Week 6 - Social Media

This week, I had to move class online because Audra was sick.  Such is the life of a working mom!  I'm thankful that my students were ok with me moving class online!  Also, I had a guest speaker planned for class but, we were able to rearrange that to last night (Sunday).

I met Toby through at EdCampOmaha last March.  He is a PhD student at OSU.  I thought that he would be the perfect person to help talk to my students about using social media NOW and in the future.  Toby talked about the benefits of being a connected educator and students were able to ask him questions during the hangout.  The students have had such great questions that instead of focusing on digital citizenship next week, I am going to change course a little bit and talk more about the power of social networking for educators.  I think it will better meet their needs right now but, I need to figure out a way to work more digital citizenship into the week as well.  Perhaps more responsible use for teachers and how to represent yourself online would be appropriate.

Teaching this class is a challennge but I am thoroughly enjoying it!

Week 5 - Standards, Standards, Standards!

This last week has been the first online class that we have had this semester.  Based off of the feedback that students left for me last week, I think that students have been well introduced to the Common Core standards and other content specific standards so instead I chose to focus this week on the ISTE Standards for Teachers and Students.  I used an AEA resource, Atomic Learning, to have students do a self assessment of what their understanding for the ISTE Standards for Teachers.  The tool we used, rates participants in how well they understand each standard.  It was interesting for me to look through their areas of strength and weakness.  I also asked them to self reflect on their results.

In addition to the ISTE Standards for Teachers, I had students explore the ISTE profiles from the standards for students and write lesson ideas based on the standards.  I think that the breadth of the ISTE Standards for Students surprised them -- they are so much more than tools and digital citizenship!

It was interesting for the week to be online - much more work to set up.  This week was pretty low key in terms of online tasks but, I think it's going well!

Week 4 - Choosing the right tool

The focus of class last night was about choosing the right tool to meet the needs of the lesson as well as to introduce lesson writing to students.  To do this, I had them refer back to Harris and Hofer's 5 steps in planning a lesson:

1. Determine Lesson Purpose
2. Make pedagogical decisions
3. Select activity types
4. Select the appropriate assessment
5. Choose the right tool(s)

I hope that the message that content first and THEN technology to support the learning.  I know that my students are started to get frustrated because they would like to focus on tools but, I think that it's important for them to understand the importance of this.  

To work through this during class, I had students practice writing learning objectives, describing the pedagogical context based on Harris and Hofer's continua and then to choose tools to match the learning objectives and context.  I thought that this would be good practice for them and also allow me to provide some feedback to them before they write their lesson plans.

I realized tonight that these students are much different than where the teachers that I work with on a daily basis are.  I've taken for granted the past 2 years the foundational knowledge and experience that my staff has!  It's also much easier to lesson plan when you know your students and classroom situation and spend time with them each day.  I need to figure out a better way to approach this activity and work with students as they begin writing their lesson plans!