ILP 2 - edX101: Overview of Creating an edX Course
edX is a site where teachers and professionals can post classes or training courses to teach and earn certificates online without the need to go into a classroom or enroll in schools. You can use this for ongoing education or use the certification process to show your continued educational growth. I figured that I would go straight to the beginning and learn how to go about creating an edX (edX) course for others to use.
The course begins with the five basic steps you need to do in order to make the course successful, they are:
1 - Get the word out - It won't help anyone if they don't know/can't find it.
2 - Creating the content - This is all about making sure your course has the desired effect.
3 - Create the grading policy - Establishing a process for determining a student's success.
4 - Preparing your course - Syllabus and schedule creation, preparing the course outline.
5 - Delivery of the course - Actually teaching the course, how to moderate and the certification process.
The initial section is getting you to understand what your students might be looking for in this. You need to understand what they want in order to help them achieve their goals. You then move into an overview of the creation process. They recommend a 6-8 month development time for your course and emphasize the fact that you will need a team to accomplish this, and you will need to remember to focus on the goals of what you're trying to teach. Don't think of it as merely a bunch of videos, but keep in mind the point of your course.
Getting the word out on your "about" page and video are important. This is likely the place the students will go when they're trying to determine if this is a course they want to take, and the page will be published on the site possibly months before the course actually begins. You should engage, not just provide a list of topics you will cover. The platform also offers some advertising and marketing themselves for you to help get the word out, and they go through the various social media and professional networks that you should use to help spread the word of your course.
The next section is about the process of creating content. How, and what you should be doing. The differences between a normal lecture course, and an online learning environment. They go through the four main types of content: Discussion - having an interactive board for questions and discussion, HTML - the base pages where you can add text, links, images, etc, Video - the basic videos where you convey information, and problem - the quizzes, tests, and create problems for your students to solve. It then takes you through each of these to give you a starter's guide to what you can do with each different type of page. There is a big emphasis on video, as this is the main method you will likely use to engage and teach the students. It also goes over copyright issues.
We then go to the grading policies. One note is that with online courses, you must take into account people taking your class in different time zones and with differing levels of connectivity, so you must be careful not to exclude anyone. They then move on to class setup, scheduling, welcoming notices, your syllabus. Generally, how you need to welcome students to your class and provide them with the tools to succeed.
Then we get to the class itself. How you present, fostering discussion, the practice of putting students into smaller groups to help move along discussion and cooperation, perhaps using social media to engage your students. It also goes through the difference between the certified courses and audited courses. and gives you a brief overview of the analytical tools you can use to get more information on your students.
Then comes the final exam (I passed). Overall, this was a nice brief (1-2 hour) overview of what goes into setting up a course on edX. It helps prospective teachers understand what needs to be done in order to convert lecture into online courses. It's not a complete walkthrough, but more of a, "Here are things you will need to deal with, so prepare" kind of thing. It should be a mandatory guide for anyone who has to create an online class, as many of the concepts are not followed in online learning. 9/10, would recommend.
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Blog Post 9
I think the "flipped classroom" is a great innovation for education. It's the idea that classroom time would be better used by explaining content deeply and working through issues that the students have with the material instead of merely teaching. To achieve this, students get homework, which consists of watching a short video of what in a normal classroom would be a condensed version of the normal classroom lecture. Then the class time is spent working through any issues or questions that the students have with the material. I feel that this approach is preferable to the normal structure because it allows the students to get responses from the teacher for questions instead of sitting through the lecture, then struggling with homework when they do not have any resources available to help them understand the material. It probably wouldn't be ideal for every subject, but I do believe that in the majority of cases, it would benefit the students more than traditional methods.
"OER" or Open Educational Resources, are simply teaching materials and classes that are made available for study or as educational resources, freely online. This is usually done through a creative commons license. It can be anything a teacher or student might need in the teaching or learning, of a subject, including videos, tests, papers, software, and any other tool for learning or teaching. This paper: http://www.ictliteracy.info/rf.pdf/OERMovement.pdf is an excellent resource, as is has a brief history of the OEM movement, a list of some of the major contributors and what they offer, and also sections on the challenges there are in both producing and keeping access to the materials, and a section on the future and where the next logical step will take us. Their thinking is that the next step is going to be OER with more interactivity between the producers and consumers and I think that is probably correct. I would love to see these ideas carried through and hope that the backing for projects like those they describe continues to be available.
The PowerPoint projects were interesting, I learned a bit about the non-linear format and how it's used, which should come in handy in the future. I apparently still am not so good with the footers and numbering and naming, but I don't think that having my name on all of the slides is all that important as a teaching device. So long as the information is there, that's the important part. The process is time-consuming, much more so than simply writing lecture notes, but it is more engaging for the viewer, so that is a definite plus. I think the best thing about these is that they enforce conciseness. You simply don't have the space to ramble on at length about a subject, and that is something I definitely struggle with.
I think the "flipped classroom" is a great innovation for education. It's the idea that classroom time would be better used by explaining content deeply and working through issues that the students have with the material instead of merely teaching. To achieve this, students get homework, which consists of watching a short video of what in a normal classroom would be a condensed version of the normal classroom lecture. Then the class time is spent working through any issues or questions that the students have with the material. I feel that this approach is preferable to the normal structure because it allows the students to get responses from the teacher for questions instead of sitting through the lecture, then struggling with homework when they do not have any resources available to help them understand the material. It probably wouldn't be ideal for every subject, but I do believe that in the majority of cases, it would benefit the students more than traditional methods.
"OER" or Open Educational Resources, are simply teaching materials and classes that are made available for study or as educational resources, freely online. This is usually done through a creative commons license. It can be anything a teacher or student might need in the teaching or learning, of a subject, including videos, tests, papers, software, and any other tool for learning or teaching. This paper: http://www.ictliteracy.info/rf.pdf/OERMovement.pdf is an excellent resource, as is has a brief history of the OEM movement, a list of some of the major contributors and what they offer, and also sections on the challenges there are in both producing and keeping access to the materials, and a section on the future and where the next logical step will take us. Their thinking is that the next step is going to be OER with more interactivity between the producers and consumers and I think that is probably correct. I would love to see these ideas carried through and hope that the backing for projects like those they describe continues to be available.
The PowerPoint projects were interesting, I learned a bit about the non-linear format and how it's used, which should come in handy in the future. I apparently still am not so good with the footers and numbering and naming, but I don't think that having my name on all of the slides is all that important as a teaching device. So long as the information is there, that's the important part. The process is time-consuming, much more so than simply writing lecture notes, but it is more engaging for the viewer, so that is a definite plus. I think the best thing about these is that they enforce conciseness. You simply don't have the space to ramble on at length about a subject, and that is something I definitely struggle with.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Blog Post 8
Diigo seems to be a quite handy tool for teachers. If you find a group and all use the tool, you can easily share articles and reduce the amount of time necessary to find and interpret them. In addition, the ability to annotate the articles and post notes means that others can see the highlights of an article so they can know without reading the entire article whether it is of interest to them. Anything that can save time for a teacher is greatly appreciated. In the classroom, you can use it to generate a class discussion on an article. Let the students go through and pick out their personal highlights from it, then discuss as a group.
PowerPoint is a handy tool for any level of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Remember - The simplest one, just provide the powerpoint to your students after you have used it for a lecture. It always annoys me when a teacher refuses to distribute their presentation after the lecture. It's not like this is top secret material, we're not going to run out and sell it, just let us study it!
Understand - The details that you can add to a presentation are pretty much limitless, the use of animations to show progression and the facts that can be incorporated help students better understand difficult concepts.
Apply - For me, as a history major and history nerd, I love applying situations and thought patterns both forward and backward in time. I have a situation presented to me, how would someone 100 years ago deal with it, how will future students look back at our time period and problems and see them? You should use questions like this in your presentations to try and impress upon the students that they are not alone, every time period has struggled with similar issues, use their experiences to help you.
Analyze - Linking information together in multiple ways is simple enough to do if you can fashion a complex enough powerpoint. You can use hyperlinking to branch out your presentation similar to how wikipedia and other resources are hyperlinked. Let your students go down the rabbit-hole by linking concepts together and letting them take them however they wish. You can lose yourself in that fashion for quite a while and end up in a completely different place than you anticipated going, but it will still all lead from your basic idea.
Evaluate - As you've presented your lesson, include questions that enable the students to come to their own conclusions, lead them, not to where you think they should be, but to where their own minds take them. Give them questions that involve taking the information presented and having them describe how things might change with different variables, or how certain actions caused different ripple effects. Learning should be much more than simple memorization and regurgitation.
Create - You can have your students create their own powerpoint presentations in lieu of writing papers if they wish. They will probably learn just as much about the topic, while also learning a skill that will benefit them in their future study and life.
The Teacher's Guide to Tech - Link Here, is a fantastic resource that is released annually for teachers that lists, describes, and gives you instructions on how to use each resource or tool, plus a glossary of terms and everything you need to learn about and implement those tools into your teaching. It is released by Jennifer Gonzalez who publishes the Cult of Pedagogy site, another tremendous resource for teacher development. This is one of the better examples of this kind of thing out there since most will list resources and maybe tell you what they can do, but not explain and show you how to get the most out of them.
PowerPoint is a handy tool for any level of Bloom's Taxonomy.
Remember - The simplest one, just provide the powerpoint to your students after you have used it for a lecture. It always annoys me when a teacher refuses to distribute their presentation after the lecture. It's not like this is top secret material, we're not going to run out and sell it, just let us study it!
Understand - The details that you can add to a presentation are pretty much limitless, the use of animations to show progression and the facts that can be incorporated help students better understand difficult concepts.
Apply - For me, as a history major and history nerd, I love applying situations and thought patterns both forward and backward in time. I have a situation presented to me, how would someone 100 years ago deal with it, how will future students look back at our time period and problems and see them? You should use questions like this in your presentations to try and impress upon the students that they are not alone, every time period has struggled with similar issues, use their experiences to help you.
Analyze - Linking information together in multiple ways is simple enough to do if you can fashion a complex enough powerpoint. You can use hyperlinking to branch out your presentation similar to how wikipedia and other resources are hyperlinked. Let your students go down the rabbit-hole by linking concepts together and letting them take them however they wish. You can lose yourself in that fashion for quite a while and end up in a completely different place than you anticipated going, but it will still all lead from your basic idea.
Evaluate - As you've presented your lesson, include questions that enable the students to come to their own conclusions, lead them, not to where you think they should be, but to where their own minds take them. Give them questions that involve taking the information presented and having them describe how things might change with different variables, or how certain actions caused different ripple effects. Learning should be much more than simple memorization and regurgitation.
Create - You can have your students create their own powerpoint presentations in lieu of writing papers if they wish. They will probably learn just as much about the topic, while also learning a skill that will benefit them in their future study and life.
The Teacher's Guide to Tech - Link Here, is a fantastic resource that is released annually for teachers that lists, describes, and gives you instructions on how to use each resource or tool, plus a glossary of terms and everything you need to learn about and implement those tools into your teaching. It is released by Jennifer Gonzalez who publishes the Cult of Pedagogy site, another tremendous resource for teacher development. This is one of the better examples of this kind of thing out there since most will list resources and maybe tell you what they can do, but not explain and show you how to get the most out of them.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Blog Post 7
Twitter, Twitter, Twitter...Nope, it still sucks. I tried following some interesting people, history stuff from teachers and researchers. Still don't like it. Don't like the notifications, don't like the truncated content, don't like the comments and constant retweeting and hashtags. It's a pox on the face of humanity and needs to die. Seriously, I see the use, I just really, really dislike most social media, particularly Twitter. I hate what it is doing to people in general, and the less that people use it, the better off we'll be. Until this class, I had completely cut myself off from social media for about a year and didn't miss it a bit. So, if I've learned anything, it's that social media is definitely not my thing, and I will be glad when I'm not forced to participate in it.
The website design was simple and pretty basic. The Weebly site is pretty handy for setting one up without learning to actually code, which is something I've always wanted to do, but never actually bothered to learn. Since most people won't take the time to learn code, it doesn't get much better than this. Drag and drop is something that is simple enough for most anyone to do, and creating something that looks at least halfway decent is within anyone's reach. The easiest way to improve it next time would just be to spend more time on it. This was kind of at the bottom of my priority list this week, so it didn't get much time devoted to it. If I use it in the future, I will take more time to set up something much more interesting looking, but it would help to actually be creating it for a class so I could post actual content instead of having to make everything up. It would be simple to use in the future if I needed to create a site for an actual class of mine. Remembering to keep it updated is the problem I'd struggle with, as do most teachers who have websites from what I've seen.
Here are a link and screenshot of my site:
Website
Assistive technologies are technological items or programs that assistive people who have some difficulty in accessing materials in a classroom. It can be a visual or hearing impairment, or a learning disability, basically anything that impairs their ability to use or obtain the information you are trying to teach. They perform a wide variety of functions with the singular goal of enabling all children to participate regardless of their disability. My fiancee has used some of these items when she was teaching in an elementary school computer lab. They had various items that were mentioned in the article, substitutes for the mice, screen magnifiers, and various other items that ensure that all students would be able to perform the tasks that were required on the computers. She said the main difficulty in using the equipment for her in the lower grades anyway, was simply determining who needed what. She was in a low-SES school, and many of the children had issues that were undiagnosed, so figuring out who needed help, and then figuring out exactly how to help them was the main problem. Another issue she had was that many of the students who needed help, could not effectively communicate what their problems were. It made it a challenge to assist them in getting the help they needed.
Twitter, Twitter, Twitter...Nope, it still sucks. I tried following some interesting people, history stuff from teachers and researchers. Still don't like it. Don't like the notifications, don't like the truncated content, don't like the comments and constant retweeting and hashtags. It's a pox on the face of humanity and needs to die. Seriously, I see the use, I just really, really dislike most social media, particularly Twitter. I hate what it is doing to people in general, and the less that people use it, the better off we'll be. Until this class, I had completely cut myself off from social media for about a year and didn't miss it a bit. So, if I've learned anything, it's that social media is definitely not my thing, and I will be glad when I'm not forced to participate in it.
The website design was simple and pretty basic. The Weebly site is pretty handy for setting one up without learning to actually code, which is something I've always wanted to do, but never actually bothered to learn. Since most people won't take the time to learn code, it doesn't get much better than this. Drag and drop is something that is simple enough for most anyone to do, and creating something that looks at least halfway decent is within anyone's reach. The easiest way to improve it next time would just be to spend more time on it. This was kind of at the bottom of my priority list this week, so it didn't get much time devoted to it. If I use it in the future, I will take more time to set up something much more interesting looking, but it would help to actually be creating it for a class so I could post actual content instead of having to make everything up. It would be simple to use in the future if I needed to create a site for an actual class of mine. Remembering to keep it updated is the problem I'd struggle with, as do most teachers who have websites from what I've seen.
Here are a link and screenshot of my site:
Website
Assistive technologies are technological items or programs that assistive people who have some difficulty in accessing materials in a classroom. It can be a visual or hearing impairment, or a learning disability, basically anything that impairs their ability to use or obtain the information you are trying to teach. They perform a wide variety of functions with the singular goal of enabling all children to participate regardless of their disability. My fiancee has used some of these items when she was teaching in an elementary school computer lab. They had various items that were mentioned in the article, substitutes for the mice, screen magnifiers, and various other items that ensure that all students would be able to perform the tasks that were required on the computers. She said the main difficulty in using the equipment for her in the lower grades anyway, was simply determining who needed what. She was in a low-SES school, and many of the children had issues that were undiagnosed, so figuring out who needed help, and then figuring out exactly how to help them was the main problem. Another issue she had was that many of the students who needed help, could not effectively communicate what their problems were. It made it a challenge to assist them in getting the help they needed.
Monday, October 15, 2018
ILP Participation - Sandbox AR/VR tools
I went up to the Sandbox to complete the tour that was cut short the other week. I wanted to get into the AR and VR items because I feel this is really where the applications are enormous for students in a history or social sciences classroom. "History is boring". Probably the most common phrase you hear from people about history classes. I don't think it is, but I've always been able to see the drama in everything. For most people, it's a collection of dates and dead people. I think AR and VR, in particular, can help to change that.
Currently, there is not a ton of content available for the systems for History and Social Studies courses, but there are a few, and I was able to look at a few of them. Under the AR heading, there was Civilizations AR, which is an excellent tool though limited by content. (This will be a recurring theme with these programs) It allows you to see and manipulate items that are superimposed on the background of your space on your phone. The personal interaction with the objects and the ability to focus on areas you want to see better is nice. JigSpace is another program that lets you again, insert an object into your space and manipulate it with similar limitations in regards to the availability of content. These are limited by the sometimes difficult process of maneuvering your phone and having it register a space to place objects. They can be a bit finicky and difficult to use.
Here's a pic of a mummy sarcophagus on my floor at work, this was taken with Civilizations AR and shows a bit of what you can do with it.
VR is where the technology really has a chance to shine. I firmly believe that in the next 10-15 years, class field trips to chosen sites and even observation of particular historic events will be as simple as putting a headset on and entering the VR world. As it currently stands, you are generally limited by a couple of factors. They have not completely figured out a movement method that is simple and intuitive, but some options are better than others. You are also usually tethered to the computer, though the wifi revolution is changing that slowly. The most important limitation currently is (Say it with me) lack of content. I know there are groups out there who are preserving ancient sites like the Acropolis by taking detailed 360-degree video and using drone photography in order to create a perfect 3D representation of these locations so eventually, you will be able to stroll through these historical sites completely virtually and even, if combined with the 3D modeling techniques, be able to wander through them and see it as someone from the time of their construction would have. This is where the future of teaching history lies. Not just a dry talk about an object or a time period, but actually (Well, virtually) seeing it. Even with the frame rate and resolution issues with the headsets currently, your brain can be completely fooled. Imagine if when discussing the Civil War in your US history classroom, instead of talking about Pickett's Charge, you could put your students in the front line and let them see what one of those soldiers saw. Or let them watch the Gettysburg Adress like they're seeing it live. That is how you can get people interested in history. Let them be IN the stories you're telling.
As it is, there isn't much to talk about for the history programs for VR, there simply aren't many. Google Earth VR is useful, as you can somewhat get in and see sites, but the range of motion is limited and the controls are mind-bogglingly frustrating to learn. We are just on the cusp of what this technology can do, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it will take us. I appreciate the Sandbox for having these items so we can see what we can do with the technology and letting us try it out. You can't understand how much your brain can be fooled by this stuff until you actually try it. I hope I can find some more time to go back and try these items out some more. I also wish I was in charge of setting up the programs in the pipeline to be made because I have so many ideas for things.
I went up to the Sandbox to complete the tour that was cut short the other week. I wanted to get into the AR and VR items because I feel this is really where the applications are enormous for students in a history or social sciences classroom. "History is boring". Probably the most common phrase you hear from people about history classes. I don't think it is, but I've always been able to see the drama in everything. For most people, it's a collection of dates and dead people. I think AR and VR, in particular, can help to change that.
Currently, there is not a ton of content available for the systems for History and Social Studies courses, but there are a few, and I was able to look at a few of them. Under the AR heading, there was Civilizations AR, which is an excellent tool though limited by content. (This will be a recurring theme with these programs) It allows you to see and manipulate items that are superimposed on the background of your space on your phone. The personal interaction with the objects and the ability to focus on areas you want to see better is nice. JigSpace is another program that lets you again, insert an object into your space and manipulate it with similar limitations in regards to the availability of content. These are limited by the sometimes difficult process of maneuvering your phone and having it register a space to place objects. They can be a bit finicky and difficult to use.
Here's a pic of a mummy sarcophagus on my floor at work, this was taken with Civilizations AR and shows a bit of what you can do with it.
VR is where the technology really has a chance to shine. I firmly believe that in the next 10-15 years, class field trips to chosen sites and even observation of particular historic events will be as simple as putting a headset on and entering the VR world. As it currently stands, you are generally limited by a couple of factors. They have not completely figured out a movement method that is simple and intuitive, but some options are better than others. You are also usually tethered to the computer, though the wifi revolution is changing that slowly. The most important limitation currently is (Say it with me) lack of content. I know there are groups out there who are preserving ancient sites like the Acropolis by taking detailed 360-degree video and using drone photography in order to create a perfect 3D representation of these locations so eventually, you will be able to stroll through these historical sites completely virtually and even, if combined with the 3D modeling techniques, be able to wander through them and see it as someone from the time of their construction would have. This is where the future of teaching history lies. Not just a dry talk about an object or a time period, but actually (Well, virtually) seeing it. Even with the frame rate and resolution issues with the headsets currently, your brain can be completely fooled. Imagine if when discussing the Civil War in your US history classroom, instead of talking about Pickett's Charge, you could put your students in the front line and let them see what one of those soldiers saw. Or let them watch the Gettysburg Adress like they're seeing it live. That is how you can get people interested in history. Let them be IN the stories you're telling.
As it is, there isn't much to talk about for the history programs for VR, there simply aren't many. Google Earth VR is useful, as you can somewhat get in and see sites, but the range of motion is limited and the controls are mind-bogglingly frustrating to learn. We are just on the cusp of what this technology can do, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it will take us. I appreciate the Sandbox for having these items so we can see what we can do with the technology and letting us try it out. You can't understand how much your brain can be fooled by this stuff until you actually try it. I hope I can find some more time to go back and try these items out some more. I also wish I was in charge of setting up the programs in the pipeline to be made because I have so many ideas for things.
Blog Post 6
I went back to my old school and looked over their websites, unfortunately, there were only two of them (Way to represent Niceville High School!). Teacher websites were not a thing when I was in school. Honestly, websites themselves weren't really a thing back then. I visited the two sites available which were both Honors English sites, Mrs. Ellis' site:
And also Mrs. Mixon's site:
Unfortunately, I could not find a grade level, but given that these are Honors/AP English, it would have to be grade 11 or 12. Both websites show a list of upcoming homework, have a slideshow with class slides, and also links to external resources for the students to use. There appear to be discussion boards possibly for them that might allow class discussions. In general, the layout of Mrs. Ellis site is much better looking and organized and pleasant to look at.
I could see using a website to distribute homework and send out class announcements. It would be a handy resource to keep communication with parents up, especially these days as the parents have probably also been on the internet for the majority of their lives, so it seems natural to them. Ideally, it would be nice to be able to exchange comments between the teacher and parents on the site, though given the normal way website comments run, that might not be a great idea. I would also like to use the site as a discussion board for students to discuss the class activities amongst themselves. The issue there would be getting them to actually use it. Perhaps if they were prompted to do so, it might continue.
The tech sandbox trip was too short honestly. We needed at least another 45 minutes to an hour to get through the whole thing. As it was, my group only got to see the smartboards and the 3d printing before our time was up. The smartboards are handy for some things, but I feel that they are perhaps a little overhyped. I don't deny that they are significantly better than the reel to reel projectors we had, but in general, they really do not have much more than the "wow" factor. Some things will be easier, and the ability to manipulate items in space is useful. I see them being much more useful for the younger kids as they beg for interactivity, and once you reach the upper grades, you generally want the students staying in their seats to minimize disruption. I'm sure as time goes by, they will expand the software and programs available and think of uses beyond what we have now. As it is, for my purposes, it's not much more than a glorified whiteboard that I can put pictures on. The same goes for the 3D printing. I can see tons of applications for this in certain fields of study. For Social Studies/History, it's not much more than a novelty though. If we'd had them available back when I was in drafting classes though, I would have been in love.
I went back to my old school and looked over their websites, unfortunately, there were only two of them (Way to represent Niceville High School!). Teacher websites were not a thing when I was in school. Honestly, websites themselves weren't really a thing back then. I visited the two sites available which were both Honors English sites, Mrs. Ellis' site:
And also Mrs. Mixon's site:
Unfortunately, I could not find a grade level, but given that these are Honors/AP English, it would have to be grade 11 or 12. Both websites show a list of upcoming homework, have a slideshow with class slides, and also links to external resources for the students to use. There appear to be discussion boards possibly for them that might allow class discussions. In general, the layout of Mrs. Ellis site is much better looking and organized and pleasant to look at.
I could see using a website to distribute homework and send out class announcements. It would be a handy resource to keep communication with parents up, especially these days as the parents have probably also been on the internet for the majority of their lives, so it seems natural to them. Ideally, it would be nice to be able to exchange comments between the teacher and parents on the site, though given the normal way website comments run, that might not be a great idea. I would also like to use the site as a discussion board for students to discuss the class activities amongst themselves. The issue there would be getting them to actually use it. Perhaps if they were prompted to do so, it might continue.
The tech sandbox trip was too short honestly. We needed at least another 45 minutes to an hour to get through the whole thing. As it was, my group only got to see the smartboards and the 3d printing before our time was up. The smartboards are handy for some things, but I feel that they are perhaps a little overhyped. I don't deny that they are significantly better than the reel to reel projectors we had, but in general, they really do not have much more than the "wow" factor. Some things will be easier, and the ability to manipulate items in space is useful. I see them being much more useful for the younger kids as they beg for interactivity, and once you reach the upper grades, you generally want the students staying in their seats to minimize disruption. I'm sure as time goes by, they will expand the software and programs available and think of uses beyond what we have now. As it is, for my purposes, it's not much more than a glorified whiteboard that I can put pictures on. The same goes for the 3D printing. I can see tons of applications for this in certain fields of study. For Social Studies/History, it's not much more than a novelty though. If we'd had them available back when I was in drafting classes though, I would have been in love.
Monday, October 8, 2018
Blog Post 5
Diigo looks to be a very interesting and useful tool for teachers. I can see it being used for teacher/student interactions also, but the inter-teacher communication aspect seems like it would be incredibly handy. The ability to share links and annotations between your peers without sending each individual contact a link and notes is great. The main thing I see as being an issue with this is simple overload. If you have a large group, many links could get lost if there is a large influx of posts at the same time. Aside from that minor niggle, I think this is one of the better applications I've seen for the dissemination of information between teachers.
Diigo looks to be a very interesting and useful tool for teachers. I can see it being used for teacher/student interactions also, but the inter-teacher communication aspect seems like it would be incredibly handy. The ability to share links and annotations between your peers without sending each individual contact a link and notes is great. The main thing I see as being an issue with this is simple overload. If you have a large group, many links could get lost if there is a large influx of posts at the same time. Aside from that minor niggle, I think this is one of the better applications I've seen for the dissemination of information between teachers.
Blogging so far has been okay. It’s not a true blogging experience, mainly because we have topics to talk about in each one, so it’s not free-form rambling of the type of most blogs I pay attention to. Still, writing off the top of my head is one aspect of school I never struggled with. Term papers, essays, whatever, just go from base knowledge and then go back for sources is necessary. I’m good at it, and writing is something I should probably do more of. As for what I’ve learned from it, aside from how to use this particular blogging site, not too much. I mean, I’m learning the systems we use, and learning about the problems and issues that we need to discuss in class, but as far as blogging goes, I’ve done it before, there’s not a whole lot of new stuff coming in here.
The Map As History website is a useful site for a social studies teacher. The website itself is not the prettiest site ever made, but it has a list of historical maps with included videos that explain the progress of the map through time. This could be a useful resource for teachers to present a basic rundown of different periods of history before using class time to go more in depth. The maps update as the video presents new features and the timeline advances so the students will be able to see the procession of time, a topic that is difficult for many students to grasp when simply reading text or listening to a lecture. In an ideal world, the maps would be truly interactive, with the teacher able to control the progression, but this is still an excellent resource. You are able to get a subscription to the site as an individual or as a school. They provide a list of all the available maps and have a list of all contributing authors. The site is fully functional and recommended by a couple of groups, including the French Ministry of Education.
Monday, October 1, 2018
Blog Post 4
Twitter is, in my opinion, one of the worst of the social media platforms, which is saying a lot since I believe that social media is honestly one of the banes of the modern age. The format and users are overall, terrible. Yes, there are useful things about it, and if you try, you can find good information and great links, but the format is conducive to insults and pointless one-liners and nearly anything seen by the general public is liable to go political. Like all social media, Twitter is only as good as the users, and like all social media, the users tend to be awful. I can see the use for it, but I find it very hard to deal with being on it. I have followed one person outside of class, which is Dr. Bob Nicholson, who does humorous Victorian history tweets, but aside from that, I really can’t bring myself to be on there long enough to discover much, even though it will negatively impact my grade. I am serious when I say that Twitter is the worst of social media sites. It will likely not be very helpful in the future, because as soon as the requirement to have an account is over, I will be deleting the account and never, EVER, looking at it again.
The digital divide is a serious issue in schools today, particularly in areas with a disparity between socio-economic levels or rural and city lifestyles. As a teacher, you have to take into account those students who do not have ready access to up-to-date technology. If you teach in a rural area, the students may not even have access to computers at all. In cities and large towns, children could at least go to the libraries to access one if necessary. In smaller towns, even that may not be an option. You must structure your classes in a way that does not disadvantage your students who do not have access to all the modern conveniences. That means no homework or testing that requires online or computer research or work. Luckily, we’ve been teaching without computers for a few millennia now, so figuring out how to go about this shouldn’t be difficult. A lot of schools are now providing computers and/or iPads for the students now, but even then, you must account for any students that are not as adept at using technology as others, and anyone who may not have internet access at home.
Next up is software for students. Having just said you must accommodate your students who may not have computers and access to the internet, it seems like an odd transition to then talk about software for them to use. Particularly since I am aiming to teach in rural communities where they may not have access to these things, so I will hopefully not be requiring my students to have any of this. I suppose if I have to use them, then things like DropBox, which is a simple to use file sharing service. I could use to share files like a syllabus and videos or allow students to submit assignments online. The only other I can think of requiring students to use would be Microsoft Word, which is an easy to use word processing program. I would mainly use this because as a history teacher, the students will be doing a good bit of writing, and I don’t have the time to be trying to decipher handwritten papers, plus the spellcheck is vital since nobody knows how to spell anymore.
Saturday, September 22, 2018
I think the ITSE standard I am most equipped to start off with is "Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest". Throughout my years of school, I've gone through a lot of different technologies and feel pretty well equipped to diversify even further. I'm pretty comfortable with incorporating new things into my techniques and methods as long as someone shows me how to do it. Also, students get bored pretty quickly if you constantly show them the same content over and over in the same formats.
The standard I'm least equipped for is "Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information." This blog is my first venture into online writing, and it's not collaborative. I can't even imagine the issues that would come from any kind of group collaborative writing project done by students. It's bad enough separating them into groups for normal assignments. You run into the exclusionary practices of kids toward each other, fighting amongst each other. I would love to see someone show me how this process works in a normal (non-AP type) class because I simply don't see it as being helpful at all.
CPALMS is one of the best educator resources available online. It has thousands of standards, lesson plans, teacher and student resources, tutorials and more for any grade level and field. In my case, since I would like to teach high school level history, I would personally use resource ID# 169158, which is a video discussion titled "Slavery and the Missouri Compromise". This is a Kahn Academy video, and it does an excellent job of outlining the issues of slavery and the compromises that delayed the split of the U.S. as long as it did. I enjoy how it's done as a question/answer format. I know many students don't want to ask questions in class, so having someone else ask the questions that they may have in mind but don't want to ask could help a good bit.
I actually enjoyed the newsletter assignment. I can't say I learned too much from it, aside from some formatting things, such as the fact that adding a clickable link to a footer is impossible, and that deleting a page from an established template is a royal pain in the rear. It was fun trying to consider just what might be going on in my imaginary classroom and what the class would have studied at this point, what we might be doing, and making up names for all my great students who have done well.
The standard I'm least equipped for is "Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information." This blog is my first venture into online writing, and it's not collaborative. I can't even imagine the issues that would come from any kind of group collaborative writing project done by students. It's bad enough separating them into groups for normal assignments. You run into the exclusionary practices of kids toward each other, fighting amongst each other. I would love to see someone show me how this process works in a normal (non-AP type) class because I simply don't see it as being helpful at all.
CPALMS is one of the best educator resources available online. It has thousands of standards, lesson plans, teacher and student resources, tutorials and more for any grade level and field. In my case, since I would like to teach high school level history, I would personally use resource ID# 169158, which is a video discussion titled "Slavery and the Missouri Compromise". This is a Kahn Academy video, and it does an excellent job of outlining the issues of slavery and the compromises that delayed the split of the U.S. as long as it did. I enjoy how it's done as a question/answer format. I know many students don't want to ask questions in class, so having someone else ask the questions that they may have in mind but don't want to ask could help a good bit.
I actually enjoyed the newsletter assignment. I can't say I learned too much from it, aside from some formatting things, such as the fact that adding a clickable link to a footer is impossible, and that deleting a page from an established template is a royal pain in the rear. It was fun trying to consider just what might be going on in my imaginary classroom and what the class would have studied at this point, what we might be doing, and making up names for all my great students who have done well.
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Blog Journal 2
I did not use MS Word until I was in college the first time around in 1993. As a student, Word has been used merely as a simple word processing program, used to type papers and do simple grammatical and spelling checks. In fact, I’m typing this in Word now. Teachers have used it in a similar way from what I’ve seen, as a word processing program to set up handouts and tests. I believe my experiences missed the greater part of its use, as in High school, it wasn’t much of a thing, and now, most items from teachers are done using PowerPoint, Excel, and other more graphical programs.
I have literally no experience with the use of copyright and fair use in an educational sense that I am aware of. I know the general idea, that copyright can be waived in educational use or for parody, but that is pretty much the extent of my knowledge. I assume that the material would need to be placed into an educational context and adjusted as such, that straight plagiarism would still be off limits. In general, I think it would be helpful to try and stick to creative commons things for education, which would pose no problems at all unless you intended to profit off their use.
Academic honesty – This is becoming much simpler and more difficult at the same time. Easier, because there are literally hundreds of plagiarism checking programs like TurnItIn and Viper available, and many for free. Also, it can be hard though since there are so many more sources available for free on the internet, that students can pull information from sometimes very obscure sources. Also, the programs all depend on algorithms, and some are better suited to different uses. As for cheating, again, this is getting harder to control these days with the proliferation of small internet-connected devices. From my time observing classes, the most common reaction seems to be to roll with it and make many tests open-note. I have seen teachers erect barriers between students, though that seems to make using a smart device for cheating even easier since the view to the teacher is usually blocked also. I am unsure of how to combat this to be completely honest. An easy partial solution, since I plan on teaching history, would be to have more essay tests, where the use of such devices would not be either as easy or as helpful as multiple choice or fill in the blank tests.
Privacy – Privacy is a serious issue in this day with the massive increase in social media sites that are often either hacked or willingly sell their user data to other companies. The irony of the great wide web, free and anonymous, is that it is rapidly becoming neither of these things. Too often your info is getting out there, regardless of your intentions. In the classroom, with the rapidly expanding use of internet-based interactive activities and homework, you run the risk of exposing your student’s data to unscrupulous people. There are partial defenses such as VPNs, but these are only partial solutions and the only sure-fire way to maintain your student’s privacy is to not use the web-based resources available. Perhaps the best solution to this is to use the resources, but to do so using a single classroom access point. You can use a classroom login that contains no student data at all. You would lose the personal interaction that students could get with programs, but still gain the benefit of the programs overall.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
Blog Post 1
The question of what inspires a teacher to use technology in the classroom is a simple one to me. You have to connect with the students in some way and get them to reach their full potential in the classroom, and the easiest way to do that is to give them content and learning tools in a form that they are most comfortable with. For this generation and the next, that will be through technology. This is a difficult proposition for a lot of teachers because school funding can only stretch so far, and all of the nifty gadgets that are designed for the purpose of reaching the new technologically driven students are pricey. Relying on students to use home computers to complete assignments can also be tricky depending on where you teach because, while home computers may be nearly ubiquitous in this age, the level of computer available, and access to it can vary wildly from student to student. It can be hard to find a happy medium where all of the students can be involved without excluding any or holding others back. The simplest solution is to only use technology for the teaching side, and not relying on the students to have anything themselves. That can work to an extent, but you will also lose out on some interesting teaching and learning programs if you do.
The ISTE standards are general guidelines for teaching and learning in the technological age. As general rules of thumb, they are an excellent baseline for students and teachers. They can be used and tweaked to fit any individual classroom and should be read and understood by any teacher who is trying to incorporate more technology into the classroom.
The one that seemed particularly apt to me is the Educator as the learner. It is important to keep up to date with as much as possible, and this is particularly important in a field like educational technology where the pace of change is rapid and as soon as you get new toys, they may be considered obsolete by your students. You need to be able to learn new technologies and techniques rapidly to keep up with other teachers and your students. One thing the standard did not mention is that sometimes, the learning you do will come from your students, as they will likely be more familiar with what you're trying to use than you or your peers.
The one I think I definitely need to work on the most is Teacher as Designer. I am not a terribly creative person, and it can be a struggle to learn new techniques and methods of doing things. I will definitely need help from other sources to learn how exactly to use some of this technology in a teaching fashion, but there should be plenty of help out there to do so.
I think, as a generalization, "Digital Native" works, though the phrasing of this question kind of excludes me. I would not be a digital native, but am in the group of older people who generally take to technology well. And there are (Again, in general, there are always exceptions) differences between the generations, and technology has an effect on the brain. I don't think there's even a question about that. The shorter attention spans are a thing, and it doesn't only affect the students today. I can see changes in myself from the time before I was using the tech all day and when I wasn't. If I step away from the technology for a while, as I like to do on vacation, my attention span and ability to concentrate increase considerably. When I'm immersed in technology, even reading a book, which used to be one of my favorite past times, is a chore. I don't see this issue going away, as the advances keep coming further and faster. I imagine we're not too far off from implantable tech that will allow people to be constantly hooked into everything. It will pose some interesting dilemmas for teachers in the future.
The question of what inspires a teacher to use technology in the classroom is a simple one to me. You have to connect with the students in some way and get them to reach their full potential in the classroom, and the easiest way to do that is to give them content and learning tools in a form that they are most comfortable with. For this generation and the next, that will be through technology. This is a difficult proposition for a lot of teachers because school funding can only stretch so far, and all of the nifty gadgets that are designed for the purpose of reaching the new technologically driven students are pricey. Relying on students to use home computers to complete assignments can also be tricky depending on where you teach because, while home computers may be nearly ubiquitous in this age, the level of computer available, and access to it can vary wildly from student to student. It can be hard to find a happy medium where all of the students can be involved without excluding any or holding others back. The simplest solution is to only use technology for the teaching side, and not relying on the students to have anything themselves. That can work to an extent, but you will also lose out on some interesting teaching and learning programs if you do.
The ISTE standards are general guidelines for teaching and learning in the technological age. As general rules of thumb, they are an excellent baseline for students and teachers. They can be used and tweaked to fit any individual classroom and should be read and understood by any teacher who is trying to incorporate more technology into the classroom.
The one that seemed particularly apt to me is the Educator as the learner. It is important to keep up to date with as much as possible, and this is particularly important in a field like educational technology where the pace of change is rapid and as soon as you get new toys, they may be considered obsolete by your students. You need to be able to learn new technologies and techniques rapidly to keep up with other teachers and your students. One thing the standard did not mention is that sometimes, the learning you do will come from your students, as they will likely be more familiar with what you're trying to use than you or your peers.
The one I think I definitely need to work on the most is Teacher as Designer. I am not a terribly creative person, and it can be a struggle to learn new techniques and methods of doing things. I will definitely need help from other sources to learn how exactly to use some of this technology in a teaching fashion, but there should be plenty of help out there to do so.
I think, as a generalization, "Digital Native" works, though the phrasing of this question kind of excludes me. I would not be a digital native, but am in the group of older people who generally take to technology well. And there are (Again, in general, there are always exceptions) differences between the generations, and technology has an effect on the brain. I don't think there's even a question about that. The shorter attention spans are a thing, and it doesn't only affect the students today. I can see changes in myself from the time before I was using the tech all day and when I wasn't. If I step away from the technology for a while, as I like to do on vacation, my attention span and ability to concentrate increase considerably. When I'm immersed in technology, even reading a book, which used to be one of my favorite past times, is a chore. I don't see this issue going away, as the advances keep coming further and faster. I imagine we're not too far off from implantable tech that will allow people to be constantly hooked into everything. It will pose some interesting dilemmas for teachers in the future.
Monday, August 27, 2018
So, I'm in a class that requires me to have an online presence. I would prefer to stay offline as much as possible, but I'm required to do it, so here goes.
I'm a 43-year-old social sciences education major, which means I'm old enough to be most of these kids parent. It adds a bit of stress to the process, but honestly, school is an immeasurable amount easier than it was the first time around. I've come around to teaching as a profession for two main reasons. First, because I think I can connect with kids fairly well, and enjoy teaching people history, including the little aspects that are missed or ignored by most formal education. Second, because the foreign language requirement for a history major was killing me, especially because it's an all (in my case) Spanish classroom, and that just triggered my super anxiety, because I can't keep up, and felt completely lost without time to recover.
I don't have much in the way of using tech in a formal educational setting. In grade school, computers were not even a thing the schools had. By high school, we had a computer lab, with about six computers, that were mainly used for typing classes. In college the first time, there really was no online, aside from America On-Line, and no self-respecting professor would have used that so again, the computer was a glorified typewriter. Since I've returned after a 20-year hiatus, things have changed a little. Everything is online now, and I have to write a blog. In fact, I think this might be a sign of the coming apocalypse. There are a lot of things the world has but would be better without, and a blog (and a TWITTER account <shock/horror>) from me is pretty high on the list.
I expect that we're going to learn about online networks for teachers and how to maximize your online abilities to increase your learning curve and ceiling as a teacher. What we should probably learn is how to avoid being found by your students, because you know a lot of these teachers have things in their past that the kids will find and use against them. They're digging up tweets from years ago on some of these people. Anything you've put out there in your online time will eventually be found, and that's frightening. Like in most other things, the internet is a great tool, but it's also a horrible and terrible thing that can ruin you and your entire bloodline's future forevermore, and with the complete lack of filter some people have, that is a real problem for someone putting anything out there to be found later.
I'm a 43-year-old social sciences education major, which means I'm old enough to be most of these kids parent. It adds a bit of stress to the process, but honestly, school is an immeasurable amount easier than it was the first time around. I've come around to teaching as a profession for two main reasons. First, because I think I can connect with kids fairly well, and enjoy teaching people history, including the little aspects that are missed or ignored by most formal education. Second, because the foreign language requirement for a history major was killing me, especially because it's an all (in my case) Spanish classroom, and that just triggered my super anxiety, because I can't keep up, and felt completely lost without time to recover.
I don't have much in the way of using tech in a formal educational setting. In grade school, computers were not even a thing the schools had. By high school, we had a computer lab, with about six computers, that were mainly used for typing classes. In college the first time, there really was no online, aside from America On-Line, and no self-respecting professor would have used that so again, the computer was a glorified typewriter. Since I've returned after a 20-year hiatus, things have changed a little. Everything is online now, and I have to write a blog. In fact, I think this might be a sign of the coming apocalypse. There are a lot of things the world has but would be better without, and a blog (and a TWITTER account <shock/horror>) from me is pretty high on the list.
I expect that we're going to learn about online networks for teachers and how to maximize your online abilities to increase your learning curve and ceiling as a teacher. What we should probably learn is how to avoid being found by your students, because you know a lot of these teachers have things in their past that the kids will find and use against them. They're digging up tweets from years ago on some of these people. Anything you've put out there in your online time will eventually be found, and that's frightening. Like in most other things, the internet is a great tool, but it's also a horrible and terrible thing that can ruin you and your entire bloodline's future forevermore, and with the complete lack of filter some people have, that is a real problem for someone putting anything out there to be found later.
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