Goal Progress:

In my initial plan I wrote about how I had been laid off again this year and did not know what I would be teaching in September. Since then I have been recalled into a position. I will be back to the same school, and still in student services. However, I will no longer be in special education, I’ll be working in the learning center case managing students with learning disabilities (as apposed to intellectual disabilities). It is defiantly not the same job, however it is not a completely different one, like I thought it would be, so I am very happy about that. When I wrote my first post I did not think I would be back in student services, so I figured I would be able to have a class blog come September. Since I will not actually have a class this will be rather difficult. However, I have decided that I will create a blog anyway. It might only be for future practice, yet I hope to use it to post study skills and tips, study guides and other information that will be useful to the students on my case load. I’ll also make sure to have a section or possibly I dedicated blog for the basketball program I coach in. My second goal was to work on having more student work result in creations that they can share/publish online. Again this will be a bit challenging since I will not have a class of my own in the traditional sense. However, since all students at my school have blogs I can still help by encouraging they post their quality work from their other classes.

Experiences with the LMS platforms and digital tools:

More directly related to this class, I really wanted to push myself to try new things and not fall back to using tools that I was already familiar with. I am pretty proud that I have managed to do just that. When doing the storytelling discussion post I could have easily updated and posted a pre-existing Prezi. Instead I was able to use the opportunity to test out a new digital tool that I had been meaning to try for some time now and made an online resume using re-vu. Similarly, with the LMS group project I took a different path then I normally would have and worked in a group on a non-profit society, as appose to staying in an educational setting which I am far more comfortable with. I also took the lead on researching the LMS that I knew the less about, Eliademy and Edge-Edx. Finally, for my final assignment 2/3 I chose to work with Moodle and not with Word Press a platform that I am already a little bit familiar with.

Most importantly, I feel that I will be able to use many of the new skills I have gained while completing this course in my teaching practice. While I will not be teaching planning 10 this year, I will be sharing my Moodle with my colleagues that are teaching the course, and keeping it in my back pocket for potential future use. I also feel very well equipped to create a new Moodle or a Word Press course in the future. I also know a lot more about LMS in general and feel pretty comfortable with the idea of teaching an online class, and very comfortable with the idea of using an LMS to support blended learning. Going through the process of creating my course for the project allowed me to narrow in on my values when it comes to online teaching. I found that I really wanted everything to be streamlined and ascetically pleasing. I also really wanted everything to be user friendly for the students. I could have guessed a few of these things about my teaching style, but others I learnt only through the process.

Learning and Knowledge Construction:

The reading materials –
The readings all seem to build on each other and many of them had practical advice that related directly to the LSM projects. In fact, I was able to make a few changes to my project after specific readings.

The discussions themes and questions –
I really liked how the questions were listed right with the discussion and the link to the reading. Everything was all in one place and that made the process easy to complete. The questions also really helped to focus my reading and the discussion. It was interesting and eye opening to be a part of several of discussions. There was quite a wide range in views which is educational and enjoyable.

The individual and group project work –
I learnt a great deal from the project work, particularly from project 2/3. As I have previously expressed I appreciate how it was hands on and practical.

Course Construction:

Personally I would have preferred to only have one site with all of the course content. As the course progress it got easier to sort out where everything was and eventually having to navigate the two sites had little to know effect on my learning. However, at the start of the course it took a fair bit of extra time to figure everything out and get into the swing of things.

Getting Back to work:

After taking a break from my Moodle after submitting the first part of the assignment, again I struggled to get re-started. I was both surprised and annoyed with my-self for this, I figured I would not have this issue anymore, now that I am more familiar with the process. However, I did have to re-learn a few things that I had already figured out. Fortunately, everything did come back and it was quicker this time around. It makes me wonder if I would learn a new platform faster now. I certainly hope so.

In general it has always been a lot easier for me to work on lesson planning once I have gotten into the flow of things and once I am in that zone I do not like to walk away and do something else. This is not normally the case with my other course work. When working on my masters I normally need breaks to clear my head. This project however felt more like work (lesson planning) and less like school (MET.) I think that is one of the reasons why I enjoyed it. I worked in students services this year for the first time, and while I certainly did not miss the piles of marking that come with teaching in a traditional classroom, I did actually miss the planning and curriculum development. It was therefore really nice being able to practice that skill again working on this project.

The advice to others, who are having a hard time getting started, would just be to jump in! I actually really enjoyed putting all of this together once I got started and despite a few bumps in the road it was not too hard to figure out. Watching all the YouTube tutorials before I even knew what I wanted to do just made me more confused and reluctant to start. I would recommend playing around with Moodle yourself first, then once you have a good idea of what you want to do, looking for some tips online.

Reworking the Start:

When starting the second half of this project I first went back to the introduction module and made a few changes, most notably I added guidelines for participating in group discussions. It seemed like a wise choice after reviewing a few of our course readings. I also changed some of the format choices I had made. I originally wanted to use Google Documents because I thought they looked better and because I thought it would be useful to be able to edit them, without having to change anything in the Moodle. However, upon coming back to the project, I found that it actually did not look better at all (really not sure what I had been thinking.) More importantly, not using them allowed me to put everything in order for the students which I think is more useful. When most items were in Google Docs, but a few were not (like assignments) course elements were out of order. Additionally, It is possible to edit many of the elements on Moodle without too much trouble.

Online Learning:

Despite the fact that I am enjoying the chance to lesson and unit plan again, creating an online class for the first time ever, continues to be more difficult then I thought. There are some things that just can not be done it the same way. I certainly had to re-think the way I normally do things. However, I do not feel like I can be certain how well the course would actually work without actually teaching it. I am a bit sad that I likely will not get to teach this course I have made. Regardless I still wanted to finish as much of the course as possible. I was able to completely finish the introduction module and two full content modules (or units), of the three that make up the whole planning 10 course. I would have liked to finish the final unit (the health unit) but I simply ran out of time. I have however, completed the set-up of the final unit, and the information for it is on the course calendar as well. I hope this will give the general idea of how that unit will be.

New Elements:

When starting this project there were two things that were important to me. First I wanted to make something useful. Which is why I chose Planning and Moodle, however I already explained those choices in my first project documentation. The second thing that was important to me was making sure that the course is user friendly. One of the new ways that I tried to ensure that was to further divide all of the work week by week. This way it would hopefully be really easy for the students to follow the course schedule and know what needs to be done each week.

Another new element I tried this time around was to add a Prezi. I was very please at the ease of that process. Adding a Power Point is also pretty easy but it did take one an extra step, compared to the Prezi. If I were to use Moodle in the future I would defiantly create more Prezis to use in the course. The other new pieces I added, like videos were also simple and user friendly. I appreciate that they are embedded so there is no extra step for the students, they can just press play.

Final Thoughts:

I enjoyed and (maybe more importantly) found this project to be very practical. I learnt specific as well as general skills for building an LMS that will certainly be useful. The hands on learning was appreciated and a welcome break from research!

At the onset of this project I was excited to work on such a practical assignment, despite that, throughout the process there were certainly a few ups and downs. I chose Moodle as my LMS of choice for two reasons. First, I had heard that it was rather intuitive and popular, so I figured it would be easier to figure out (for someone who has yet to teach an online course) and there would be many online tutorials available to help. More importantly, it is the LMS that my district uses for online learning. While I do not currently teach any online classes, if in the future, I was to, I will likely be asked to work with Moodle. I wanted to stick with a practical option for the choice of course as well. I chose Planning 10, as I have taught the course before (face to face) and it is also a course that is commonly (and in increasing numbers) taken online by many students.

Despite looking forward to the usefulness of this assignment, I had a surprisingly hard time getting started. Once given access to the LMS I open it and left it open, but untouched on my computer for over a week. I kept looking at it, looking for a simple place to start, but kept struggling to actually start. I finally did force my self to start (possibly because the clock was ticking) and it was very slow going at first. I would be able to figure out one small piece, but would then get stuck on the next one, and would need to walk away. Coming back, sometimes after a bit of research, sometimes just with a clear head, I would be able to figure it out. This pattern continued for pretty much the whole process.

While there were many sources of information out there (including my classmates) I found I did not know what questions I wanted to ask, and therefore ended up figuring most of it out on my own through trial and error. Which is admittedly, not the most efficient method. As a result, I found that I very much missed my support network. For me teaching has almost always been a collaborative process. I share resources with my colleagues, we plan units and lessons together, and figure out new digital tools as a group. In this felt very alone (maybe I should have chosen to work in a group.) Eventually, I did ask my colleagues at work for some support and they did provide tips and suggestions here and there, but it is not the same when we are not all invested in the outcome. The example projects and student forms for the class were also helpful, but again not the same as the teamwork I am use to.

Once I got use to formatting the Moodle, I found that I just wanted to keep adding content, in my mind it made sense to add content and then work out the design and details later. I had to stop myself, and force myself to get back to thinking about the design. I have hopefully managed to do enough with the designs and the tools of Moodle to have explored this LMS sufficiently.

One of the other big things I had to consider was how to modify the planning class to fit into a completely online setting. There were several simple things like removing the criteria of having good eye contact when presenting your digital autobiography to the class, to bigger picture questions of how to get the lessons across to the students when I am not physically their to guide them. I will continue to explore these questions as I move on with this project.

It was very important to me to create something useful while doing this project. I did however, also want to test out several of the resources and activities available on the site. I tested out several options and features. I tried both inserting a file directly from word and also providing a hyperlink directly to a google doc. In the end I mostly used the second option, I felt it was a bit easier for the user and provided a more streamline look on the site. I also learnt how to embed a PowerPoint presentation using slide boom, this allows the user to view the presentation and does not required them to download anything. I was pleased to see that the video link in the PowerPoint still worked in this format.

The main features I appreciated about Moodle, are its ascetics, it ease of use for students, and it ability to embed and hyperlink elements. Once I sorted things out, it was relatively easy to make the Moodle look decent. I believe it appears relatively engaging, but is still clean and simple. I can also imagine that Moodle would function pretty well from a student perceptive. I am speculating here since I do not actually have any experience using it, however it does seems straight forward and simple to follow. I really enjoyed the feature where students can check off the elements that they have completed. The whole course seems to present like a to-do list and to me that is appealing. The most useful and convenient feature by far was the ability to embed and hyperlink different elements into the course. It made my work simple. I could keep all the document in one google drive where I can edit them and then link them in when I am ready.

One of the main limitations I found on Moodle was in the formatting. It was tricky to make the text uniform and ascetically pleasing. One specific example is from when I tried to create a table in the “course schedule” section. It was not user friendly to create one in the Moodle, therefore I attempted to import one from word. This was easier to use, but not all of the formatting remained. A large part of it had to be fixed and even after I spent a great deal of time on it, it is still not where I would like it to be. I also found the grading elements to be challenging. I am still not entirely sure how that works, and do not really know how to play with it without having any student’s work to grade. This is something I will need to continue to workout in the second part of this assignment. I very much liked the ability to make pages on the Moodle, however I wish that you could “hide” them while still having them function for the students. As an example, I have three features at the top of the main page, there are icons that link to useful pages, those pages also have to be listed elsewhere on the site, I wish that was not the case, as it is redundant. One of the other activities I wanted to test out was the Quiz option. I normally would not have any formal tests in a planning class, however I wanted to learn how to use that activity. I found it to be very challenging. There were many options for questions types and options for a lot of feedback for the students, all of which are great. However, it was very time consuming to create even a short quiz, I cannot imagine using this feature in a course with large amounts of testing. I think in the future I would likely set up a quiz using another program and link it into the Moodle.

Overall, I have certainly learnt a lot already but feel there is so much more I need to learn and play around with before I would be ready to teach a real online course.