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.

First Timer - E-Learning

Ok, now I'm getting into it for real. I am creating a unit where 5th graders at Grand Haven Christian School will be using Google Sites to do collaborative projects in Social Studies with Mr. Koning.

Day 1 took awhile. I'm scheduled for 30 minutes, but dismissed them after 45. The kids said, no, we're not doing anything important. Then just they left, one of the teachers, Mrs. Rotman, showed up asking why they hadn't left yet. She was really cool about it, even though they should have been working on science even though the kids said it was nothing important.

But everyone was able to access their new Google account and get into their start page. We're going to be working on how to get to Google Sites and selecting the background, posting information, adding images, and a variety of other things over the next two weeks and after we get back from Christmas vacation. Then we will assign teams and let one of the kids set up the official team site and invite the other team members, Mr. Koning, and myself to join the group.

4teachers.org

4teachers.org is a collection of websites and resources that allow the teacher/instructor many choices in creating online learning opportunities. I have found that the ...Star choices (rubistar for rubrics, trackstar for weblists, quizstar for online quizzes, and notestar for taking notes online) are really valuable. Just today I created 3 different rubrics for projects we are going to be doing this coming school year.

A reall cool one was KidsVid. This tool allows kids to edit and upload videos to the WWW. It also gives them suggestions from experts and from other kids.

Definitely a resource to take advantage of!

Collecting My Thoughts

As I was looking at how I was going to set up my final project, I wanted to use GooglePages. This is the same resource I used during the first class I took with Dennis O'Connor and it worked simply and well. When I located it, Google said they are not taking any new people on GooglePages as they are going to put all their time and effort into GoogleSites.

Well......I guess it's time for me to move on up as well. So I set up my final project. I'm not sure if I really like the layout. I want to be able to have a navigation bar someplace on the page, but right now I really don't have the time to do it and still meet the deadline thanks to a chiropractor visit, working at the golf course, and then working out tonight.

I expect to go back and reset it however, because i need to sign up for the next class in the cycle. Then I'll make sure I can get it working how I want.

Reflections on Module 6

This was kind of an interesting week. One, I had a migraine that lasted about 2 days, so I was a little bit behind. Then, trying to determine what class I wanted to push online took a few days of soul searching. Finally, trying to create an adequate survey at surveymonkey.com to meet my requirement of 10 questions took some time (here's the link I think I'll be using with my 8th graders this fall).

I think trying to have the kids at GHCS work in a more online environment will be easier than my kids at the public school. However, I see the kids at the public school more. I hope that by converting some of the requirements to online that I will be able to get my 8th graders more involved with what's going on. Also, it will help the school meet the state requirement that all students must have an online learning experience by the end of 8th grade. I think I'll also have them use Google Docs as their resource when working online, then when we are ready to present, I will have them convert it to PowerPoint to make it easier to present in class.

My Midterm Team

Michelle, Janice, Holly, and Ann were great teammates. Unfortunately for them, I was on the team. I suppose part of the problem is that I was on vacation with the nearest internet access 10 miles away at the local public library. While I was able to get on twice during the week, I wasn't always checking my university email. Then, I fell in the shower and hurt my back. I'm sitting at my computer right now with an ice pack on it still, five days after the initial pain struck.

They were concerned about me, but didn't let that hold them back from completing the midterm in fine fashion. I was able to complete and post my section to the Google docs page, Professor Khala, and Janice only one day past the official deadline. Which was the first day I actually was able to sit at my computer chair without pain.