Online+Learning+Presentations

ONLINE LEARNING PRESENTATIONS REFLECTIONS

**Sue's feedback**
I decided to ask an administrator and my head of department. My head of department recently completed an online degree with another institution as a result her responses to online education is a “yes, yes”. She liked the fa ct that I mentioned it was cost effective both for the institution and the learner alike. She also added that it was also good for students who are often absent from school for one reason or another, now they will be able to use the online resources to catch up on what they missed during their absence. She commented that a number of parents are often reluctant to send their children on field trips for one reason or another as a result she uses a lot of virtual field trips to stimulate students and increase understanding of key concepts. Over all she thought it was a good depiction of online learning. After viewing the presentation my administrator boasted about our online program that we presently use. She reminded me of the different resources that can be accessed via “edline”; teachers can post homework assignments, send messages to parents, post links to resources, respond to messages from students and teachers, students can check their grades, among a number of other things. Her main concern was that teachers are not using the system as effectively as they could. She aired a number of concerns the main ones being teachers do not regularly post grades and they do not often use it as a medium to communicate with parents. Syuen Walker-Ferreira

Sue - I also heard the same administrative concern: "why aren't teachers already using what we have?" I think it goes back to training first and then communication with families, second. Most teachers were given minimal training on how to use our SchoolFusion website, but none of us were given training on the theory or practice behind why we should use it. Therefore, a few people jumped in because they were interested, a few because they felt obligated, and many others resisted. Because of minimal to no communication with families about the value of using SchoolFusion, very few families log in to the website. Over time, the teachers who were using their web pages out of obligation dropped off because there were no results to speak of. Now the teachers, like me who still use it, use it more out of principal than results. This assignment was helpful because it made me rethink my purpose for my online content and consider ways to improve how I am using what I have instead of looking for something else. - Matthew

Sue to Matthew I made the same suggestion when I heard her complaints too. She agree to host training sessions once per month. Which in my opinion is a good idea. syuen

Sue and Matthew - Your discussion of utilizing the technology that is available is also a discussion that we have also had at our school. Our district revamped their website and provided a platform for all teachers to have a class blog. It is mandatory that we all utilize our blogs to help increase the communication with parents, but we also wonder how many parents actually use the blogs to stay informed. One thing that we discovered is that we need to choose ONE way to communicate information (rather than the blog, emails AND a printed class newsletter). If we "train" parents and have them all subscribe to their child's class blog, they will be notified when there are changes and updates. Changing "platforms" for communication has been a transition for everyone. I would anticipate that online learning platforms would also need continued support in order to fully utilize the features that are available.

MATTHEW HORNING REFLECTION My presentation was well received by our administrator, technology resource teacher, and three colleagues I had invited. I discovered that our district had used Moodle at the high school level a few years ago but the two teachers who had been users had fallen away from it. I have sent e-mails to both those teachers to find out more information about their experience and why then stopped using Moodle. I introduced the idea of the "[|flipped classroom]" and this was particularly interesting to my administrator because there is a big concern at our school about the lack of homework completion. Of course, the biggest question was about internet access at home and would we be penalizing students from low-income homes. I was able to share data from a survey I conducted that even though we have 69% free or reduced lunch, over 70% of my students reported having working internet at home or via smartphone. This was a surprising number to me and my colleagues. We shifted the conversation to use of an online model in the classroom and the possibile benefits of that style of instruction. We also talked about community involvement with our public library and a few churches that have computer labs available. In the end, we discussed what possibilities exist within our current SchoolFusion website. Some things such as blogs and wikis are already provided as well as homework announcements. The possibility of work submission is not a part of that system but our adoption of Google Docs may facilitate what we need. I was pleased with the tone of the conversation but I feel like at this point I have the green light to move forward and explore on my own, not with help from anyone else.

Hi Matthew happy Sunday, I am happy that the conversation went well, they participated and was interested in your presentation. However I’m concerned that no one seem want to help you. It can be hard fighting for something you believe in when you know others feel the same but will not adhere to the call. Good luck and I wish you all the best in the future. Syuen

Matthew: I have talked with a couple teachers from other districts about their use of Moodle, and their biggest concern has been time needed to create their classes. I think building such sites would be beneficial if several teachers were working together to develop the course. Unfortunately in your case, it appears that you wouldn't have that support. I was also speaking with our technology director about the use of Google Docs and he said that there were security issues within our network if we used them. Has your district had any such issues arise because of Google Docs? I was surprised when he told me that. - Derek

Derek - I was not aware of any security issues, partly because our entire district converted over to Google Apps for Education so everything is in a controlled environment that we manage (for FREE). Here is a link to a wonderful website created by a neighboring district who made the switch the year before we did: @http://www.appsusergroup.org/home I don't know if your technology director has considered those possibilities already. We also have a county-wide technology consortium called SPARCC that provides our security. Perhaps they have resolved the security concerns for our district? I can't really answer that question but maybe providing those two links to your technology director would give him some folks to whom he could ask the right questions. - Matthew

Matthew - thanks for sharing the flipped classroom and google apps user group resources. This is a little off topic... but is anyone planning on going to the ISTE Conference in San Diego this summer? I went in 2010 and am pretty sure I'm going this summer. Would love to meet any Walden friends if anyone is going! :)

Derek Meyer's Presentation Review:
Everyone in my audience agreed that Moodle provided good opportunities for students. In particular, they like the idea of extending classroom discussions beyond the classroom through discussion boards and/or chat rooms. One teacher expressed that she had wanted to have students communicate using discussion boards in the past, but was worried about privacy issues. The administrator liked that extension activities could be provided to allow students’ interests to grow. All of the teachers agreed that once the courses were built, continuing to add resources and keeping them up-to-date would not be too much work.

Along with the benefits, the associate principal and teachers also had a couple of concerns. All three teachers were concerned about the amount of time required to set up a good Moodle site along with preparing for class. We discussed the possibility of slowly implementing Moodle into our curriculum with a five year plan. Our associate principal thought this was a good idea and thought that if our district went with some sort of virtual classroom that it would be good to have teachers share successes and struggles along the way. She therefore proposed that teachers would use professional development time to communicate such things and get into discussions themselves about something like Moodle. The other issue that a couple of the teachers voiced was the expectations of student use in a virtual classroom, especially in a economically challenging district like ours. We discussed the use of after school labs, local libraries, and our study hall time as opportunities to access the internet if students did not have access at home. We also discussed the purpose being to be an optional extension of the classroom. Our conclusion was that further discussions with more teachers should be done to determine expectations for student use.

Derek - I'm not sure what grade level you teach, but you may want to check out edmodo.com if you aren't familiar with it. It's a great online platform created by teachers for teachers. It's VERY user friendly and literally takes just a minute to set up. I use it with 4th and 5th grade students, but I can see it being useful for older students as well. I love how easy it is to use and have found that teachers don't resist using it once they see how easy everything is to manage.

I presented a Keynote presentation to the principal, instructional coach, a kindergarten teacher and 4th grade teacher in my building. All four educators are on the building technology team, which serves as a forum for planning, assessing building needs and providing professional development in the area of technology to the staff.
 * Cindy Buchanan's Presentation Reflection:**

The presentation was received with enthusiasm. We discussed the eagerness and high level of engagement that is generally shown when students are able to use technology to support their learning. I shared the potential that I believe BrainPop has to provide additional support to students in all subject areas. I also shared some potential grant opportunities that could financially support the subscription to BrainPop, BrainPop Jr. and BrainPop ESL for the upcoming year.

There were also some concerns which we felt needed to be further investigated. When identifying the students who are non-proficient in reading and math, we concluded that a large majority of those students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Our concern was whether or not those students would have computers with internet access in their homes. We also felt that it would be important to provide training and support to our staff and parents in order to implement a plan which would be supported by all. We felt that it was essential for teachers to be confident in their ability to implement a sound learning plan. The teacher’s ability to integrate is the key to success in the implementation of an online learning system.

We concluded that further information about our demographics and Internet access was important to know. We also wanted to spend more time exploring the BrainPop curriculum videos and online activities and will follow up to receive a free trail subscription. We also decided to test Edmodo and BrainPop on the iPads to be sure that they worked well on those devices, although I was quite confident that both platforms have apps for the iPad. I currently use Edmodo with 4th and 5th grade students, so we discussed the possibility of the continuation of using this platform to support book clubs and online learning throughout the summer months.

Having enthusiastic supporters of technology and learning is beneficial when trying to implement change. We will gather more information and share our ideas and findings with the entire technology team at our next meeting. Overall, I was pleased with the outcome of the presentation and am optimistic about our next steps.