555 blog 1

This week is our first week of Cedo 555. We are looking at online educational portfolio examples. I looked for quite some time online and found a few good examples. I was also able to find some portfolio rubrics to use as an assessment. After reviewing some portfolio examples, I was able to construct my own portfolio rubric. I am confident that as I begin to put my portfolio together that I can reflect what I learned and meet educational standards. I am looking forward to learning how to build a good portfolio and I hope that I have all of the needed artifacts.

550 wk 6

This is our last week of this class and as usual I must say that I am pleasantly surprised by how things went. I have learned a lot about teaching and facilitation online and I have had the opportunity to experience it as well. This course was stressful and the work load was a bit overwhelming at times so I am glad to be done, but I also have appreciated working with Greg and Ken through this process. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel as we have 0nly three classes to go. I am surprised by how much I have learned during this masters program and how exciting it is to share some of these tools and experiences with my students and colleagues.

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.