Distance Education

1. Identify and briefly discuss at least 5 pros and 5 cons of having virtual schools.
2. Discuss some of the key skills teachers need to have to be successful when teaching a virtual school.
3. Think 2-3 years from now and discuss how virtual schools and online courses might impact your teaching.

1. Some of the PROS of using a virtual school would be:

a) Students would be able to access class information at any time, and would be able to work around their busy schedules.
b) Students and parents can be more involved together in the students learning. Parents would be able to have more control over what the student is doing and would also be able to see what they are learning each day.
c) It would allow them to learn at their own pace. If they catch on quickly with different subjects, they would be able to move on to more difficult subjects and topics, rather than be sitting in a class waiting for slower students to catch up.
d) With computers, teachers may be able to be more creative in using games and fun activities that promote learning.
e) Students who are home schooled would be able to follow an organized learning plan and would be able to access the information on their own, knowing all of what they would have planned for the day in advance.

CONS:
a) Students will be exposed to using the computer for long periods of time everyday, which may affect their eyesight.
b) Students would not be able to tap into all types of learning, like the Kinesthetic learner.
c) Some children do not learn well by just reading and completing worksheets. There have been studies that completing worksheets and assignments all day long does not do as much for students as other learning programs can provide.
d) The teacher has no way of knowing if the student is actually learning. They may not get a subject or question, but may be able to have a parent complete it or a sibling finish an assignment. Students also may be able to complete an assignment, however that does not mean they understand. Without the personal communication between a teacher and the student, it would be hard to show the evidence.
e) Students would lose out on the social interactions that can be gained at school. Many young children form the majority of their friendships in school. Without this social outlet, students may not be able to socialize well in social situations in their future.

2. To teach in a virtual school, teachers would need to have excellent computer skills, as well as be comfortable on the computer for many hours of the day. They would need to be able to put their lessons in Internet friendly formats, and would have to make sure they are clear enough that no verbal explanation would be necessary. They would also have to be able to teach without necessarily gaining a personal relationship with their students, which may make it harder to discover what help they need.

3. Virtual schools could impact my future teaching by making classroom sizes in public schools smaller, allowing more personal attention to be given to those students. It may also give me the opportunity to complete programs that are primarily online based, rather than pen and paper assignments. It would be difficult to make sure students are learning from a distance though. As a teacher, I think observing students during learning is an important part of assessing their learning. Without this component, it would be more difficult to do this. I would personally miss the face to face interactions with students.

TeacherWeb Reflections

1. Describe how you see the use of a class web site could support your future teaching. Describe at least 3 ways how you see the use of a class web site could be used to support your future teaching. Provide specific details for each example.
   
   While exploring the use of TeacherWeb, I think this particular site is great for use in a classroom! One of the ways it could be used is to keep constant communication with parents through the internet. There is a feature that can be used that allows you to get a phone or email contact with all the parents. This will allow you to send quick messages as updates to all the parents at once! Another way these can be used is to save on paper in the classroom. Many of the handouts and announcements normally made by teachers are printed out information for the parents. This would be an easy way to get information to parents in a way that would be cost effective as a teacher. Finally, a very useful tool on the TeacherWeb is the gradebook function. If for some reason the school you teach at did not have a system for gradebooks, it would be a great way to communicate the grades of the students to parents on a weeky basis. They could see their students progress on an ongoing basis, rather than the progress reports and report cards that are not given out but a few times a year.

1. Identify what you see as the top 2 ways students could use a class web site to enhance their learning and provide some justifications for your selections.
   
   The top two ways students can use a class web site to enhance their learning would be to have access to extra work that can increase their skills in their struggling areas and be able to gain quick access to what was missed in class from the website. Both of these can be things that are posted on the handouts section of the web site. These allow students to stay connected to the class while away and also can help a struggling student. If a particular student is having trouble with certain rules of phonics or a particular cursive letter (or anything really) a handout on that particular subject or topic can be posted so that student can refer to it and practice it at home whenever it is convenient. Also, with the website, it allows students and parents to stay connected to the teacher and classroom even during hours not in the classroom.

3. Think about the page types and features of the Teacher Web system. What do you feel where the 2 strongest features or page types within the Teacher Web system? Why do you see these as the strongest?

I think the two strongest features of the Teacher Web system are the feature to create a call/email list as well as the document section. These two are the strongest because they allow for the most communication with the parents. Children can always find fun games on the internet, but communication with the teacher is something that can be done quickly and easily without making phone calls. It can allow the teacher to post things that need to be taken home in case children forget to bring an important document home.

Engaging Students with Concept mapping

1. Concept mapping is a unique way of organizing information in a visual way that children and adults alike can more easily understand. While searching on the site provided I found quite a few examples of how these concept maps are being used in classrooms. One example, was a map of Eleanor Roosevelt's life. This idea stuck out to me because it was not just a complicated science concept like many others were. It was her life and achievements mapped out in an easy to follow manner. It was an easy way to see her life on one page, with highlights as to the important parts. This was a fun way to describe the life of an important person and could be used in an elementary classroom when the students are studying famous people in history. It would be easy to adapt this model to any number of different famous people. It would be a great study tool to give to students prior to an exam. This way they would have the most important information in an organized chart.

Another example of how concept mapping could be used in a class lesson is on the US Government. It would be a great topic to break down because of the different branches within the government and what they are all in charge of. There are so many different features to each of the branches that having a visual representation for students to look at and study from would be helpful in seeing how the three branches related to one another and also what they can do on their own as well.

Another example of how concept mapping software could be used in a classroom setting is to use it to outline a book. The students could read a book for the class and the concept mapping could be used to help organize the different characters, the plot, the resolution, the conflict and the setting. The entire main parts of a book could be mapped out and used in order to generate discussions on the book in class, with character names and conflicts easily accessible to the students, so they would not rely only on remembering small details. This would allow for students who may not remember a character with a small parts name to still contribute to the discussion. The map could also be constructed with the students help or input on what the most important ideas from the book are and how it should be mapped out.

2. Honestly, for me I think it would take a days worth of work to fully explore and learn all the different tools and functions associated with this type of project. I feel like it would be a small investment of time, to be able to produce such visual charts. However, I also feel like these types of charts could easily be created using Powerpoint using the slides. This particular software may have more to offer, but I plan on teaching second grade, and will most likely not have the opportunity to use computers everyday for lessons. I hope to use more hands on and engaging activities, rather than create flowcharts for students to look at. The idea of the organization of concepts in graphical representations, however, is a fun idea that could easily be integrated using the programs associated with Office.

Here is an example of the Concept Map I created in my T&L 445 class:

Blogs and Wikis in Education Project

1. Three ways blogs and/or wikis are being used in innovative ways in the classroom are:

• One teacher is using her blog to post information and projects that students have created. One of the many posts had the ability to listen to sound bites of the children reading their Mother's Day messages to their moms. Many of the students projects were accessible for viewing.
  
• One school is using a blog site as a way to communicate with parents and students. This school has many updates on the main page, and also has separate notes from many of the teachers that can be accessed. This is really nice because the parents can get general information and announcements that pertain to the entire school, as well as information that applies to their specific classroom.
  
• There is a teacher who has lists of spelling words for each child, interactive learning tools as well as different notes and lessons about words that start with different sounds. She has different updates available as well as a fun and inviting look to her blog.
  

2. RSS readers/aggregators could be used in the classroom by subscribing to certain sites that are often changed in particular subjects. For example, if teaching current events, you could set an aggregator on one of the news sites, like KGW for the Vancouver/Portland area. That way, in the event that something of interest to the classroom topics is on the site, it would be easily accessible, and save time searching the site.

3a. Two pros of using Blogs and Wikis in education are:

• Information is easily accessible to students, parents, and teachers. It is easy to share information regarding grades, lesson plans and/or current events that students, teachers and parents need to be aware of.
  
• Children need to be familiar with all the Web 2.0 that is available to them in order to succeed throughout their time in school. Some students may not have access to these technologies at home, so using them in the classroom can be a great help in teaching the children how to use these technologies, so they are not left behind the ever growing curve of technology users.
  

3b. Two cons of using Blogs and Wikis in education are:

• Everything is accessible to parents and students. It is important to remember to make everything viewable information you want the public to know. There is limited privacy with these blogs. Anything you would not want a parent or student to see must be kept offline
  
• Some students or parents may not be able to access the information online. Some may not have internet in their own homes, so projects or homework may not be able to be able to be described or assigned online. It would be unfair to hold a child accountable for a project or assignment that they could not access. Knowing the economic background of each child would help to eliminate this.
  

MI in the classroom

While in class on Tuesday, we all took a quiz to see what our strengths were out of the Multiple intelligences. Although I had 70% or higher on each intelligence, there were two that were at 100%. The MI's that were at 100% were Kinesthetic (which I will focus more on) and Intrapersonal. The information below is a collection of my thoughts and ideas based off of my findings from the site (surfaquarium.com/mi/) Any quotes in this blog are directly from that website.

1. Some of the core characteristics of Kinesthetic learners are sensory, reflexive, tactile, concrete, coordinated, and task oriented. Out of these characteristics, I feel I most identify with sensory, internalizing information through bodily sensation, reflexive, responding quickly and intuitively to physical stimulus, and task oriented, which is strives to learn by doing. I feel these fit me well because I do react quickly and on instinct to things, and I love learning by exerience, or "doing." I like projects where I can learn to create a lesson plan, by actually creating one, for example.

The other MI that was very high for me was Intrapersonal. This MI's characteristics are Affective Awareness, Ethical Awareness, Self-Regulation, and Metacognition. I believe I can identify most with Affective Awareness, "the knowledge of one's feelings, attitudes and outlook" and Self-Regulation, "monitoring one's thoughts, actions and behavior" the most. I beleive these to be true because I tend to understand exactly how I feel about any particular thing, right away. I also like to hold myself accountable for my own thoughts and behavior and I am usually aware of them as well. I tend to learn a lot by thinking about something to myself for awhile.

2. For kinesthetic children, they like to interact with objects in their environment. They usually like to do activities that require being "hands-on." They may prefer learning centers and may also possess strong motor skills, are generally different than hyper children and enjoy games and tasks that require activity or groups.

3. Some of the ways I can incorporate Kinesthetic learning into my classroom is to make sure to plan activities in the classroom that can be hands-on, allowing the students to play with things to learn about them. Also, Kinesthetic learners can benefit from using different learning centers in the classroom. I could set up a reading center, a writing center, etc. to allow a specific part of the room to be associated with different subjects. I can try to incorporate song and dance, giving children the opportunity to get out of their seats and feel the learning, rather than only see it. Three dimensional objects for learning are also very helpful for kinesthetic learners, so they can see and feel the learning at the same time.

4. Some of the technologies that can be helpful to Kinesthetic learners are the mouse, a joystick, building tools, P.E. equipment, materials that can be manipulated, simulations and the wheel and axels.

5. I think it is very important, as a teacher, to be aware of the multiple intelligences. It can impact my classroom because if I have the knowledge of how different children learn, then I can form a years worth of material that can hit on every level of intelligence, allowing all the children the opportunity to succeed, as they will have different levels of different intelligences. As I find out what intelligences best help my students learn, I can tailor my lessons to help them have a higher chance at success.

Here is a copy of my MI profile:

Welcome to the beginning of my blog!

This is the blog that I have created for my Technology in the K-10 Classroom at WSU!