This Week's Links

To my non UW-Stout professor readers... I will add a few weeks, this week. Thanks for the note, last week. Here are some links:

Interviews with award winning Online Class Designers

Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL)
Way Cool Link....

Kids create their own video games - For Learning

Another post...

Wow, I have people who ARE NOT IN THIS CLASS following my blog. (They commented on my links from last week). Thanks (or get a life).

I just wanted to share another element of online education. WKCE Wisconsin State 10th Grade Testing. It is not ONLINE ! I have spent 4.5 days and traveled over 1500 miles in the past week administrating WKCE tests Face-to-Face. How do we do it ? Meet the kids in a library or hotel meeting room and have the students take the test the good ole fashion way. Sitting at a table for 5-8 hours with a #2 pencil.

If anyone from the Wisconsin DPI reads my blog.. Put the WKCE Test online ! Student passwords, log-ins... It can be done. The test can be timed, we can have proctors that check ID's, etc.... DPI Please move into the digital era and save TONS of MONEY if you put it online. No printing and shipping the books. The results will be processed faster and you could develop a killer data warehouse in a short period of time.

I have never been a big fan of BEST PRACTICES in education. I prefer to take a student based approach and adapt to their learning styles. However, I responded to a discussion post this week and thought to use this as the basis for my post, this week.

Online education is student centered and each student basically develops their own online learning style. I am amazed at how creative students are at finding content online that relates to class material. I had a great bar closing conversation with an employee of Florida Virtual Academy, at a conference. (FVA is the nations largest online high school with over 10,000 students.) We both talked about how cool it would be to allow students to develop a course. Just give the students the topic and see what type of course they would develop and the resources they would suggest. We wondered if the class would even remotely look like what we provide the students. We also wondered how difficult and challenging the student created assessments would probably be. The FVA employee said he would email if his boss approved the idea. (It has been over a year and no email)

Online teaching methods are also based on course distribution and e-learning platforms. IQ academy uses Blackboard to deliver classes. The tools available in Blackboard are different than Moodle and D2L and vice versa. I have seen teachers teach an entire class off a BLOG they update and change daily. I have seen some classes post an entire semester of student work on a WIKI. I have heard of some online programs that require students to MAIL-IN completed workbooks each month. The entire content and expected student work for all the student's classes is put into a monthly WORKBOOK !

As I have mentioned before, we need to keep online education STUDENT CENTERED and unique. We can not just adapt the best practices of face-to-face education and allow online education to become another 'version' of face-to-face education with the same Best Practices. I consider the entire concept of Best Practices as a static concept. No Best Practices in Online Education !

Online Education Junkie Links

As I prepared for this project I revisited some past Del.cio.us links that I had.. I saved them for a reason.. They are very relevant. If anyone besides the instructors visit this Blog, you might find these useful.

The Technology Gap between Teens and Parents

Totally Wired

This goes back to the topics two weeks ago: E-Moderators


Death of email for Digital Kids

Kids like to play online games - Not for the reasons we think..

Final Project

Final Project. This was a very rewarding professional experience. I have to admit that I am familiar with most of the tools used in this class for this assessment. However, I never pieced them together to create a comprehensive assessment for students. I look forward to applying these multiple form of assessments to develop an unique authentic assessment. I definitely feel I have developed a toolbox approach to helping my students online. I have used the tools, but never have but them in the same box. However, I am once again experiencing a conflict between face-to-face an online education. The face-to-face department chairs in our district are focusing on ONE common assessment to be used by all teachers in the entire district, for a specific class. I have learned from this project that ONE ASSESSMENT is not the best way to assess student learning. Nor is confirming to traditional objective or common project based assignments. I will continue my quest to keep online learning from becoming an extension of face-to-face learning and will fight to keep online learning an unique student centered form of education.

Here is a link to a draft of my project:
Attempted Project Link

What do you do online ?

Trying explaining to neighbors at a Halloween Party that you are an online teacher (That is why you are home all day..that is all they really want to know...) Throw in the festive cheer, costumes, the crazy drink concoctions, low and behold this makes a good blog post.

What is the role of an online teacher? The guide on the side, cybercoach, online instructor, are all terms I frequently see describe online teachers. I prefer to consider myself a ‘course manager’ of the classes that I teach online, However, I have to admit the most time consuming task of teaching online is answering email. I have had to gain the skills of a “Lifehack” to learn how to manage the volume of email I receive each day.

As a class manager, I feel my task is to provide content, keep discussions on track, offer knowledge about content, provide insights, and weave together various student discussion threads and course components, all well trying to empty my ‘inbox’ each day. I sometimes wonder why all this needs to be carried out by the same person.

The best advice that I can give an online teacher is to be as flexible as you can! The individuality of online learners, requires teachers to remain flexible. Be patient, be willing to answer a lot of questions, provide positive feedback, and do not expect a lot of student work at the beginning of a semester. Teachers do not have the DAILY contact and INFLUENCE on students as classrooms teachers. Online teachers cannot plan on presenting an elaborate lesson plan on a daily basis. Online teachers must avoid being the “authority figure” and instead focus on communicating with students and encouraging consistent class participation.

Cyber-Coaching and Online Teaching:

Be Flexible, I let things roll off me on a weekly basis. I just laugh at some of the things that use to upset me in face-to-face classrooms.

Encourage Participation: Mass emails, personal emails, phone calls and if all else fails offer Extra Credit if they log-in, make posts, submit an assignment by Friday, etc.

Be Objective: Assess work on quality, not when it was submit.

Try to encourage connections between students. Study-Buddies, Commenting on Posts, Introduction Interviews, Group Projects, off topic discussions, attempt to get students to connect onine.

Find Unifying Elements: Have students suggest websites, YouTube videos, student blogs, that relate to content.

Conflictiing Opinions: Have students post conflicting posts, promote debate, peer critiques within the class.

Take a deep breath, from some good internet audio content, be ready to answer a lot of email, and watch the students learn !

I just need to get some of those neighbor drink concotions and figure what to do for this final project...

Online Discussion Boards-Rubrics

I have students in my online classes frequently post to in class Discussion Boards in Blackboard. I have students write both formally and informally. I also students ask students to write for a vareity of audiences and using a different voice with their writing. However, I have over 300 students and the workload can be difficult. I have found these websites to provide me with some rubrics to assess student Discussion Board posts:

Blackboard Discussion Board Overview
Basic Rubric
Effectively Managing Discussion Boards
Rubric for Asynchronous Discussion Participation

This is starting to come together...

I have to admit, it took me a while to determine how this class would work and the value it would have for me as an online teacher. The two previous online classes related to online teaching, were not very beneficial to me professionally. In this class (UW-Stout Assessment Class) I was initially frustrated that we could only view Module’s one week, at a time and had no idea how I was going to get ‘new’ ideas to improve my online teaching skills.

I am beginning to determine how this class is going to impact my online teaching. I was looking for some ‘magic’ assessments to add to my classes. I am gaining the tools to create my own 'magic' assessments. Preparing our groups mid-term assignment and reading the other projects gave me a variety of insight about how assessments can used in online classes. I am especially intrigued and find value from the students that are not traditional public school teachers. The emphasis on skill education discussed by the health care educators is very valuable. I never considered ‘skill’ training in an online setting. I am also beginning to understand the attraction and need for on-line training in the corporate setting. Teachers might have a place to work outside of Academia.

I have told fellow teachers that we must not make online education the extension of face-to-face education and just transfer the content online. Online classes (and training sessions) need to be unique situations the incorporate a variety of electronic tools, the universal access to information created by the internet, and the economies of scale and cost of savings created by virtual learning programs. However, we must also use the opportunity to allow students to creativity explore and exercise higher level of learning skills. Online classes (training sessions) and assessments can create these new types of classes and opportunities for students to learn.

The Internet allows teachers to create assessments for each level of Bloom’s taxonomy. The ability to use interactive PowerPoint’s, and electronic quizzes to instruct, drill, and assess basic knowledge is very effective. The ability for students to express their knowledge and creativity through user created blogs or websites is very powerful. The ability to work in collaboration with others through the use of Wiki’s, commercial products, email, and instant messaging, allows for true distance learning and training. The rapidly emerging online conference technology is making real time online meetings and learning a reality.

Many critics have claimed that online education will minimize the role and need for a trained teacher to lead classes. Lower level skills and information can be taught and assessed online with little teacher/student contact. However, the variety and rapidly changing tools available for online teachers makes their skill set even more valuable. A truly creative teacher can combine their face-to-face skills and the tools for online learning to creative dynamic interactive classes with multiple assessments.