Online Teaching Experiences

Learning Management System - Moodle
Moodle has very few limitations to the type of content it could help to teach. Any variety of subjects such as Math, English, Science, History, Business, Psychology, Professional Development, and so much more can be taught using this Learning Management System. The types of pedagogical strategies that one might use are also quite varied. Courses can be offered completely online or in a hybrid format. Lectures can be put into a Moodle course site in the form of audio, video, presentation, or simply written. Discussions can take place in the forums and chats. Activities can be spelled out and explained on Moodle to be carried out online or in a real world situation.

Technologies that would be harder to use with my students/peers:

In my position of Distance Learning and Online Coordinator my students and peers are somewhat synonymous. I oversee the instructors in the online learning program, so for the most part all of the technologies that qualify as an online experience would be put to good use by at least one, if not all of my students/peers.

StAIR - Stand Alone Instructional Resource

Below is my Stand Alone Instructional Resource (StAIR) project. This was created as a tutorial for instructors at Bay Mills Community College who would like to use Google Docs as their grade book.

You can also find my StAIR on MERLOT.org.

Wikis Lab

For the Wikis Lab we were asked to find our school or workplaces Wikipedia page and add or correct some information. I found the History area of the BMCC Wikipedia page to be somewhat lacking so I added the History information that can be found in our schools Student Handbook. Below is a screenshot.

Next I created my own wiki in Wikispaces. This can be found here:

http://swcep811.wikispaces.com/

UDL - Checklist

Below you will find my UDL Checklist for my Grade Book Lesson plan. My lesson plan met a lot of the feature criteria especially in the Engagement area. The area that could probably use the most work was Expression, especially 4. Provide options for physical action.

Wellman UDLChecklist

WebQuest Evaluation

For my WebQuest Evaluation I decided to take a look at Educators Using Technology by Loren Naffziger of Foothills Christian High School. This WebQuest was intended to be used as a means of professional development for teachers, it addresses National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers or NETS-T as well as California Standards for Teaching Profession. More specifically it focuses on the NETS-T Standard II: Planning and Designing Learning Environments and Experiences and Standard III: Teaching, Learning and the Curriculum.

This WebQuest’s process includes 3 steps. First instructors are to research different technology applications that can be used for teaching. The instructors should then form a group and discuss the different researched applications and decide on three or more to make a presentation and lesson plan for. In the final step the group will make a 10 minute presentation during an in-service. A successful presentation and lesson plan will incorporate technology in a meaningful way.

The whole purpose of this WebQuest is to take full advantage of technology. I believe doing this Webquest by photocopying pages and handing them out would completely defeat the purpose. Technology must be utilized in order to complete this WebQuest. Some of the material is out of date, there are links to tutorials for Microsoft Office 2007 and articles about blogging from 2006. If I were to improve the WebQuest I would start by updating some of the links the creator of the WebQuest gave for the instructors to explore.