550 wk 5

Because of our break this week I am working on weeks 4 and 5 at the same time. This week we are going to be using Google docs to collaborate online and create a presentation that we will use during our next live class period. Our group will discuss online learning and present our slides for a few minutes as a group. This could be a new challenge because now we will facilitate as a group. I have team taught before quite a few times and I teach golf lessons all the time with multiple teachers, but online facilitation with 5 teachers will no doubt be exciting! I am looking forward to using Elluminate again and having the challenge of online group facilitation. I was very leery of this class to begin with, but as I have had to say over and over again throughout this program, I am pleasantly surprised!

550 wk 4

Last week I got the chance to present my first virtual lesson on Elluminate. The first thing that I did is start a timer because I felt that it was hard to keep track of time without being in a real classroom and watching the clock. Then I fiddled around with the moderator tools and actually, surprisingly, did quite well. I was able to facilitate a great discussion for longer than I actually wanted to! After the discussion I used the web tour tool to show some useful videos on youtube. I was impressed by how easy it was to moderate using Elluminate and how comfortable I was during the lesson. I look forward to my next opportunity.

550 wk 3

This week I have prepared for my first online facilitation experience. I am looking forward to using elluminate to facilitate a discussion about how to teach face to face classes online. This topic is personally interesting to me because of my classroom content. I am going to share with my classmates how I have f0und some ways to teach face to face classes online. I am looking forward to sharing with them and also getting some valuable feedback and ideas on how they may look at teaching some of my content online. I will be using the file share and web tour tools to give my discussion a nice twist. I will share my outline with the class right away and then also take them on a web tour to youtube to show some useful videos on automotive content. This is a short exercise, but I am looking forward to the experience.

550 wk 2

This week during class we got the opportunity during a break out session to be the facilitator in elluminate. This was the first chance that I have had to be a teacher or facilitator online. I must say that it will take some getting used to just being able to monitor who has their hand raised, who is chatting in the text box, and who is speaking on the mic. I was impressed by my success for the first effort and I must say that I thought it was pretty easy to use even for a novice, but to reach a level at which I would be comfortable teaching would take some work. I am excited to explore the role of an virtual teacher, I do not know how that will apply to me in the future, but this is a good experience. If I cannot teach my current content online, maybe I will expand my horizons and teach something else online. This class is going well, I look forward to next week!

550 wk 1

This is our first week with the new course and I am interested in seeing what this course will offer me. We have begun to look into the positives and negatives of online learning and I was surprised to hear what some people think online learning is capable of. Some online teachers think they can make a better connection with students online than in the classroom! To me I don't see how that can happen, but I will keep an open mind and see what I can learn. I have been surprised over and over again throughout the program and I am sure that this class will not disappoint. I am eager to see how my courses and content will blend with online learning, I do not see right now how I can teach any of my courses online, but I'm sure I will learn some good tips and tricks about online teaching along the way.

540 WK 5

This entire class on stats has been different than what I thought it would be. I was not happy to see the first bit of actual math, but once we got past that and began exploring how we can use data in education, I was pleasantly surprised. This week we explored google trends which would be useful to follow the trends of any hot topic. Students could use this tool to follow a hot current event and see when the topic peaks and also find some useful links on the topic. I also enjoyed looking at some of the stat sites. As you would expect, the CDC and National Archives have a ton of information. The CDC site is great, but the Archives site was difficult to navigate and it would be challenging to find specific information. I also enjoyed searching the internet for automotive trends and stats. Automotive and especially domestic automakers is a hot topic these days and finding stats is not all that difficult. What I enjoyed most about this class is reminding me that stats can be easy to find and useful. They should be part of any research and report.

540wk 4

This week learning about Bill Tancer and how cookies are actually used is very interesting to me. In the past I just assumed that someone was keeping track of my browsing habbits, but now I know who! Tancer has a unique business with Hitwise and I am sure that his data is strong evidence of browsing trends and user characteristics. If I owned my own business, much less ran a large corporation, I would NEED to employ the Hitwise group in some way, or be left behind by those that do. To monitor, track, and collect data on web browsers is absolute marketing brilliance. Using this data companies can better place their products in front of consumers and better serve them as well. I am glad that Hitwise claims to collect this data anonymously, but I am not naive enough to think that someone else might be tracking ME! Or that's just paranoia.