Lift Off

The December 1, 2004 National Deaf-Blind Child Count Summary (Census) is now available on the NTAC website at: http://www.tr.wou.edu/ntac/index.cfm?path=publications/publications_census.html

A theme for this class has been, “The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” William Gibson

The Phaedrus course for me has emphasized that postsecondary institutions are departing from traditionalism and moving toward the technological advances of online teaching. As future leaders in personnel preparation, it seems evident that we will be asked to create distance education programs that are: (a) effective, (b) efficient, (c) accessible, and (d) diverse. This idea is supported by the theories, conversations and literature we have shared. We have found support that distance learning can be as successful as traditional instruction if meaningful learning strategies are utilized. Meaningful learning strategies, will require us (as future instructors) to facilitate our learner’s active engagement that will transcend them beyond information acquisition. Within our course pedagogy we must create opportunity for our learners to consistently employ critical thinking through careful examination, astute perception, skillful interpretation, and practice (Murchú and Muirhead, 2005).

I believe one characteristic of successful learning environments is a focus on what learner’s need and want. Beginning a course with a careful needs assessment establishes a springboard for identifying targeted learner outcomes. One observation I noticed with this course is it evolved into using a more interactive syllabi. I liked this style because it gave us (as learners) input for the direction of the course. I plan to use an interactive syllabi in correspondence with pre-identified learning outcomes.

The article, Understand Pedagogy and Yourself before Teaching Online, emphasizes that it is, “essential to have a good understanding of pedagogy and your suitability for the online classroom” (p. 2). I believe Michelle demonstrated the concept of suitability in her statement, “For me to teach this [how to teach online], my major obstacle would be my attitude. I still am not sold on online teaching. It’s just not my preference. I would definitely have to overcome that before I could make anyone else’s experience meaningful”. I think Michelle’s insight is valuable, because she is acknowledging her strength in face-to-face interactions. I would not know this about Michelle if my sole interaction with her was online.

One recommendation of the aforementioned article is to learn about pedagogy before delving into and selecting technology. They suggested using Bloom’s taxonomy to write clear learning outcomes, which they say are the foundation of any course. I absolutely agree with this statement. You can’t evaluate your success if you don’t know where you are headed!

Another article, A Look at Five Pedagogical Principles to Improve Online Instruction, highlighted the following principles to improve online instruction regardless of the technology: (a) immersion, (b) individualization, (c) association, and (d) reflection. This course certainly met all of these criteria, although I am not sure how much we enjoyed the immersion! I think Nate did this intentionally to promote critical and active learning. He mentioned that there is an “art” of pushing students. If you push too hard, they may give up. If you push just enough, they might just learn something.

I would have a tendency to respond more like Michelle and Chuck.

The Equivalency Theory for online teaching is an important concept I learned in this course. I consider Equivalency Theory as information exchanges with the purpose of learning between a teacher and a student, a student and a student or a student and some vehicle of content presentation. This theory is the basis for active collaborative learning.

Collaborative online learning is characterized by:

· “More intensive interaction than would be normal face-to-face;

· Interaction among a wider variety of more diverse learners who, together, bring more to the table than the learners on campus can alone; and

· Interaction about more authentic data, i.e., better things to talk about than is normal in an isolated classroom” Ehrmann and Collins (2001).

I found the following resource helpful in offering many considerations for designing a course.

• Audience

• Determine target audience age, background, interests, educational level

• For ITV courses, ask remote site colleagues for background on the student population
• For online courses, ask colleagues who’ve previously taught online for their assessment of the potential audience

Where are they located?

What are their time constraints?

• Remember that many students choose online instruction because of the time flexibility
• Be aware that students may need to meet school-imposed deadlines that can be affected by lag times in mail delivery

What kind of technology do they use?

• Consider their familiarity with the various instructional methods and delivery systems

How will they apply the knowledge gained in the course to their lives?

What resources (library, computers, etc.) can they access?

What are their learning styles?

Give your distance education students this Student Study Schedule - Time Management Guide (print out in landscape) to help them learn to manage their time more efficiently

• Technological considerations

• Determine the technical requirements - what kind of technology will students need to take your course?
• What kind of tech support is available to students and when is it available?
• Email your server administrator and ask

• what you need to know to implement any special capabilities your server has
• for space on the server for your site and get the URL so you can publish your course home page

Materials distribution

• How will you get reading materials, videotapes, handouts, etc. to a remote or online class?
• How will you collect assignments and tests?

Copyright issues: Be sure you check copyright law for distance learning before using the work of others. Take a look at The TEACH Act, too. Take the Copyright Crash Course developed by Georgia K. Harper. Harper is the manager of the Intellectual Property Section of the Office of General Counsel for the University of Texas System, where she specializes in copyright law.

Privacy issues

• Don’t use student pictures or full names on the website without signed permission
• Your school may have a contract for students to sign agreeing to be videotaped in an ITV course
• Protect user privacy and preserve security

Evaluation tools — Check the Evaluation Tools section of the NETnet Resource Center for links to existing surveys and questionnaires that evaluate the course, technology, and instructor. It’s a good idea to look at these before you begin to design your course, so you can know in advance what kinds of things to plan for and incorporate into your course. Keep the following in mind when creating your own evaluations:

• Course

• Class format

• How effective were the activities/exercises/discussions/questions/answers
• Was the class atmosphere conducive to learning?

Course content

• Was the course material relevant to the students’ needs?
• Was the course well-organized?
• Were the assignments and deadlines clearly defined?
• Were the assignments relevant and useful?
• Could online readings be accessed?
• Were time requirements and difficulty levels of assignments realistic?
• Was feedback frequent, constructive, and timely?

Testing

• Was there sufficient review?
• Were tests frequent and relevant?
• Were tests graded and returned in a timely fashion?
• Was constructive feedback given

Technology

• What was the student’s level of comfort with and attitude toward the technology?
• Were there problems or concerns?
• Were there positive aspects?

Instructor

• Was the instructor patient, accessible and proficient with the technology?
• Did the instructor facilitate student-to-student or site-to-site interaction?

Did the instructor provide timely and relevant feedback?

(Retrieved November 28, 2005, from, http://www.netnet.org/instructors/introduction/gettingstarted.htm)

I found these ideas for using wikis):

Approach 1: Student Journaling
Instructors want students to journal for a number of reasons: to demonstrate writing proficiency, to expose understanding (and misunderstanding) of conceptual knowledge, to establish the habit of regular reflection, and to engage in meta-cognitive reflection, to name a few. The wiki allows students to journal for their own benefit, or for peer or instructor review.

Approach 2: Personal Portfolios
By enabling students to collect and organize digital assets such as course notes, images, Web resources, and PowerPoint slides, the wiki can help learners to make connections between and among those assets.

Approach 3: Collaborative Knowledge Base
In the more classic use of the wiki, groups can use the environment to create a shared knowledge base of information. This can be used to allow students to develop a project in small groups, to work on a small piece of a larger class project, or even to have students themselves create and maintain the course Web site.

Approach 4: Research Coordination and Collaboration
The wiki allows multiple collaborators who are separated by physical space to collect ideas, papers, timelines, documents, datasets, and study results into a collective digital space. Researchers can also use the space to store draft files for their papers: MS Word, LaTEX, or even writing directly into the Web pages of the wiki. Additionally, funders and junior researchers can be given “read only” access to all or certain parts of the space.

Approach 5: Curricular and Cross-Disciplinary Coordination
As departments become increasingly creative in their efforts to accommodate more students in a distributed/blended learning environment, curricular coordination among faculty and T.A.s gets increasingly important. The wiki allows for departmental personnel, instructors, and teaching assistants to organize common course assets, such as syllabi, office hours, and assessments, without having an endless email chain or difficult to schedule face-to-face meetings.

Use Case 6: Conference and Colloquia Web Site/Coordination
Many departments, schools, and scholarly centers at the university have academic conferences and colloquia. By allowing presenters and attendees access to add and edit content, the conference wiki can serve as a resource before, during, and after the event itself. The wiki can also be used by conference administrators as a means of organizing the event.

Of course, there are many other ways to use the wiki in an academic setting, but these represent the general categories of use that we’ve begun to see emerge on our campus. There are also features that I haven’t addressed here that any wiki worth its salt will have. Syndication via RSS, for instance, is a major dimension of all social software, including wikis. As we look to the emerging uses of social software for teaching and learning, one of our big challenges will be to figure out how to leverage the affordances of syndication without compromising security of sensitive information. But we’re taking one thing at a time. For now, by relaxing our idealized notion of what a wiki should be (and the implied pedagogies therewith), and by listening hard to our collaborators, we found a host of great uses for the tool that had before proved elusive to implement.

Retrieved from Higdon, J. (2005)

There is so much to write about still….

References

Ehrmann, S. and Collins, M. (2001). Emerging Models of Online Collaborative Learning: Can Distance Enhance Quality? Educational Technology Magazine. Retrieved on November 28, 2005 from, http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/le-fa04/le- fa04feature1.cfm.

Higdon, J. ( 2005 ) Teaching, Learning, and Other Uses for Wikis in Academia. Retrieved November 28^, 2005 from, http://www.campus technology.com/news_article.asp?id=17502&typeid=156

O Murchu, D.O. & Muirhead, B. (2005). Insights into Promoting Critical Thinking in Online Classes. Retrieved September 1, 2005, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/June05/article01.htm

Online Resources

Exploration Guide: Educational Uses of Blogs,Wikis, etc. http://www.tltgroup.org/ProFacDev/BLOGSetc.htm

Accessibility Issues

http://webaim.org/

Scholarly Blogs

http://rhetorica.net/professors%5fwho%5fblog.htm

 My family has recently experienced a series losses recently.  Several years ago, I attended a Hospice Conference in Portland, Oregon.  I had purchased a book there called Tear Soup.  In addition to having beautiful illustrations, the concepts about grief are wonderful.  In light of events, I thought I would revisit and share the recipe.

http://www.griefwatch.com/tearsoup/recipe.htm 

 

 

Tear Soup, a recipe for healing after loss.

By Pat Schwiebert & Chuck DeKlyen  Illustrated by Taylor Bills 
Copyright Grief Watch 2001

Helpful ingredients to consider * a pot full of tears * one heart willing to be broken open * a dash of bitters * a bunch of good friends * many handfuls of comfort food * a lot of patience * buckets of water to replace the tears * plenty of exercise * a variety of helpful reading material * enough self care * season with memories * optional; one good therapist and/or support group Directions: Choose the size pot that fits your loss. It’s ok to increase the pot size if you miscalculated. Combine ingredients. Set temperature for a moderate heat. Cooking times will vary depending on the ingredients needed. Strong flavors mellow over time. Stir often. Cook no longer than you need to. Suggestions * be creative * trust your instincts * cry when you want to, laugh when you can * freeze some to use as a starter for next time * write your own soup making in a journal so you won’t forget Serves One

FROM TEAR SOUP, a recipe for healing after loss.  Available Through Grief Watch By Pat Schwiebert & Chuck DeKlyen  Illustrated by Taylor Bills Copyright Grief Watch 2001 www.griefwatch.com

How you SHOULD use blogs in education

Posted in General, Blogging for Education on July 29th, 2005

In their chapter Sustainability of Researched-Based Practices, Vaugn, Klingner and Hughes (2004) highligted variations of sustainability as it relates to research based practices.

The first type is proactive sustainabilty. This is characterized by teachers using a practice much like it was taught to them. The teachers can articulate the theory behind the practice and thus tailor the practice to match the needs of their students.

The second is routine sustainability. In this example, teachers implement the practice in their everyday teaching routines. The practice maintains its validity because teachers use it in a similar manner in which they were taught.

Third is modified sustainability. In this case, teachers may modify a practice because they lack of understanding or because they are trying to improve the practice to match their students’ needs. However, in modifying the practice they may be comprimising its effectiveness as a research-based practice. “Teachers with modified sustainability believe they are still implementing the practice, but have just made a few changes’”.

If teachers consider their modification or creation “action research”, why not collect data related to its effectiveness? If data is not collected, how will teachers truly know that their students’ improvement is due to the modifications they made or created? Also, if their practice is truly beneficial to students, why not contribute to it becoming a researched based practice in which others can benefit?

Collecting data is not hard when you have a defined system. It may not be empirical research, but could fit into single subject research or case study.

I agree with Diann. Action research is good teaching, however I don’t believe you can add the “research” component enless it includes a process of evaluation. Again, how does a teacher know it is effective? A gut feelings is not enough. Teachers must look at student progress wholistically. What else in the students’ life may be contributing to their progress. Has their home environment improved? Has their medications changed? Are they receiving a related service that they had not received before? All of these can impact the progress of students. If teachers attribute student progress to an intervention minus all of these factors, is it really true? It may be…but I’d rather see their claims within a more wholistic context and with data to back it up.

I think personnel preparation programs need to improve their practice of preparing teachers to identify easy but effective ways to collect data in the classroom.

I think researched based practice and action research is cylclical. Each contributes to the other.