International Online Conference

Last night, March 31, I was panelist in a discussion of how online learning is happening K-12 schools. It was a really good learning experience for me. I was definitely nervous and I felt that I did a bit a yammering on, not always on topic.

I think if I am asked to participate in the future in one of these, one simple thing to do to help me would be to write down the questions as I am asked. It would give me a brief moment to start thinking and straighten my thoughts out.

My co-panelists, Greg, Erica, and Ginnie, were much more effective in communicating their thoughts than I was, IMO. Perhaps because they have rather more experience than I do in implementing and teaching online learning courses, being the newbie that I am with only 3 short term projects online in my teaching career.

I don't really look forward to going back and listening to it, but I think it is very important for my own growth that I do. Regardless, it was a wonderful opportunity and I thank Susan Manning for asking me to participate.

EASy and Super3

I found it interesting to read and learn about the EASy way to create lesson plans. This is an advancement of Bloom's taxonomy, but in the format, students evaluate their resources to select the best, most appropriate information sources first, then create the new product.

Similar in theory to the Super 3 by Eisenberg and Berkowitz, which is designed for elementary students. This tool is broken into Plan, Do, and Review. You plan by determining your problem and identifying resource location (Evaluate). Then you locate the information you need and use it to learn and research (Analysis). Finally the student synthesize the information into a product. (Synthesize) But that's not all. The student then has the opportunity to evaluate and see if what they've created is what they wanted to. If it isn't this step allows the student to go back to any of the steps and restart the process all over again.

One of my challenges in facilitating peer feedback is trying to really develop questions that will allow other posters to continue the discussion in a thoughtful way. This, I sense, is a skill that many of my classmates are also working on.

How to save time

When working in an online environment, I felt like I had to check my messages a couple of times each day. It seemed like if I didn't, I would miss out on the immediacy of the discussions. When I read in Time Management Tips for Teaching Online and E-Learning that one thing to do is to avoid checking for postings to the discussions or submissions to the drop box several times a day. This is not necessary. Set a schedule such as checking for new discussion postings only once a day. Check the course home page for new posts or submissions at a glance I was quite surprised. I suppose I can understand why it may be necessary as an instructor, but as a student it is a different story.

Another option, reorder the discussion forums so that the current week/module’s forums are at the top of the page. This saves the time it would take to scroll down and locate the correct forum, is a simple choice to make. At one point in this course, I found the reflection/portfolio link at the top of the page. Then later in the week, it had fallen back to the bottom. I believe that I would set up preferences so that each week the postings would go to the top of the page. It would definitely save the students a bit of time.

Preparation is the Key

When preparing for any project or class, the success or failure lies in the preparation. When I spend extra time, really evaluating what I think the kids will be asking, when I prepare myself to really understand the software, or when I know exactly what I want the kids to get out of doing the project, I am successful.

I find that after I teach a new software and let the kids start to use it, I really enjoy working with them. I have the opportunity to conduct teaching while walking around. It also allows the kids to ask their neighbor for assistance on a question before they ask me. So the kid who knows the answer becomes empowered. It's just the time necessary for the kids to become "proficient" in the software that sometimes is challenging.

In those situations, I find it really valuable to let the kids do the teaching. This week my 6th graders were instructed to try and figure out how to insert hyperlinks into their Google Sites pages for homework. I opened up a page at the next class period and 3 students each showed their classmates a different way to add a hyperlink to a webpage.

I would also like to apologize for the tardiness of this post. From Friday afternoon through Sunday early evening, I was travel 3 hours each way to Frankenmuth (Christmas Wonderland) for a professional development conference and association meeting. The topic was on integrating the latest learning standards from the American Association of School Librarians, the 21st Century Standards for Learners. It was a very good experience and I brought several ideas back to my district plus one of my colleagues attended, so we were able to discuss immediately items that came up. Then Monday, I led my 4th-5th grade running club after school and had to attend a union meeting after that until 830. I kept up on my reading, but not the posting or writing so much.

Aha! So this is what the internet is for!

It's pretty amazing the kinds of tools available for free that embody web2.0. Of course, what we're seeing now is pretty much what Tim Berners-Lee had in mind when he and Robert Cailliau invented the world wide web: "a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information."

Tools like Jing allow instructors to share directions using action and audio instead of passing out paper directions. Kids can access those wherever the instructor posts them at their convenience.

Using RSS feeds from sites that have information you want to follow takes the work out of it for the user. Whenever something is added to the desired site, a message is sent to you.

Being able to share what you are doing on your screen in real time with others while communicating in chat or with a webcam using Adobe Acrobat Connect is truly amazing. Not just posting a file, but to do it live in small groups is a wonderful application of Berner-Lee's vision of the world wide web.

Venus and Mars

One thing I found interesting last week was the idea that gender could play a role in how people interact in a discussion board. According to the article by Victor Savicki and Merle Kelley, Computer Mediated Communication: Gender and Group Composition, in CyberPsychology & Behavior from October 1, 2000 there are gender differences in how men and women generally respond in an online forum.

Savicki and Kelley's finding suggest that males tend to use "authoritative language (e.g. strong assertions), male language features (e.g. absolute adverbials), and negative socioemotional discourse (e.g. disagreement, challenging utterances)".

Females, on the other hand, will often communicate in "attenuated language (e.g. personal opinion, qualifiers), female language features (e.g. intensifiers, self-disclosure), and positive socioemotional discourse (e.g. agreement, requests opinions)".

Trying to get females and males working together cooperatively can be difficult in the best of elementary and middle school classrooms, but trying to do it online without nonverbal and verbal cues make it even a greater challenge. Encouraging the males in the group to support their assertions with reasons and to have females try to refrain from sharing personal opinions during the course is one way I could use this information.

Regardless, it was an interesting thought.

Two Bs or not Two Bs

The thing I was most interested in learning about during Module 2 was to wonder how things were going to work in my next group. As two of the members of the group are Type A personalities and two are Type B personality, I wonder how things will work. I suppose the pressure of having the As pushing the Bs into meeting their deadlines will allow us to finish earlier. But I hope they don't get too stressed out if we Bs don't get going right away.

This learning will benefit me as an online facilitator because it will encourage me to consider personality types when setting up groups. Today, one of my fifth grade classes was supposed to be working in cooperative groups. A number of different students came up to me and said they couldn't work with either individuals at their table or that some weren't trying. I'm not sure how much of it was personality issues and how much was the class was being cranky as the teacher confirmed to me after school that they were the whole day long.

In an online environment, being able to place students who will work well together is a much greater challenge than in my library. I know my students (generally), so I can tell who to definitely not have at the same table if I want to keep the chaos to a minimum. Knowing who to place together is hard to do online. By providing the group the opportunity to try out different personality tests and share the results will let the members understand what they are getting into and what to expect based on personalities.

Following Directions and Pet Peeves

While I don't believe I gained any new skills, I did have the opportunity to review for myself the importance of really reading directions very carefully. Over the years of practicing skimming and scanning and trying to teach those skills to students, I have ingrained them as well. So when I thought I was responding correctly, I wasn't really.

This will help me as an online facilitator because it will encourage me to read and review my directions ahead of presenting them to the class. Also, by saving my posting/directions in a draft form overnight should allow me to return to them with a fresh perspective and see if they make sense to just me or to everyone.

I was really glad to see in the directions for Module 2 that it will be encouraged to drop the whole posting that a person is responding to. Unfortunately, it doesn't just happen here. On most of the listservs I belong to people simply hit the reply button. It's not a HUGE problem when they are simply responding to a single post. It is a problem when they are responding to a digest version. THEN I get to scroll through the whole previous digest trying to find the next message. Grrrr.