I am not sure if these two online tools count as social media, but I have used them quite often in the past few years with a high level of success. It is critical and undoubtedly worth investing the time required to teach the students how to contribute appropriately in online settings prior to using these or other web tools. I usually begin by co-constructing a set of criteria describing ‘good’ contributors with my students and I then model what their participation online could look like. Once I feel that the students have a clear understanding of the expectations placed upon them, we spend some time using the following online tools:

padlet.com– this tool is easy to use and it is free. I often set-up themed ‘rooms’ for the students to visit and place their thoughts using a digital sticky note on the ‘wall.’ The students are expected to post content while staying on the assigned topic and identify themselves using their first names only. This is a closed ‘chat room’ as only people with knowledge of the room URL can access the online discourse area. It would be highly unlikely that someone would stumble upon our class URLs. Examples of ways in which I have used this particular tool are for things like carrying on classroom discussions that not all students had the chance to contribute to. I might have the students share a prediction about what might happen next in our class novel, or share their favourite healthy and unhealthy treat in our healthy living unit. Images and videos can also be posted by the students, but I restrict their use of these two elements until we have established further related criteria. Continue reading →

Due to the possible dangers of online activity it is understandable that some of the parents of Noelene’s students are concerned about their children being involved in such potentially public discourse. Upon clicking on the Dreamwidth link provided in this week’s module notes, one of the very first things that I read about this web tool on the site’s homepage was this reassuring message: “Control who can see your creation with our fine-grained privacy controls” (http://www.dreamwidth.org/). After digging a little deeper on the website, it is evident that there are a number of well thought out security features to help protect the site contributors. Students would be able to select permissions for commenting in their account settings and also have the flexibility of setting the level of comment security that they desire message by message as they add new posts to their blog. Making a ‘protected entry’ for example would allow only users that you have granted access to the comment to post their responses. Should the students end up in a situation in which they receive an unwanted comment, they are able to delete the unwanted comment permanently and the commenter cannot reverse this deletion. If a student felt uncomfortable with a particular user, they also have the option to ban accounts and or block anonymous comments. It seems like Dreamwidth has taken numerous proactive steps to ensure the privacy and security of their user accounts. If I were Noelene, I would inform the concerned parents about the site’s affordances in regard to this matter and direct them to the FAQ section of the website to seek further information (http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqcat=badcomments). Continue reading →

Knowing that I was going to be using Twitter eventually in my MET course work, I established a Twitter account at the beginning of the summer and have been dabbling with it ever since. I actually found it quite valuable on a personal level during the BCTF labour dispute, as it was quite easy to stay informed about the latest developments and the wealth of links provided within tweets to relevant news stories, media clips and personal blogs was very convenient.

Professionally, I have not yet found a way to really bring Twitter into the classroom. In my social justice club, I do relay some of the tweets of people that I am following who are difference makers, but beyond that, I do not make much use of it in my teaching role. I see the potential that it can have as a learning tool, but I feel limited in my use of it due to the age group of students that I work with. Because of this, I feel like I cannot really take advantage of all that it could offer. Working with 9 and 10 year olds, most of my students do not have personal devices that they can access Twitter on. Many of my students are not allowed to sign up for or be involved in social media outlets. Students that do have their own devices are not allowed to use them within the confines of the school day due to our school policy on device usage.

I am not giving up hope, however. If I can find a way to make it work in my classroom as a tool, I would like to explore the potential that Twitter has for things such as the following:
– using it to teach summarizing (concise and precise writing) since each message can only be 140 characters in length, this can be a worthwhile learning endeavour
– using it to share reminders, tips, quick facts etc. instead of relying on students to record this type of information in their planners and then share them with their family
– using it as a way to both encourage and increase the amount of dialogue that I am engaging in with my students, as well as student to student communication too
– using Twitter as an alternative to some of the other web tools that I regularly use such as padlet.com and todaysmeet.com

One of my other reservations is that my students will need to have an account to participate in Twitter, whereas sites such as padlet.com and todaysmeet.com have very minimal setup and students can access the discourse areas with a simple pre-established URL. Unlike a blog, I do not have the option (at least not to my knowledge) of previewing and approving tweets prior to them being posted. I would worry that a class generated or class intended hashtag would be discovered and used inappropriately by random Twitter users. After doing some research, I discovered that you can add a Twitter feed to a weebly website (http://hc.weebly.com/hc/en-us/articles/200513837-Add-Your-Twitter-Feed-Badge-to-a-Site). I am considering establishing a new Twitter account strictly for my role as a teacher and placing the feed on my class website in order to see what the response from my students and their parents is. I can see some of my more tech savvy students that are given a lot more freedom online at home taking advantage of this extra way to engage in conversations with myself and their classmates. I am as yet undecided. I am on the fence, but we’ll see what else I learn about the pros and cons of Twitter by the end of the module.

One of the largest challenges for me in regard to student assessment in my particular context is mainly about my inability (for a variety of reasons) to provide feedback as quickly and as specifically as I would like to with my students.

Feedback is a critical ingredient in successful assessment, student motivation and growth. As Anderson posits in Chapter 14: Teaching in an Online Learning Context, ‘[w]e know from research on assessment that timely and detailed feedback provided throughout, and as near in time as possible to the performance of the assessed behaviour, is the most effective in providing motivation, shaping behaviour, and developing mental constructs’ (Anderson, 2008, p. 352). This is a particularly difficult area of assessment for me, especially this year.

My Context:
I am currently teaching thirty grade 5 students, most of whom are 10 years old. My class composition is actually a bit dreamy this year in comparison to my past teaching years. I have one special needs student on an IEP (she has cerebral palsy and a full time CEA with her). I have 8 ESL students, two of these learners are very competent students and have strong literacy skills. The remaining 6 ESL students are in need of substantial support in their learning. For the first time I think in my career, I do not have a behaviour designated student in my classroom (which is a nice break considering I had 5 serious behaviour students in my classroom last year). I have two students on Learning Plans who are working below grade level in both literacy and numeracy areas. These thirty students are a cohesive, caring and hard working group of young people and I do feel a bit guilty as I watch my grade six teaching colleagues across the hall struggle with the composition of their classrooms. I am hopeful that with this particular group of students, I may be able to take my delivery of assessment results and feedback to a much more personal level for them, which I have not previously been able to achieve, other than when I was a Learning Assistance teacher working in small groups or in one on one settings with students.

Even with a really amazing group of students, there is simply not enough time in the day to engage in conversations with every student about how they are progressing. I have just now completed my usual start up battery of assessments. I have marked them all and I am beginning to use the whole class data to shape my focus in our current unit work. I feel like I can and do effectively use this type of assessment data to shape my instruction and target areas that the majority of the students need support with. The other side of this coin however, which involves communicating individual results to the students themselves to help them goal set and progress in their weaker areas, has not yet happened and quite honestly, may not happen this year, at least not to the extent that I would like it to. Even with a stellar group of students, I cannot justify giving the class a ‘busy work’ type task so that I can call students over to speak to them one on one about the results of an assessment. I have completed a three strand diagnostic math assessment, a whole class reading assessment, and also a ‘school wide write.’ I would need to spend days of busy work assignments to give myself enough one on one time to ever be able to convey this important information to my students. In the past, we have been provided with two full days of release time from the school district to use for assessment and collaboration purposes. We were told promptly at the start of this school year that the collaboration and assessment budget has been cut to zero and that there would be no release time of this nature provided for teachers at all this year. I used to use those two days to pull my students one at a time from class in order to have them read a passage from my reading assessment aloud to me while I track and observe their oral fluency habits. I would then give them instant results of their read aloud and help them goal set for improvement, and go over any other literacy assessments that I had completed by that time. Completing these one on one student meetings would take an entire school day, and I often did not finish the entire class in that single day and I would need to use a bit of my own prep time to finish up the last of the students. I do not see how I am going to be able to have these important conversations with students this year. Continue reading →

At the beginning of her online course, it is imperative that Trinh establishes a clear set of expectations in regard to course participation and communication options between the students themselves and between the students and the instructor. Anderson (2008) notes that part of the teacher’s role in establishing an online learning context is to devise and implement student activities that encourage this discourse among the students and teacher involved in the learning environment (Anderson, 2008, p.345). Trinh wants to be sure that her expectations are clear and that she quickly establishes an online learning environment in which the students feel safe and comfortable participating in the discussion areas and various activities while at the same time, she must be sure to be doing so in a way that is reasonable and manageable for her to maintain as the course instructor.

One of the best ways to set yourself and your students up for success at the beginning of any learning endeavour, is to be as proactive as possible. I would firstly suggest that Trinh review her introductory course materials to be sure that her expectations and the design of her modules is as clear and explicit as she is able to make them. Not even master teachers can anticipate every bump in the road that may arise as the students progress through the course, but paying special attention to the clarity of instructions can be time well spent in the long run. This focus on clarity may help to reduce the overall number of student queries throughout the duration of the course. Paying attention to student feedback from past course evaluations could also help with this proactive approach as troublesome or ambiguous areas from the past can be improved upon for future students. Continue reading →

Discussion prompt: Keeping in mind your own experiences as a teacher and as a student, consider what Anderson means when he describes the attributes of learning in terms of being learner-, knowledge-, assessment- and community-centered. To what extent have you experienced on-line or mixed-mode courses that achieved this kind of learning environment?

I think that the way in which all of the ETEC courses that I have taken thus far have been set up, has definitely nurtured a community of learners. Reflecting back upon my past and current course work, I feel that I have experienced some learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered and community-centered approaches to varying degrees. There have been times in my courses where I was able to learn in isolation at my own pace by working through assigned readings, podcasts, video clips and the related interactivities. There have been times where it was actually the posts or replies from my classmates rather than the particular module content that really brought forth learning connections for me and took me off on valuable learning tangents to find out more. It is very unlikely that I would have taken the same inquiry routes in these instances without the input and insight of my classmates.

In some of my courses I have felt that the weekly discussion prompts have been more effective in generating rich discourse than in others. Overall however, I think that the majority of the topics of discussion that have guided my weekly posts and replies have served as great starting points for conversations. From my own online learning experiences it seems as if each classmate brings a different perspective and realm of experience to the conversations that often results in much richer learning than would have occurred if I was studying the course content in isolation. The post and reply format of the discourse in Blackboard which has been the norm in all but one of my courses so far, allows us to ask questions, provide additional related resources, and share personal experiences and/or opinions in a safe environment. Although by posting our thoughts for everyone to see and potentially critique, we are putting ourselves out there and it makes us a bit vulnerable, the fact that these are Masters level courses and the student population is comprised for the most part of professionals working in fields where collaboration is a day to day must a great deal of the time, the climate in the discussion forums has always been a welcoming one (in my opinion). Although Blackboard has its drawbacks, I do have to say that I prefer the discussion forums internally in Blackboard over the wordpress weblog community that I am currently a part of in my other course at this time. This is my first MET experience in which the sense of community that I normally feel by this stage of a course seems to be lessened by the discussion medium. I think that my feelings of disconnect mostly stem from the fact that there is not a formal notification system to alert students to new messages or replies other than a small list of only the most recent posts at the edge of the webpage. I feel like I am spending most of my time scrolling, searching and rereading things to be sure that I have not missed anything rather than building up a relationship with my fellow classmates. I would be interested to know other people’s thoughts/preferences in regard to weblogs vs. Blackboard discussion forums. Continue reading →

When I think back on my schooling experiences as a student in face-to-face classrooms, I recall many discussions in which the same core group of students (myself included) were engaged in the lessons and keen to participate in discussions, while the rest of the students preferred to remain quiet and observe the lesson as it unfolded. With the exception of a few courses in which the topics being covered naturally created intense discussion, for the most part I recall classes in which the instructors had to work quite hard to draw students into the lesson, participate in discussions and take risks in their learning. Now being in my fifth and sixth courses taken online, I have an entirely new perspective on face-to-face and online course work. In my previous university courses, prior to entering into the education program, I rarely knew anyone’s name, students spoke to the teacher when called upon, but discussion among students was rare. It often seemed like discussions were over almost as soon as they started. One of my favourite things about online learning thus far is the deep and meaningful level that discussions get to as more and more people contribute their comments, reflections and further questions that arise as the dialogue unfolds. I also love that I am free to work on my courses at times of my own choosing and to some extent, at my own pace.

It is with this mind-set that I pondered the questions for this week’s discussion about the attributes of effective learning communities as proposed by Anderson. Here are some of my thoughts in how these four attributes connect to creating educational opportunities beyond the walls of the physical classroom:

Learner-Centered- I was surprised in this section of the chapter when Anderson noted that learner-centered contexts must meet the needs of the teacher, institution, community or society that supports the students, as well as for the students as individuals and as a group (Anderson, 2008). Although learner-centered instruction was not a new concept to me, I had never really thought about the multifaceted element to this approach. I previously considered this only in light of the learner and not the entire context that learner is a part of. Some of the challenges that we must consider in regard to creating learner (or learning) centered communities is to be sure that we are respecting and accommodating the cultural attributes of all learners, associated preconceptions among learners, and the limitations that go along with e-learning. Communication can be problematic for users that may not have access to consistent technology, or that may not be familiar with the conventions of online communication practices. There is also the miscommunication that can result from a lack of body language, verbal cues that convey things like emotion, tone of voice and/or humour to consider. There are difficulties faced by the teacher when trying to get an understanding of where students’ skills are at in an online context. Teachers are less able to interact with students directly to get a ‘feel for’ their ability level the way that they would be able to in a face-to-face situation. Continue reading →

When Anju is deciding what type of resource to consider using to help her continue to educate her target population, the ‘S’ for students from Bates and Poole’s SECTIONS framework (2003) is particularly critical in her situation. Anju’s target population (her ‘students’) are for the most part South Asian and new immigrant Canadian women aged 45 or older living in the Port Alberni area of British Columbia, this being her target audience due to the fact that in this particular demographic, there is a diabetes epidemic. In order to help provide adequate care for this group of individuals, Anju needs to keep them informed about the importance of maintaining a healthy diet while understanding the role that food plays in maintaining their blood glucose levels. It is also noted in the case study that Anju’s clients are fluent in spoken English, but reading written material in English poses a barrier for them. Although Anju’s one hour workshops have helped this particular population, her clients have expressed that it is difficult for them to retain the information afterwards. Due to the needs of this particular target audience, I think that Anju is making a worthwhile choice in filming her workshops and using the gathered material to then create a DVD that she could distribute to possibly a wider audience than her workshops can meet. Providing her clients with written documents in regard to management of their illness may be poorly utilized or understood due to the potential language obstacles. A DVD would eliminate the written language issue and allow her clients to view the DVD as often as they felt the need to.

I would advise Anju to be sure to include images and informational diagrams with a limited amount of text to accompany her oral instructions and information shared on the DVD in order to accommodate for ESL/EFL concerns. In regard to the actual organization of her DVD, I would recommend that she choose a DVD creator/software that allows her to make ‘chapters’ or individual ‘scenes’ with interactive menus on the DVD. By doing so, this would allow her clients to have the option of viewing just the content that they needed multiple viewings of without having to watch the entire video in full. Having the option to view smaller segments would appeal to her clients and allow Anju to still cater to their individual needs to some extent through the technology. Filming and including ‘how to’ mini videos on the DVD would be beneficial as it would allow Anju to share demonstrations, tips and advice with her clients from afar.
To make the actual DVD, I would suggest that Anju do some research ahead of time into the software that she plans to use to create the DVD, so that she can be sure that the format that she is filming in will be easily usable in her selected software. Although I have no experience in this area myself, I think that she could use something like:
– Windows DVD Maker (http://dvdmaker.co/) This site includes a demo video as well as written steps to follow to create your DVDs
– DVD Styler (http://www.dvdstyler.org/en/) This site offers some tech support and indicates that this free software creates professional looking DVDS and supports a variety of file, video and audio formats

Anju will likely need to invest a substantial amount of time in this endeavour. It will likely take her a number of weeks in order to film the various segments to use for her video. She will also need to gather her images, content and record her voice over audio files to go along with her images. The timeline of the actual creation of the DVD is hard to estimate as it will depend on how long the DVD will be and how much editing is required. In my research I read everything from 17 hours per minute of video for ‘cable reality shows’ to one hour of editing time per minute of video (http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-is-spent-editing-footage-for-FIlm-Video). Not knowing if Anju is tackling this task on her own, or if she has someone in the field that can assist her in the actual production of the DVD, I would estimate that she would likely spend 2-3 hours editing for every minute of video. If her video was half an hour in length, it could take her up to 90 hours of time to complete the final product. Being that she will most likely still need to fulfill her regular dietician roles during the DVD making process, she may be able to spend 5-10 hours a week working on the DVD. I would estimate that the entire process may take her 8-10 weeks, but this is a very rough estimate based on information that I read online and not on any actual firsthand experience.

References:
Bates, A. W., & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education:
Foundations for Success. (pp. 75 – 105) Jossey-Bass, An Imprint of Wiley.InterActivity- Establishing Presence Online