiences communicating online”.
In the cyber school that I work for, we use a program called Illuminate which has great collaboration tools for an online educational environment.  There are may collaboration tools that people can use.  One of the most popular online collaboration tool/program on the internet is Skype.

References

Seimens, George. (2009). The Future of distance Education.

Module 1 The Next Generation in Distance Education

Module 1 The Next Generation in Distance Education

I have been involved with distance education for over 14 years both in educating elementary and middle school students along with earning two Master’s Degrees at the university level.  Many people have not accepted this form of education yet, even though it has been around for many years.  To some, distance education is still a new idea and they are not ready to make the change.  I remember after I had been teaching for six years in the virtual environment, a teacher in a local district that I had just met explained to me that I really should look for a new job since this job would not be around very long.  I wonder if he still feels the same way?  I do believe that distant education is not for everyone, but there are certainly people that it is right for.

Moller, Foshay, Huett, Coleman and Simonson (2008) agree that distance education will have an explosive growth in the future.  They feel it will occur in business training, higher education, and K12 education.  Moller feels that online courses are considered easier although it takes more work to develop the courses.  Moller also feels that teachers need to be trained on how to deliver the content in a K12 environment online.  I agree with this.   There is a need to reorganize K12 educational systems to incorporate distance learning into the curriculum, state standards, and national levels.  Distant Education should have the Equivalence Theory intact. Distance Educators should provide the same education but should adapt it to the online environment

The authors speak about the differences between face-to-face education and distance education, it should be found that all education should follow a learning theory.  Behaviorism, Connectivism, Cognitivism, and constructivism do not have separate online theories for education.  They just have one theory of education.

References

Laureate Education, Inc. (2008). Principles of Distance Education. Baltimore, MD: Author.

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008a). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 1: Training and Development). TechTrends, 52(3), 70–75. 

Moller, L., Foshay, W., & Huett, J. (2008b). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 2: Higher Education). TechTrends, 52(4), 66–70.

Huett, J., Moller, L., Foshay, W. & Coleman, C. (2008, September/October). The evolution of distance education: Implications for instructional design on the potential of the Web (Part 3: K12). TechTrends, 52(5), 63–67

Simonson, M. (2000). Making decisions: The use of electronic technology in online classrooms. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 84, 29-34.


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