CEDO 550 Entry Six

The Facilitating Online Learning Course has given me a lot to think about in regards to the future of education. It is my belief, and a big part of the reason I chose to get my Master's Degree through this program, that technology will play a huge role in the future of education and is not going to be a passing fad or have a small niche. Online learning will be a big part of this and could change the way education is delivered.
Many schools are creating virtual schools and requiring online courses for graduation and those districts are likely going to be far ahead with changes in education. It will likely become commonplace in teacher education programs that students get certification in online teaching and many districts will require it of all their teachers. My main question is, what will education look like in 5-10 years? What role will online learning play in all of this?
One of my hopes is that I will soon get the opportunity to teach online courses myself. There is a growing segment of people including adult learners, higher education students,  and K-12 students who can greatly benefit from online learning and I want to play a role in that. I continue to be happy that my passion for education and instructional technology continues to grow and I am starting to look forward to supplementing my existing career with what I learn.

CEDO 550 Entry Five

Although it is difficult to make accurate predictions of the future there are several things that I do see happening:
1. Retinal or fingerprint recognition software will become a significant part of online education. One of the main drawbacks of online education is that it does leave the door open for academic dishonesty. Although most students will do their work there is potential for fraud or cheating to occur. Therefore I predict that computers will come with some sort of identity recognition software that force users to prove their identity.
2. Textbooks will become obsolete. Although this is not by any means a bold prediction it is unlikely that budget strapped districts will invest in textbooks for much longer. Even e-textbooks may become more obsolete as teachers may choose to create custom and more interactive options such as wiki's, podcasts/vodcasts, or webquests to present content. Most subjects also already contain a variety of online resources that are free to use.
3. Tighter copywrite and fair use restrictions will be legislated. Although I do not support the SOPA law and worry about censorship on the web, the reality is that a lot of material is being pirated and people are not being compensated for their work. Eventually this will have to be addressed.
4. Teachers will spend a majority of their face-to-face time with struggling learners. Most students are more than capable of learning through primarily web-based means. Moving forward it will be more effective and efficient for most students to get a majority of their instruction through online learning and teachers will spend most of their face-to-face time working with students who do not respond to online learning or need intense interventions.
5. Online learning will be the key to America's future prosperity. No longer will schools be able to use the excuse of not having enough effective teachers or students not being able to have access to the best education. Online learning opens up doors to students in the most difficult of educational scenarios and truly can offer everyone a high-quality education.

So there are my predictions for the future of online learning. It would be nice to get a couple of them right.

CEDO 550 Entry Four

Blogging is a formative assessment tool that could be valuable in online learning. It is a way for students to quickly demonstrate understanding of a learning objective while also providing easy monitoring and feedback for the teacher. It allows students to create a personalized learning experience and better connect to their learning which are fringe benefits to the formative assessment experience.

• Student Responds: Student posts answering a question or reflecting on a topic taught during a lesson or activity.
• Monitor the Response: Using an RSS Reader teacher will be able to efficiently monitor student blog entries.
• Diagnose the Response: Teacher will informally determine student understanding in relation to the specific learning targets in order to decide what action should be taken.
• Share Feedback Based on the Diagnosis: Teacher will provide comments on student blogs relating their response to the learning target. Feedback will fill gaps in student understanding and if necessary will provide links or ways for student to receive additional instruction or intervention. Teacher may need to intervene more intensively if student shows minimal understanding of objectives.
• Student Uses Feedback to Learn: The feedback, additional instruction, and/or intervention should help fill in gaps in learning allowing the student to perform better on the summative assessment.
• Report Growth and Celebrate: Teacher and student will be rewarded with high achievement on summative assessment.

CEDO 550 Entry Three

One of my primary goals in taking this Master's Program is to develop and teach online courses on a full or part time basis. What I have realized is that in many cases being an online instructor can be just as or even more demanding than a regular classroom instructor. An online instructor must be available to their students well beyond the traditional school day and provide timely feedback to any concerns or work. They also must be able to perform a variety of roles.
I do belief that I posess many of the skills necessary to be an online instructor. I will need to become more organized in order to provide quicker feedback to students. I also am very good at finding learning resources online but need to organize and share them better with students. I look forward to hopefully testing my abilities as an online instructor and eventually making it part of my career.

Learning Plan

CEDO 550 Entry Two

I chose to focus on comparing blended learning and online learning. Although I really enjoy online learning and feel it has been a great experience for me, most of the students I teach may not be at a developmentally appropriate age to experience full online learning. Most still need frequent monitoring and to be held accountable by a teacher on a face-to-face level. For that reason the blended learning model seems most appropriate for most high school students. They are still able to experience many of the benefits and flexibility of online learning while still having a teacher closely monitor and work with them.

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