Week #3 in CEDO 550

This week (well two actually) we took a look at synchronous versus asynchronous discussions and how we can better facilitate student achievement and engagement in both. To help us understand the differences each student in the class will be running a 15 minute synchronous discussion and a topic on our class website as our asynchronous discussion.  For my presentation I will be taking a look at issues of access and equity in the online classroom. The 15 minute presentation will mostly be based on the work of NACOL in their Issues Brief. You can read more about it here.

I am looking forward to see how this all goes.  It should be fun.

Speaking of fun. I got to go hunting for the first time with my father in law. I got really lucky and got a nice sized doe. We'll be eating well for a while, but the trip out plus thanksgiving family obligations has made me fall a little behind.  Here is to catching up!

Here is the deer!

Week #2 in CEDO 550

This week we looked at the differences in Synchronous and Asynchronous communication as it works in online education. We got a chance to see behind the curtain of Elluminate and run a couple of synchronous discussions on a few talking points.  This was useful to see what classroom skills translate into the world of online education and what does not.  I found that I rely on non verbal cues from my students to a great deal and need to consciously recognize that my students in an online setting will not be able to give this to me.  Instead I need to build upon the skills that are being talked about in this class to better serve my students in an online capacity.

Week #1 in CEDO 550

This week we took are first steps into being online educators.  We used Elluminate as a teacher rather than just as a student.  We read articles about some positives and negatives in online education. Lastly we took a look at a bunch of different examples of online modules for learning.  My big three were:

1. Hippocampus: this website has some great AP Physics content inside of it. (clicking the link sends you to Newton's 1st law of motion movie) I hope to use this for creating some supplemental material for my AP and honors students.

2.  Rocket Science 101: this website takes you through the parts of a rocket and what they are used for.  This will be great for my Science 9 students and their rocketry unit.

3. Crash Scene Investigation: this website gives you a CSI look at how to use physics to determine what happened in an accident.  This would be a fun side project for physics to try out.

Week #6 in CEDO 535

As a summary exercise we are supposed to make a SMART goal for how we will implement what we have learned in this class to our own classes. A SMART goal is an acronym for:

(credit for the above image goes to Prof. Loeffler at Cardinal Stritch University)

My SMART goal is to use Screenr to create a series of 30 AP problem solutions that the students will be able to work on and view.  In order to share the work load, I'm going to try to have students create the screencasts during their review time and then we will use each other's results to help practice for the test.  The screencasts can then be embedded into our Blackboard site for viewing, or I can put them up on my web page for the students after I have checked them for accuracy.  This should empower the students to review at their own pace as well as enable me to check for their understanding individually verbally.

Week #5 in CEDO

This week we finished up our google sites and worked on finding new web 2.0 tools. The tool I chose to look at was a flash game creation tool called classtools.net

This tool lets students make their own flash games for reviews or to make annotated pictures.  Here is one that I made in only 10 minutes:

Click here for larger version

This is a great tool and students will love it!  I hope to use it with my students soon as everyone loves to make and play games.

Screencast on Smartnotebook Use

Here is a useful Smart Notebook screencast to get you familiar with the digital whiteboard software.

Week #4 in CED 535

This week in CED 535 we are working with podcasts, wikis and crowd-sourcing.  I have been a huge fan of screencasting for quite a while, but I have only done 2 or 3 podcasts for my students.  My biggest hurdle has been trying to get the files in a place that is accessible to my students both at school and at home.  Chapter 8 of our book has given me some avenues to check out since Youtube, iTunes, and multiple Youtube clones are all blocked by my school and I have been looking for a quality hosting environment. If anyone has any other ideas, please share!

I look forward to exploring wiki use in my classroom since it has been a couple of years since we had a big wiki push that left all the students dreading the use of the term "wiki". Hopefully with the knowledge that we have been getting from these courses I can set mine up in a way that does not make it extra busy work, rather useful and meaningful to my students.