This week I worked with a lot of programs with which I am extremely familiar. Google Docs is a great resource and we use it all the time at FLVS. Since we all work remotely, it is important for us to be able to share information quickly and to have the ability to work on documents together. I enjoyed working on the projects this week, and I was happy to have the opportunity to discuss these products with my classmates.
My Calendar, Newsletter, and Presentation projects allowed me to use these programs in new ways. I think that creating a dynamic virtual newsletter for our students would be a great way to get information to them quickly. We would have the ability to embed it into our course welcome page relatively seamlessly.
Everything we do at FLVS relating to productivity is based on technology. We have electronic gradebooks, electronic student monitoring, Google Docs, MS Office, Concur Expenses (for travel), and countless other tools to help us do our jobs better. I am very reliant on my Outlook and iPhone calendars. They are the only way I know how my day will go. Unlike a classroom teacher, my daily schedule varies day to day, even hour to hour. My students continually make and cancel appointments, I attend meetings, and I cover other teachers' classes. Without my digital "helpers," I would never be able to stay on top of my day to day activities.
Because I teach online, all of our assessments are delivered digitally. My students complete their assignments and submit them to me electronically. They take a quiz at the end of each module, which is auto-graded. One thing that Google Forms does that our system does not is break down the data relating to the questions. I would love to be able to analyze the data from our quizzes to determine the validity and reliability of the questions. I doubt I could convince my school to switch to Google Forms (we have a contract with our course content designers, after all), but I think it would be very valuable for the teachers to have access to quiz and exam data to determine how effective these means of assessments really are.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Technology Blog - Week 6
I felt very comfortable with the material this week. Having taken the Instructional Design course recently, I am very familiar with the concept of Backwards Design. It's incredible how "common sense" this approach seems. I remember having a "why didn't I think of this before" moment when I first read about Backwards Design. It just makes sense!
I really enjoyed reading my classmates' posts this week. It was enlightening to see what everyone felt was the most important. I mentioned to one of my classmates that I wish I had chosen one of her ideas, because after reading her post, I was reminded of how important it is. She mentioned "teacher as facilitator" and I have discovered very recently what a great idea this is. As teachers, we should feel confident and comfortable in letting our students take the lead on some projects and activities. We should encourage their creativity and facilitate their learning, rather than standing up front feeding them information. Many of these elements all work in tandem to create a dynamic, inspiring learning environment!
I am very interested in continuing our WebQuest project. I am not fully convinced that my idea will work exactly how I want it to, but I hope that as I progress into the "nuts and bolts" of the project, it will come together the way I envision. I have lots of experience with Google Sites from my own classroom and personal use, and I feel confident that my project design will be clean, appealing, and user-friendly.
I really enjoyed reading my classmates' posts this week. It was enlightening to see what everyone felt was the most important. I mentioned to one of my classmates that I wish I had chosen one of her ideas, because after reading her post, I was reminded of how important it is. She mentioned "teacher as facilitator" and I have discovered very recently what a great idea this is. As teachers, we should feel confident and comfortable in letting our students take the lead on some projects and activities. We should encourage their creativity and facilitate their learning, rather than standing up front feeding them information. Many of these elements all work in tandem to create a dynamic, inspiring learning environment!
I am very interested in continuing our WebQuest project. I am not fully convinced that my idea will work exactly how I want it to, but I hope that as I progress into the "nuts and bolts" of the project, it will come together the way I envision. I have lots of experience with Google Sites from my own classroom and personal use, and I feel confident that my project design will be clean, appealing, and user-friendly.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Technology Blog - Week 5
I spent a good part of this week away from my home and my computer. I started the week (just as I had ended last week) in Homestead, Florida visiting one of my Florida Virtual School Blended Learning Labs. I was able to spend 2 days working face to face with some of my virtual students. This does not happen very often in my position, and I really enjoyed being able to see my students in person. I have visited the school 4 times this year, and this was my last trip. It was frustrating to see how much the technology was holding them back. The lab suffers from malfunctioning laptops, slow internet, intermittent wifi, and not enough student workstations. I think that if we are going to use technology in our classrooms to teach our students, that technology needs to work!
I reviewed Solfeggio Maestro 6 this week for my project. I found the program to be very frustrating at first, until I really explored the creation tools. By inputting a set of parameters, the program would actually auto-generate sight-reading exercises based on those parameters. It was quite impressive. I have spent a lot of time in the front of my classroom composing brief sight-reading exercises on the spot, and this program would save me a lot of time and frustration. It is easy to pinpoint an exact skill on which you want to work, input the parameters, and get brief examples that are exactly what you need. The biggest downside, as I discussed in my review, is that you are unable to print the examples for use at a later time.
After checking out my Feedly page and posting on my Twitter feed and Google+ account, I felt very frustrated that we had another social networking page to explore. The layout and interface of Diigo are clean and easy to use, and I do prefer it to the Google+ group. My biggest problem is that I already have multiple social networks active (both personally and professionally). Therefore, I don't see myself adding Diigo to my professional or social life after this class. I do think that it is possible to become too connected and have too many places to explore each day or week. They all tend to blend together and I think involvement in too many networks (personal or professional) can be counterproductive.
I really enjoyed listening to my classmates' remix projects this week. I think that one of the best parts of this course is that we have been able to listen to and discuss each other's work. Some of my classmates have expressed their frustration with those assignments, and I feel as though I have been able to lend a bit of support and encouragement to them as they move on through the class. I have felt very comfortable with the technology we have used throughout the course, and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to help my classmates, if even for a brief moment.
I reviewed Solfeggio Maestro 6 this week for my project. I found the program to be very frustrating at first, until I really explored the creation tools. By inputting a set of parameters, the program would actually auto-generate sight-reading exercises based on those parameters. It was quite impressive. I have spent a lot of time in the front of my classroom composing brief sight-reading exercises on the spot, and this program would save me a lot of time and frustration. It is easy to pinpoint an exact skill on which you want to work, input the parameters, and get brief examples that are exactly what you need. The biggest downside, as I discussed in my review, is that you are unable to print the examples for use at a later time.
After checking out my Feedly page and posting on my Twitter feed and Google+ account, I felt very frustrated that we had another social networking page to explore. The layout and interface of Diigo are clean and easy to use, and I do prefer it to the Google+ group. My biggest problem is that I already have multiple social networks active (both personally and professionally). Therefore, I don't see myself adding Diigo to my professional or social life after this class. I do think that it is possible to become too connected and have too many places to explore each day or week. They all tend to blend together and I think involvement in too many networks (personal or professional) can be counterproductive.
I really enjoyed listening to my classmates' remix projects this week. I think that one of the best parts of this course is that we have been able to listen to and discuss each other's work. Some of my classmates have expressed their frustration with those assignments, and I feel as though I have been able to lend a bit of support and encouragement to them as they move on through the class. I have felt very comfortable with the technology we have used throughout the course, and I am glad that I have had the opportunity to help my classmates, if even for a brief moment.
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