RSA 5- We're not in Kansas anymore- we're behind them.

Online Source: http://www.techlearning.com/article/7396

Our readings this week focus on quality professional development plans for educators and how teachers should be teaching and learning with technology.  Teachers need support and collaboration with teachers to best adapt, use, and implement into their curriculum.  If teachers aren’t directly involved in the subject area or outcome, the professional development offered won’t be worth much to them.   Quality professional development plans (PDPs) should include focusing on content knowledge, integrating the school’s current goals, and collaborating measures amongst staff.  (AERA, 2005) The collaboration is one that many teachers are not welcoming.  Can you believe teachers, have to learn how to work together to create meaningful lessons?  It follows the age old saying of “two heads are better than one”.   Even President Obama’s proposals call for “collaborative professional development” (Islas, M.R. 2010, p. 14). Since we teach our students to be collaborative, we should welcome the same when we are learning to teach best practices.

The article I am sharing showcases a district in Kansas who did exactly that.  They collaborated by sharing, pooling together, and housing all of their resources so all can access them.  How did they accomplish this?  TECHNOLOGY, of course!  The shared a network space to post files and resources, which was useful when grade level shifts to new buildings.  These teachers also had staff development workshops they called “staff academies”  with consultants who took current lessons and modeled how to adapt them with technology in mind.  Now, the teachers can find, share, or create resources to go along with skills they were already teaching.  (Goodvin S. & Kern, J. 2007)

Overall, the benefits of using technology behoove both teacher and student, since student achievement will improve.  Teachers need professional development opportunities in order for tech to have a chance to change in the classroom.  Plopping a new gizmo in the room is not enough, even for the tech savvy.  Instead, give us workshops and time to explore how to use the gizmo and be more comfortable with it; It will be more beneficial to not only the teachers, but also the real benefactors being the students.  Professional development is the only way.        

References

American Educational Research Association (AERA). (2005). Teaching teachers: Professional development to improve student achievement. Research Points Essential Information for Education Policy, 3(1), 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED491587.pdf

Goodvin, S., & Kern, J. (June 2007).  Teachers leaning on teachers.  Educators’ Ezine.  Retreived from http://www.techlearning.com/article/7396

Islas, M. R. (December, 2010). The federal policy landscape: A look at how legislation affects professional development. JSD. 31(6), 11-14. Retrieved from http://www.learningforward.org/news/getDocument.cfm?articleID=2166

RSA #4 Online Learning VS. Hybrid Learning Vs. Traditional Classroom

Online Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3890/is_201010/ai_n56442679/

With online learning gaining popularity, over traditional learning taking place in the classroom, which method of instruction is truly better? According to our reading this week, online learning is successful because of the person who facilitates the learning.  This person could have a background in technology and teaching.  Maybe there are two facilitators, one tech expert and one expert teacher, who work in tandem to create a successful online course.  In either case, the instructor(s) of online learning communities are flexible and “maintain an attitude of being in the together [with] a willingness to adapt and adjust.” (Palloff & Pratt, 2007, pg. 124.)  Teachers of today, also have to be flexible in the classrooms with various learning styles.  The text also uses findings from Rovai’s and Jordan’s (2004) research to say, students perform better with online communities that meet face to face, because of “reduced sense of isolation” and [appealing]to more dependent learners who rely on direct instructor contact to support their learning process.”  (as cited in Palloff & Pratt, 2007, p. 125)  This study focused on the graduate level learners, and did not compare to younger elementary learners. 

After reading the survey results, online learning is duplicating at a fast rate.  Research states that “about 25% of K-12 schools offer some form of e-learning to virtual school instruction” and that using online learning will help attract math, science, and foreign language teachers to both rural and urban school districts (Picciano & Seaman, 2007, p.17).  The main focus is on blended or hybrid instruction which by definition means “30 to 79% of the content delivered online and blends online and face-to-face delivery. Substantial proportion of the content is delivered online, sometimes uses online discussions, typically has few face-to-face meetings" (Picciano & Seaman, 2007, from chart in Appendix).  This blended delivery supports social development vital to a younger child’s learning and other participants who thrive with human interaction through face to face meetings.  Additionally, blended online learning sways those against the quality of online learning, those who argue student readiness, and for those who need to ease into it for professional development.   

McGown states advantages and disadvantages to hybrid learning in the online article.  Among the many advantages is online collaboration, use of web 2.0 tools, and that the learner is “self-motivated” and “disciplined” (2010 p.2).  The biggest disadvantage mentioned is course management.  Setting up an online community is the biggest challenge for both facilitator and students.  The same can be said for class management in a traditional classroom, which is best learned from experience. 

The Champion: Hybrid Learning
All three readings PRO-HYBRID, which means research not only supports online learning, but truly feels the hybrid model provides the best of both worlds: a traditional classroom meets the online classroom.  Perhaps, educators need to tap into this education model for K-12 for hybrid education. 

References

Palloff R. & Pratt, K. (2007). Building Online Learning Communities: Effective Strategies for the Virtual

Classroom, (2nd ed.). San Franciso: Jossey-Bass.

McCown, L. (2010) Blended Courses: The Best of Online and Traditional Formats,  Clinical Laboratory

Science, [Retrieved from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3890/is_201010/ai_n56442679/?tag=content;col1]

 Picciano, A and Seaman PhD., J (2007) K–12 ONLINE LEARNING: A SURVEY OF U.S.SCHOOL DISTRICT

ADMINISTRATORS Sloan Consortium. USA:Sloan-C.  [http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/K-12_Online_Learning.pdf]

Rovai, A.P. and Jordan, H. “Blended Learning and a Sense of Community: A Comparative Analysis with

Traditional and Fully Online Graduate Courses, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 5(2), 2004. [http://www.irrodl.org]

Survey for building social presence-Take It!

Social presence allows others to share socially and emotionally in an online environment.  Online tools like facebook, twitter, and blogging offer a means to maintain that social presence.  People need to update their status update in order to feel they are special.  Using online resources, one can share their successes or moodiness by a quick tweet or new profile picture.   Overall, the common thread to having a successful social presence is to communicate.  Online technology presents a different mode to get the same information across in a faster and equally effective rate.

In order for social presence to work for an online classroom,  the teacher needs to create that human interaction through technology.  One way to create social presence is by an “introduction/ getting to know you” activity.    Each teacher could take the online favorites survey.  Each has to copy or link their favorite and comment on similarities to each other.

Here’s a SAMPLE:

Answer this survey using pictures or links to pictures. Copy and paste this in your reply, then add the answers.
1. Favorite science course (life, physics, earth, chemistry, space, etc.)

2. What’s your favorite scent?

3. Describe a delicious meal?

4. Where is your dream vacation?

5. Put something random- anything else we should know about you?

You learn a lot about each other, maybe more than you would have learned in the teacher’s lounge.  You can use that to build future colleague relationships, learn each other’s strengths, and divvy up responsibility using your choice online tool (email, skype, blackboard, google docs, etc.), for collaboration.

Here's my answers to the survey:

1. Favorite science area (life, physics, earth, chemistry, space, etc.)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmHxYE_vDBs2. What’s your favorite scent?
http://www.ilovegain.com/home.do

3. Describe a delicious meal?
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/turkey-shepherds-pie-with-leftover-mashed-potatoes-recipe/index.html

4. Where is your dream vacation?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIgjnmDmTBA&feature=related

5. Put something random- anything else we should know about you?
http://weddings.theknot.com/pwp/pwp2/view/MemberPage.aspx?coupleid=7828109532620132&pid=10183670

RSA 3:Recontexualizing Community: Social Presence Online

Online Source: Social Presence: The Secret Behind Online Collaboration  By Mary Beth Lakin

http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=11811

Our reading this week, brings up many negatives of having such a large variety of online communities.  People are less likely to develop that human thread that connects us to having relationships with other people.  Online communities need to establish social presence and a feeling of belonging.  In addition, younger people who are born with handheld technologies available are becoming overwhelmed with the constant updating of their lives.  When academic opportunities for online communities mesh  “too much sharing of personal information online on a daily basis is becoming exhausting [to young people]” (as cited in Palloff p. 35).  Overall, social presence has to be introduced and maintained if it is to overcome these obstacles. 

As for the American Council for Education(ACE) article, they believe the key to the best online learning is the human interaction that’s associated with it. Here they examine how both a global telecommunications company and a military school create a sense of community through virtual means. Emails and conference calls are the normal collaborative tools for the company.  The school uses a virtual homeroom to view online photos of classmates, before they meet face to face for two sessions out of their 40 week program. Both examples are building a community with technological communication that otherwies take place face to face.. 

Both sources respond to social presence in community.  The reading critiques the undesirable aspects of virtual learning. Some may prefer knowing the drawbacks upfront, then they know what they are getting into.    The ACE article is more positive about using collaborative communities and the good it is doing for our global community.  As my blog title hints, community is beyond the four walled classroom.  Community is beyond our neighborhoods of driveways, sidewalks, and mailboxes.  Communities and neighborhoods are now both virtual and actual, both global and local (Palloff, 35). Finding unlimited communities in these networks, can be very good for business and education.  Is a bigger community a bad thing? We have a variety of resources, some valid and most garbage.   Even companies like BING are saying our community is too vast with their “What has Search Overload done to us?” motto.  Do you think search overload has broadened our communities too wide for our own good? Explain.


References:

Palloff, Rena M. and Pratt, Keith. (2007). Building online learning communities: Effective strategies for  the virtual classroom (pp. 3-65). San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Lakin, M.B.  (2011).Social Presence:The Secret Behind Online Collaboration. American Council on Education,  Retrieved fromhttp://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Home&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=11811