CEDO 555 Entry One

And so begins the portfolio experience. It does bring me back to my teacher education program a little bit as I had to build three portfolios through that experience, but none were digital. I do recall the experience being worthwile as the evidence and reflection were memorable. I found the portfolio in a closet the other day as a matter of fact. Taking a look at it has caused me to reflect a bit on the experience back then and my thoughts now.

First off it will be nice to have a neatly organized digital portfolio as opposed to the big and bulky binder that has traveled with me for six years. Having an electronic binder is also more conducive to sharing and collaboration as it can easily be viewed and commented on by others. It will allow for more creativity and a more diverse collection of artifacts.

I have also been inspired to have students create portfolio's in my summer school class this year. My Civics students will be submitting a webpage that displays reflections on examples of their best work related to course objectives. I am very excited to see how they turn out and feel they will be better indicators of student achievement than a traditional final exam.

So the gathering and reflecting will soon begin...

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.

https://creately.com/diagram/h1r3t7m61/W9ArWWb9P6cSEkEaKSEZNxaX0zA%3D

CEDO 550 Entry One

Prior to enrolling in this masters program my online learning experience had been limited to a select few assignments in college that were posted on a Blackboard website. I joined the program because it was an area I was very interested in and the flexibility & convenience it offered were very appealing.

So far I have truly enjoyed my experience with online learning. The flexibility it has offered fits my lifestyle because I teach full time and coach two sports plus keep a very active social life. Being committed to traveling and attending several hours of class every week is not something that I was particularly excited about. Being able to do assignments when and where I want has been great and has made this a more enjoyable educational experience. Getting my master's was something I thought would be drudgery but has turned out to be a truly valuable experience. To me the true to test of an educational experience's effectiveness is whether or not it deepens and expands my interest in the subject or not. In this case I have become significantly more interested in Instructional Technology and spend a great deal of my free time expanding upon what I have learned, even if it is not required for class.

The only part of the program that I do not always enjoy, and it is not due to the other people I work with, is the group assignments. Scheduling and having to set time aside for a group meeting can be inconvenient. While I understand the purpose of them and have enjoyed everyone I have worked with it can be difficult finding a common time to meet and work. I have also had some technical difficulties during class with staying connected because my wireless connection is not always the greatest.

Overall my online learning experience has far exceeded my expectations. How anyone could not enjoy learning at their own pace and convenience is beyond me. After going through this process myself one of my career goals is to spread my professional development to others and hopefully make Online Learning part of my career.