Week of 6/14 - This week class started. Unfortunately, I was so busy with work around the house (repainting the dining room), spending time with my 10-month old son (my wife is still at work for 2 weeks after I'm done), packing up my classroom and moving the supplies to my new room (I'm switching buildings) that I got nothing done for the class.
Wednesday 6/23 - Today I posted in all parts of Christin & Mary's portion of the Social Presence discussion thread, both posting my thoughts and responding to others' thoughts. I spent about 45 minutes doing this. I had never considered social presence before doing the readings yesterday and participating in the discussions today, but I can see how important it can be in an online course. In a F2F course it is important, but comes a bit more naturally. In an online course, it certainly has to be planned for. I will always assure that I plan for it when teaching online.
Thursday 6/24 - Today I continued my work on Social Presence by doing the activities prepared by Matt & Will and participating in the discussions they had also prepared. I spent about 45 minutes on it today. I enjoyed their "Jilligan's Island" activity and, although I was participating after the activity had already been completed (my group already selected their tools to take with them on the rescue boat) felt that I discovered how useful this and other Icebreaker activities can be, especially online.
Saturday 6/26 - I started today off, as I do most days, by spending about 5 minutes responding to my classmate's posts in the previous discussion board threads (Tours & Social Presence). I then got to work on Communication. I was relieved because this is the topic for this week that is ending now, so I am about to be "caught up." I spent nearly 1 hour in Whitney's area for Communication doing her activities (assistive technologies, communication tools for students with disabilities, web page accessibility test and Simulations) and posting to the discussion board, as well as responding to others' posts. I felt that the list of assistive technologies and communication tools was interesting. It seems that if both the teacher and the student are motivated to learn about these tools and technologies, there is plenty that can be done to help students with disabilities succeed online. I felt that the web page accessibility test was silly--it seemed to point out mundane details and irrelevant issues--though I was glad that it existed, as it shows that people are able to assure that their teaching tools are appropriate. The simulations were very cool. I found it very interesting to try out the different disabilities and it left me with much to keep in mind in my educational future. I will also share this with my colleagues.
Sunday 6/27 - Today, after spending a few minutes responding to recent discussion board posts, I continued my work in communication in which the work primarily centered around communication policies. I had never thought of a teacher having a communication policy, but after reading the Ethan Wattrall's article and participating in Christopher, Jennifer and Jody's discussions, I can certainly see why it's necessary. If I--as an 8th grade teacher--thought to myself, "Hmm, sometimes I think that a policy like this could help me," I can't even fathom how helpful it'd be for an online instructor of post high-school students. I then spent time doing the remainder of their assignment, which was to create my own Communication Policy. I expected it to be short, but as I worked on it realized that I had a lot to include here. I will certainly create one if I ever teach an online course. I spent about 1.5 hours working on the Communication Policy work in their section.
Monday 6/28 - Today I had to work really hard to get myself all of the way caught up. I am up to date on everything leading up to this date, but my Project 2 (topic - Direct Instruction) was due today, so I put in about 4-5 hours today working on it. I started off by reading through the assignment and its requirements and made a list of the things that I would have to include. After doing so, I looked at the activities that Ashley and Sara had prepared and crossed things off of my "requirements" list as I went through theirs. I soon found out that they had included all of the requirements, which is impressive, but concerned me. Granted, they have been finished for a week and emailed their post to me to look though, but I set it aside until I was ready for it. I sat for quite a bit thinking about what I should do that would be beneficial, yet not totally redundant of theirs. At first I was irritated, but later realized that they assumed that they were to cover all parts of the topic, which is understandable. After considering a few options, I finally settled on selecting some of the better known (to me at least) modes of online direct instruction, posting tutorials for them and then asking the class to discuss their benefits and disadvantages as well as stating whether they would use them. I chose DimDim, iLinc, Blackboard/Vista Chat, PalaceChat, SecondLife and two forms of Asynchronous Direct Instruction--screencasting (Jing) and podcasting (Audacity). I am concerned that it's too much work for the students, so I'm debating ways to lighten the load for them. I also debated whether to include the podcasting and screencasting because, while it seems like direct instruction to me, it most certainly is asynchronous. Dr. Kovalik confirmed for me that there is, in fact, such a thing as Asynchronous Direct Instruction, which makes sense to me. It was difficult to find good tutorials for some of these (especially PalaceChat! I found one from some random weird lady that is obsessed with Xena: Warrior Princess, odd.), but I think that the ones that I selected will shed enough light on what the tools are and give a brief image of how they'd be used for direct instruction, which is all that's important--not how do you use it, but what can you do with it.
Tuesday 6/29 - Today, I made a decision about my module for Direct Instruction. I decided that Blackboard/Vista Chat and PalaceChat were silly to include, as they were a real stretch to call Direct Instruction. A teacher would essentially have to type non-stop for the duration of the lesson while the students simply read. I hope that know teachers do that. I can see these tools being used for synchronous discussions, group work and such, but none of those are Direct Instruction. So, I asked Dr. Kovalik to remove them for me, which she did. After spending a few minutes on that, I spent a few minutes here and there, probably totaling a half hour reading some of my classmates' posts in my Direct Instruction Discussion Threads. I've learned quite a bit about preparing lessons for an online course so far--it takes a considerable amount of time up front, but it seems that the work during the lesson is a bit less and it can go on for more than a F2F lesson--even a week!
Wednesday 6/30 - Today I spent about 45 minutes reading and responding to my classmates' posts in my discussion board threads. They seem to be doing well with the assignments and are bringing up some interesting points, ideas and programs. While at least 1 student seems to be overwhelmed by my assignment--I think she may be interpreting that she needs to understand how to use each program, which she doesn't--it seems to be going well. I can already see that I'll be spending quite a bit of time this week reading, responding to and overseeing the work in my Discussion Board Threads. A few interesting points were brought up today, such as the mentions of Murphy's Law, using iLinc or DimDim for online office hours and the notion of Second Life being too much fun for learning to take place.
Thursday 7/1 - I can't believe it's July! Whenever July starts, I start worrying that my summer is slipping away. But, never fear--if I ever worry that I got nothing done this summer, I can look at the sheer number of comments I've made in this discussion board thread. Geez! I spent about 30 minutes reading and responding to my classmates' comments in my threads. The things that I am reading from them seems to center around similar themes (though not in a bad way):
- DimDim & iLinc are nice because they allow you to ask questions and get feedback immediately, but the fact that you'd have to meet at a certain time takes away the freedom and flexibility that most online students love.
- DimDim, iLinc and Second Life all suffer from a common disadvantage - they require a quality internet connection and a decent computer in order to allow you to get online and in the "room" to participate in class. Most students are worried about those things preventing you from joining the class on time.
- There are a plethora of great technologies that can be used in any of these situations, except for SecondLife, which seems to be in a class of its own. Elluminate and others can be used in place of iLinc and DimDim, while Camtasia and Screenium can replace Jing.
Also today, I spent 15 minutes or so reading through the requirements for the Project 3--Online Direct Instruction Lesson and debating what topic I will use and how I will do it.
Friday 7/2 - Today we took my son to the sitter, which enabled my wife and I to both get some work done during the morning (he's really been keeping me busy!!). After doing some work in my new classroom, I went over to my old classroom so that I could use the SmartBoard (I'm going to miss it!) to record my Online Direct Instruction Lesson, which took me about 1 hour once all was said and done. I used some elements of an old lesson from my Algebra class last year to set up a mini-lesson on Solving 2-Step Equations. I then taught it from my SmartBoard, while using Jing to record the screen images. The hardest part was doing a quality lesson with a start, middle and end that wasn't too brief in 5 minutes. I would certainly not use Jing if I really was teaching this course online, but I think it showed that I know what I would do and how to do it. After a few takes, I got one that I was satisfied with and created a draft of my posting in the discussion board. This evening, I sat back down at my computer and put in about 1 hour of work, first creating a SurveyMonkey survey to assess my "students" understanding of my lesson, then posting my lesson in the discussion board, then reading and responding to my classmates' posts in my discussion threads (from Project 2). The repeating themes that I pointed out yesterday are still recurring today, but other valuable information is being added to the discussion. I think that the class is getting a lot out of this.
Saturday 7/3 - Today I spent about 1 hour on work for the class, first reading and responding to my classmates' responses in my discussion board thread (ugh! Will it ever end?), then trying out my classmates' direct instruction lessons. I went through a few lessons that I had various snags with, before I ended up completing my work in 2 different lessons: Christin's Food Diary Lesson and Andrew's Emergency Action Plan & Fire Prevention Lesson. I thought Christin's PPT was easy to understand, though--as usual--was a bit dry, as a PPT can be. I felt that Andrew's PPT was a bit hard to get through, as there was a lot of legalize speak about what requirements there are for action plans and fire prevention. However, I found it easy to follow. I particularly enjoyed Andrew's quiz, both because I liked the site that he used for it--ProProfs--and his goofy multiple choice selections (i.e., "Is it appropriate to reenter a burning building to get your box of kittens?"). After reading others' responses to Christin & Andrews lessons, I found a response from Christin in Andrew's discussion that I particularly liked--she suggested using the goofy multiple choice answers as an intro to the lesson. I like this idea and think it'd be great if he'd lead into each of his factual, serious slides, with a goofy one that pertains to it (for example, Slide 1: Is it appropriate to run back into a burning building to save a box of kittens? Slide 2: It is never appropriate to enter a burning building.)
Sunday 7/4 - Happy 4th of July!
Monday 7/5 - Wow, it's hot! Spent the day at the parade, then the pool with my son, wife and sister.
Tuesday 7/6 - Back to work again today. I spent nearly 3 hours on classwork today, first responding to my classmates' posts in my discussion thread (I think it's safe to say I'm done with that!), then trying out my classmates' direct instruction lessons. I had problems with a few that I tried--I was particularly excited about Chris' KSUTube lesson (never heard of it!), but it appears that KSUTube was down today, as I could not view his tutorial or access the website. I wasted a good chunk of time trying to access it from different browsers, on different computers and by changing the address to no avail. I finally gave up and moved on to others' lessons. I tried out Anna's Zamzar lesson--I wouldn't use this for converting to pdf's as Mac's allow you to "Print to PDF," but plan to use it with videos, especially YouTube ones--Sara's Microsoft Word Comments Lesson--a useful tool that I will use in my Writing class that I'll be teaching this year and Mary's Fractions Lesson--I enjoyed her song about fractions and bookmarked it so that I could use it in the future. One thing that struck me while doing my classmates' lessons was that some of them are using the term "Direct Instruction" rather loosely. I'm not sure if I'd consider a word document or a link to a YouTube video to be Direct Instruction. They were effective, but may have missed the mark (that's just my opinion).
Wednesday 7/7 - Today I am really kicking myself for an oversight. When I created my assessment for my Project 3 Direct Instruction Lesson in SurveyMonkey, I didn't think to include a way that would identify which student was which. I should have included a question like "What's your name?" so that I knew who was who. Oh well, learning from mistakes makes some of the most effective learning. I spent about 2 hours today on a few different things. I went through the results to the SurveyMonkey Assessment, provided feedback to the students who tried it out, wrote up my "reflective summary" for Project 3, submitted Project 3, wrote up a summary of my Project 2 Module for my classmates to see and submitted my information about Project 2. The loose ends are starting to tie up!
Thursday 7/8 - Today I spent a bit of time--10 minutes or so--responding to my classmates' posts here and there. I hope to dedicate a bit more time later today to Project 5, so that I can get it finished before leaving for vacation tomorrow evening.
Thursday 7/8 Part 2 - I spent about 2.5 hours--not including a break to watch LeBron James' self-important 1-hour special--tonight working on Project 5--Online Teaching Toolkit. In that time I finished the first 2 parts - Orientation/Introduction Policy & Communication Guidelines & Policy. I had never realized that so much work would go into this assignment, or preparing to teach an online course. I certainly will keep that in mind if I ever teach an online course.
Friday 7/9 - Today I spent about 3-5 hours completing Project 5 - Online Teaching Toolkit. I was amazed by how much could go into teaching online and am glad that I am now aware of it. If I ever teach an online course, I will certainly refer back to this document. I will also certainly spend plenty of time, before the class starts, planning!
