8.

1 Reflection: INACOL Standards for Quality Online Teaching by Kristan Morales

standard: Standard A The online teacher knows the primary concepts and structures of effective online instruction and is able to create learning experiences to enable student success. strengths/weakness: One of my greatest strengths is my desire to continue learning new technologies and implement them in meaningful ways for students. I just earned my Masters Degree in Educational Technology through a blended program I took at Azusa Pacific University. Through my Masters Program and now through my participation in Leading Edge Certification I have learned the instructional delivery continuum from fully online to blended to face-to-face learning including the primary concepts and structures of online and Blended Learning such as asynchronous discussion activities, electronic submission and sharing of documents, online assessments and student feedback and creating an online community using multiple Web 2.0 platforms. My weakness is that teaching at a traditional school site, both students and teachers are slow to change to integrate technology in a face-to-face setting. The biggest hurdle I have to overcome is my professional responsibility to contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self renewal of the teaching profession. Convincing other teachers on my site team that technology based learning is a tool that we in traditional sites need to incorporate to attract the interest of digital native learners and provide them with 21st century skills is often a task filled with setbacks and rejection from other teachers who are resistant to change. personal growth: My personal growth in this area includes learning more about how to be an effective online teacher. Although I have used blended teaching strategies in my face-to face classroom, I have never taught a fully online course. I have grown as an educator in the area of setting up an online community that incorporates weekly discussions and comments amongst course participants. The weekly discussions we did in this Leading Edge course gave me insight on how to develop and construct meaningful conversations regarding course content and contribute to an online community. action plan: My action plan is for my students is to set up regular weekly online discussions of topics through a classroom social networking site such as Edmodo. I think getting students familiar with sharing their ideas on course content will help them explain their ideas in words and learn to how to connect with their peers for collaborative projects I also plan to continue to introduce teachers on my site team to emerging technologies that will aide in effective classroom instruction. One idea I have found so far next year for my geometry team is an online geometric constructions site http://www.mathopenref.com/tocs/constructionstoc.html that shows how to use a compass

and straight edge. This one resource could be of great use to teachers both in the initial process of teaching constructions, which is an important skill in the Geometry Common Core standards. All of the teachers on my team have LCD projectors and could use this website to introduce and model geometric constructions. This website is also a tool that can follow kids home as they practice and learn on their own by following the step seen in the website. Being able to have tools that extend beyond the four walls of the traditional classroom heightens students learning and I think the teachers on my team will agree that posting the constructions website link onto their school website will be an effective technology tool that is easy to implement and highly effective. My action plan is to continue finding and sharing web 2.0 tools with my site team that move our students forward by incorporating online learning in preparing students for the global community they live in, both now and in the future.

standard:Standard B The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment. strengths/weakness: My strengths here lie in my knowledge and use of online tools for communication, productivity, collaboration, analysis, presentation, research, and content delivery. The web 2.0 tools I learned in this class include: https://www.edmodo.com Online closed social networking for your classroom, embed videos, assign work and quizzes, set up calendars, whole classroom online discussion. Use on smartphone or computer, get regular text updates on your phone regarding class. http://www.wevideo.com Online video creation platform similar to imovie or moviemaker but is free. Has collaborative component that allows groups to share it and work on project together. http://todaysmeet.com TodaysMeet helps you embrace the backchannel and connect with your audience in realtime.Encourage the room to use the live stream to make comments, ask questions, and use that feedback to tailor your presentation, sharpen your points, and address audience needs. http://www.authorstream.com Allows you to upload and save your powerpoints to the web without loss of animations, audio narrations and videos. Also allows you to convert powerpoints to video. http://dipity.com

Dipity is a free digital timeline website. Their mission is to organize the web's content by date and time. Users can create, share, embed and collaborate on interactive, visually engaging timelines that integrate video, audio, images, text, links, social media, location and timestamps. http://www.tagxedo.com turns words -- famous speeches, news articles, slogans and themes, even your love letters -- into a visually stunning word cloud, words individually sized appropriately to highlight the frequencies of occurrence within the body of text. http://www.showme.com create tutorial videos on the ipad and also browse their community of lessons to share with your class. http://penzu.com your own personal journal and online diary that has military grade encryption and is totally secure so nobody else can read it unless you want them to. Accessible via your computer,tablet or smartphone. http://www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm iRubric is a comprehensive rubric development, assessment, and sharing tool. Designed from the ground up, iRubric supports a variety of applications in an easy-to-use package. Best of all, iRubric is free to individual faculty and students. iRubric School-Edition empowers schools with an easy-to-use system for monitoring student learning outcomes and aligning with standards. Create rubric, and touch to automatically score student work and save in gradebook with copy students progress on rubric.Share rubrics with colleagues. http://prezi.com/your/ non linear spinning presentation tool that is like a spinning powerpoint that you can customize backgrounds, include images and videos. Has sharing function to collaborate and share ideas with class and peers and embed code to post into your website. https://www.diigo.com online tool for interacting and highlighting text also has bookmarks, sticky notes, highlights, docs, images, notes all on your ipad or android device. Students can read through and mark-up their own article. Can share article with classmates from different sources. http://www.meta-calculator.com/online/ online graphing calculator that allows users to quickly view graphs tables of multiple equations and inequalities and find solutions sets of systems. https://www.desmos.com/calculator

is another online graphing calculator but this one you can create url and embed codes for the graphs you create so you can share them with the class. http://www.slideshare.net/ Allows teachers and students to upload and share powerpoint slides with each other. http://www.polleverywhere.com/ this allows you to create questions to poll your class and they can respond using text message on their phone or via an ipad or computer. My greatest weakness is figuring out which ones of these tools best suits my environment to increase student learning and engagement. There are so many tools to choose from that oftentimes I feel overwhelmed with too much technology and need not to extend that feeling to my students. personal growth: Through the projects we created in our Leading Edge class I had the opportunity to investigate most of the tools listed above and hear from other teachers in our cohort about ways they could use them to support student learning and engagement. Some of these tools I had heard of before but many were entirely new for me. I plan to implement some of these tools in my classroom next year. The one I am most interested in Todays meet and Polleverywhere. I want to incorporate these into my daily routine and have them in the background as I teach lessons on my smartboard. I want to use them to encourage discussion for all students including those who are more shy and typically dont raise their hand in class. By incorporating back channel discussion tools in my classroom I hope to increase student participation and engagement. action plan: My action plan to move forward is to try out new web 2.0 tools in my classroom one at a time and evaluate their effectiveness. I will also need to provide technical support for my students to learn these new technologies. I will need to incorporate basic technology training time into my lesson plans and be flexible as students learn to use the new technologies. One thing I can do is provide online help links, demonstrate and model usage in class and create my own help videos for students to learn the technology and post the video links to my school website. I would like also to continue the sharing of ideas with teachers in my cohort that took this Leading Edge Course with me. I have learned so much by collaborating with the knowledgeable and enthusiastic teachers in my Leading Edge cohort. I am going to ask our instructor if we can set up a google spreadsheet of email contacts, school site and titles so those of us in the class that would like to stay in contact and share ideas can do so. standard:Standard C The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.

strengths/weakness: My strength in this standard is that I understand the importance of applying techniques to create an environment that will engage, welcome, and reach each individual learner as well as promote the development of a sense of community among the participants. I feel that welcoming the individual learner and making them feel connected to the online community is the key component to their success. When designing my online syllabus I took this into consideration and started the syllabus with a welcome section. I went on to detail how weekly discussions and interactions were a large portion of their grade and that thoughtful discussion of topics and peer commentary were an integral part of the course. When setting up an online course I plan to start the course, like we did in this course, with an introductory assignment where students have a chance to share with the class a little bit about themselves, their goals and interests and to include a photo or avatar of themselves. I then plan to start early on with a group project that includes a slide share, google presentation or voicethread assignment where they are forced to work in a group to complete a project, and then comment on other groups projects. I will choose a web 2.0 technology that has commenting option that will allow students to communicate and comment on each others work. Additionally these types of projects provide opportunities for students to communicate with each other via email or text and build a sense of community. I will establish consistent and reliable expectations for projects and weekly discussion board so students make weekly discussions part of how they connect to the curriculum and each other. As stated in my syllabus, discussion questions will be posted on Sundays. It is expected that students read the course materials via the online textbook and make initial post by Tuesday at midnight PST and respond to 2 other classmates posts by Friday at midnight PST. I outline in my syllabus that initial posts should reflect thoughtful response that shows understanding of weekly textbook material and provides rationale for your position and responses to classmates posts should extend the learning for the classroom community. My weakness in this area is that I have never taught an online class before and although I have laid out clear expectations in my syllabus for building an online community and connecting with the curriculum, I have no experience as of yet to build on to anticipate challenges and problems. Given my 18 years of experience teaching in a traditional classroom environment, I know that every new course I teach for the first time runs into unexpected problems. I suspect such problems might be even more challenging in an online environment where I students struggle not only with curriculum content but technology issues as well. My initial defense as a first time teacher is to be flexible and offer guidance to my students. I have worked this into my syllabus by stating if students run into difficulties using technology to submit assignments to contact me at least one day in advance of the due date so I can help them. I realize that in some cases I might need more time than that so I plan to overcome my personal lack of online teaching experience by being extremely flexible with students as I grow as an online teacher. personal growth: This Leading Edge course was the first completely online course I have taken, the other courses I have taken have been blended and included weekly or biweekly face-to-face interaction. I have learned that interaction, participation and collaboration in an online community is of key importance in motivating me to learn the material. Knowing about my

Leading edge classmates right from the beginning made me feel comfortable and connected to the course and I want to recreate that for my students. Another key motivating factor for me personally was knowing that after I finish the Leading Edge certification course, I would be meeting my Leading Edge cohort of teachers at the Riverside County office of Education to work together to create online curriculum to be used by virtual schools in the county. This culminating, collaborative project drove me towards excellence in my individual projects since I knew I would be sharing them with my classmates and using my ideas as a starting point to build online curriculum. Given that, I learned that providing opportunities for students to come together and share ideas for a culminating group project is a key motivating factor for success in an online environment. action plan: My action plan to continue to learning how to encourage active learning, application and collaboration in the online environment is to stay connected with the teachers in my cohort and in particular the virtual school teachers in my own district. I plan to find out more about how the online curriculum is delivered in our district and inquire the TVUSD teachers about what they have found works best for them. If possible I would like to shadow a online class so I can see the course through the eyes of a student. I also plan to attend conferences such as the CUE conference to learn more strategies to enhance online learning. It is my goal to one day teach a course online and in the meantime I plan to stay connected with current online teachers who can give me guidance and insight to the most effective strategies.

standard:Standard D The online teacher promotes student success through clear expectations, prompt responses, and regular feedback. strengths/weakness: My strength in this standard is my stating clear expectations for coursework through the use of a well designed course syllabus morales online syllabus and use of grading rubric for each project. One of the best web 2.0 tools I learned in this course is irubric http://www.rcampus.com/indexrubric.cfm. This online rubric tool allows me to build rubrics, and attach them to coursework as it is assigned to students. That way students know up front what the expectations are for the project and are able to self assess themselves as they complete their work. What is great about using a tool like irubric is that it gives prompt response to students. Once the rubric is used to grade their work students get a secure copy of the scored rubric with my notes displayed to the individual learner. Another tool I have used in the past is setting up a classroom social network using Edmodo. What I liked about that is students could ask me questions and I it would send me alerts via my cell phone. I could respond immediately and send messages back to students via text messages. It was secure and provided a way for me to give prompt feedback to students. My weakness in this area is learning how to use online data tools to monitor progress and develop an intervention plan for unsuccessful learners. In my traditional classes I would target students with basic or below basic grades and provide them opportunities to relearn the material and retake tests. I will need to learn how to facilitate this in an online

environment and seek out reteaching tools such that allow students time for extra practice and explanation of mistakes. personal growth: I really valued how this Leading Edge course had well laid out instructions and grading rubric for each assignment we needed to complete. The textbook material also offered a variety of online tools including videos and interactive self-checks. This modeled for me what I as an instructor should do when planning and laying out curriculum for my students. I also really valued being able to contact my professor via email anytime I needed help and knowing I would get prompt response to my questions. I want to create a similar environment of open communication and clear course instructions for my students. action plan: I will need to seek out online tools to help unsuccessful learner relearn and practice skills they could not master the first time around. One possible web tool I could use for this is IXL http://www.ixl.com/math/algebra-1 which provides onine practice for individual algebra skills. Another option I could employ is to set up face-to-face online meetings using something like google hangouts where I can field specific questions and screen share my computer and do some online problem solving activities. I will also encourage students to communicate individual needs to me via email and stay committed to 24 hour response weekdays and 48 hour response on weekends as stated in my syllabus so that students know their needs will be addressed in a timely fashion.

standard:Standard E The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use. strengths/weakness: My Strength in this area is that I understand the guidelines for using and respect the intellectual property of others. I understand the differences between cheating (using others work without their approval), plagiarism (the use of materials without properly citing the source) and fabrication (making up information that is a misrepresentation of self). I also know how to properly cite work and will share the importance of citing resources with my students. I will share with them the Stanford University informative website dedicated to fair use http://fairuse.stanford.edu/ and the Owl Purdue citation chart for proper citing of work. I will hold them accountable for citing sources with work they submit in class. I will model this behavior by citing my resources so they get used to seeing how it is done and come to expect that from all work they do online. I will also let student know that I will respect their right to privacy in the work they submit to me by following the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act guidlelines. My weakness is that although I am good at citing written sources, I have been remiss in citing images I pull from the internet. I rely heavily on Google images to incorporate graphics into worksheets and things I create for class. I need to remember that the sources images come from need to be cited too and start citing sources for all the images I pull off the internet. One thing I plan to do is start following the guidelines for finding and using online images set out by SFU.

personal growth: My knowledge for Fair use policies and academic integrity has increased since I started this Leading Edge class. I have found many new resources for citing sources and increasing my academic integrity knowledge. As a math teacher of 18 years I feel like I have been at a disadvantage in this area in comparison to English teachers that use proper formatting and citing of sources on regular basis. I know many English teachers at my site use http://turnitin.com/ to control plagarism. From what I have heard it is an effective tool to assist in grading student work and identifying "tagging 10 types of unoriginal work". I would like to learn more about turnitin.com and other sites that I could use as an online teacher to minimize plagarism. action plan: I plan to inform my students about copyright and academic integrity in the classroom at the onset of my online course. My goal is to set the stage for my students to cite work they retrieve off of the internet and follow copyright laws. I will include resources for them to read and use. I think a great video to have them review and comment on is "A Fair (y) Use Tale" you tube video. I will also have take an Academic Honesty Quiz to test how much they know about academic integrity http://www.umanitoba.ca/student/advocacy/academic_honesty_quiz.html and then post their results and comments into a class discussion. By starting the course with a short unit on academic integrity I think students will be more careful about how they use resources retrieved from the internet.

standard:Standard F The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accommodations into the online environment. strengths/weakness: My strength in this area is my awareness of the diversity of student learning needs, languages, and backgrounds. I have always employed a variety of teaching tools to bring content curriculum to life. Good teaching means creating content lessons using universal design that brings visual, auditory, multimedia and collaborative tools to the learning table so as to connect to different learning styles. In this course I have become even more aware of the special needs of student with disabilities. Through my 18 years of teaching in a traditional classroom I have become quite familiar with Individual Education Program (IEP) for meeting the need of individual students. In an online classroom, digital content needs to be also considered. I understand that the section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires that website content needs to be equally accessible to people with disabilities. I learned that by simple use of headings and formatting using bullets make it easier for screen readers to read digital content. I am now using these techniques when creating course documents. My weakness lies in my inability to use alternative text for images. I know that alternative text provides written description of images but I am still figuring out how where to find the alternative text formatting option when using Google documents. I have switched almost exclusively to using Google documents instead of Word due to the collaborative sharing nature of Google docs. I do however think the lack of easy alternative text formatting in

Google docs is a distinct disadvantage for students with disabilities who use a screen reader. This is something I need to figure out as I create documents with images. Another thing I would like to find out more about it which are the best screen reader programs I can recommend to students. personal growth: Through my work in class I have learned how adaptive/assistive technologies are used to help people who have disabilities gain access to information that might otherwise be inaccessible. Before my Leading Edge Certification class I made many instructional videos for my students but none of them ever included closed captioning or transcripts. In this class I have learned how to include closed captions using captiontube. It really is pretty easy to do and automatically go into videos you post on youtube. I feel confident that I can now adapt any video to include closed captioning as needed for my students who additional interpretative information. action plan: My action plan in this area is to continue to seek out adaptive technology tools to assist my students and to find ways to expand student thinking and learning styles. I believe technology has opened so many doors to expand the way I deliver content to my students. It is exciting to use new tools for communication and collaboration such as slideshare, voicethread, emodo, polleverywhere, prezi. google drive and so many more that heighten and enrich connections to content for students of all learning types.

standard:Standard G The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures. strengths/weakness: My strength in this standard lies in my ability to develop and deliver assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assess learning progress in an online environment. I am familiar with a variety of online tools that allow me to create, deliver and assess online activities and assessments designed with different learning styles in mind. Three years ago I was chosen to represent Chaparral High School for the ARRAEETT-C grant which was written to infuse technology into the Algebra 1 curriculum. I spent 1 year training and collaborating with other selected teachers to implement and employ doc cameras, electronic writing tablets and student response clickers into how we teach. The grant also included site licenses for an online Algebra program called ALEKS. I spent 2 years taking multiple periods of Algebra 1 students to the computer lab as well as in class use on netbooks for the online ALEKS program. I tracked students progress online by time and topic learned and integrated on line assessments that I personally created using the program software that is connected to our state adopted textbook and in alignment with state standards. Through this process, I began to expand the online tools I use to create formative assessments and provide online practice and feedback for students. Some of the tools I use are

Prentice Hall Algebra 1 online Textbook practice tests which allow students to practice online multiple choice test question and gives immediate feedback and regenerates multiple tests for the student to continue practicing as many times as they wish. For standards based skills practice I use IXL which allows 20 free open ended questions a day and provides detailed step by solutions for every problem. Some of the online assessment programs I researched during my Masters in Ed Tech coursework at APU include Classmarker and Quia. Full usage of these sites are granted through paid accounts (with the exception of classmarker that can give 100 free quizzes a month). I investigated both of them and what I really like is the ability to embed quizzes directly into your website and their centralized classroom management systems that allow for easy administration, scoring and feedback of assessment you give to your students. My weakness in this area is that I have only ever taught in a blended and traditional environment. Regular formative assessment and feedback becomes much more tricky when you are in a fully online course. Although I am familiar with a variety of tools, I was always still granted the luxury of seeing the students face to face on a daily basis to provide feedback on their progress. In an online environment I will need to find ways to give effective regular feedback on both practice and assessments that is meaningful and timely for students. personal growth: Through my work in this class I have been exposed to new assessment tools that I could use in an online environment. Tools I learned about in this class is Thatquiz that can provide online practice give immediate feedback on a variety of skills. I also experimented with more open ended projects and assessments using Voicethread. What I really liked about using voicethread is the fact that by including and photo and hearing the voice of myself and fellow students, you are able to create assignments that feel more personalized and mirror a face to face situation. This personalization aspect is vital in terms of creating an online community of connected learners. action plan: I look forward to meeting my cohort of teachers at the end of summer in the Riverside County office of Education to create online curriculum. My goal is to stay connected with a team of enthusiastic teachers committed to creating quality online curriculum. The curriculum we develop this summer is intended to be made available for all Algebra 1 teachers in the county but it is my goal to try some of the activities out in my own traditional classroom next year and broaden my spectrum of blended classroom resources that allow students to grow as 21st century learners. standard:Standard H The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals. strengths/weakness: My strength in this standard is my ability create open ended, authentic assessment projects that provides students opportunities to demonstrate and apply acquired knowledge. Given the onset of the Common Core Standards across the curriculum, developing authentic projects that allow students to apply knowledge has become more important than ever. I am seeking new ways to to apply Common Core Standards for Algebra in new ways

that infuse technology. One project I created using a tiling website called Edcanvas is Pirates and the Linear Equations. In this project students are asked to address Common Core Algebra Standards for creating equations. Students explore systems of linear equations and inequalities in the context of creating a pirate treasure map. They explore viable solutions and build skill through a variety of activities and use of a graphing online calculator. They then share out their pirate treasure maps with the other groups in class. The edcanvas format allow for interactive student comment for each step of the process. I developed this project for a blended learning environment but could easily adapt the submission process to include online turn in option through the use of google forms and google documents to allow for student collaboration on the project. My weakness in this area is that I have been teaching math for 18 years before the advent of online digital tools and will need to transform many of my pencil and paper projects into online projects. I will need to investigate which tools will allow me to best deliver, assess and collect projects digitally. This will take time and effort and will require a long term commitment to myself to convert these projects into digital content. personal growth: My desire and enthusiasm for using technology and online resources has grown tremendously through this class and coursework I did for my Masters in Ed Tech. I honestly feel I can never go back to teaching without technology. I am hungry to learn more and that is why I was inspired to take this class and get my Leading Edge certification. Additionally, I want to be connected to teachers that share the same enthusiasm for creating online authentic assessment. The Leading Edge course has broadened my knowledge base towards teaching in an online environment and taught me things I had not learned in my Masters Program such as the importance of building an online community. I cant wait to meet our Leading Edge cohort of teachers this summer and share ideas for Common Core Algebra projects. action plan: My goal is to teach online. I plan to seek out opportunities both in my district and in the county of Riverside for work in virtual schools. Another possibility includes re-vamping credit recovery courses for my district to include more authentic projects and common core standards. My school uses APEX as a credit recovery program. I would like to develop a online Algebra 1 course that is more interactive and creates a community of learners. I think by developing curriculum for the virtual schools this summer I will get ideas for how to create an improved online credit recovery program for students that is more effective than the current APEX option in my district.

standard:Standard I The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning. strengths/weakness: One of my strengths I gained while using the ALEKS program to teach a hybrid Algebra 1 class is the ability to use the ALEKS online data reports to guide and influence my classroom instruction to meet student needs. I could get reports like this to view classroom

overall performance by topic.

I could also sort data by topic standard and get a report like the one below and use it to identify individual student needs.

Using online assessment tools allow for faster analysis of student learning and thereby allows me as a teacher to adjust direct instruction to support student learning. Additionally, the Algebra 1 team I worked on last year provided weekly formative assessments using Kuta Software. CHS bought the site licenses for the teachers on our team. Together we created direct instruction worksheets that drove our in class instruction and mirrored the formative assessment quizzes we gave every Friday. We would then analyze the data results of the Friday assessments and plan intervention/enrichment groups for the following Wednesdays using the same Kuta software to reteach or enrich the curriculum. What I could also do for students who had not mastered the topic is to give homework in the form of the free Kuta worksheets online with answer key for extra practice and embed or link those worksheets on my website. I also created online instructional videos to accompany some of the worksheets on my Moralesmathematics.weebly.com Algebra website so that students who needed to revisit, pause or rewind and relearn the topics had a chance to do so at home on their computer. I also included Khan academy videos on my website to accompany every night of homework. My weakness in this area is my need to focus more time on data analysis and use it to drive instruction. Last year while we were developing the new Algebra 1 curriculum at my school we used data to drive intervention and enrichment activities but because the initial time commitment needed to develop the curriculum took so much of our time I was unable to spend as much time as I would like to analyzing data. I anticipate this happening again this year as we tweak the CA standards based curriculum we developed last year to include more Common Core standards. It is a continuous time juggling routine between curriculum development and data analysis for curriculum intervention and enrichment activities. It seems like the two should go hand in hand but in reality more data analysis happens in the

years after the initial curriculum is developed when you have more time to analyze the effectiveness of what you have created. personal growth: My coursework in this Leading Edge class have made me realize that whatever curriculum, intervention and enrichment activities you employ, one important key is providing timely feedback to students and giving them opportunities to reflect on what they have learned. By providing timely feedback to students you are also able to allow student time to reflect on what they have done. I personally enjoyed the format of our course that allowed me to initially discuss and interact with my classmates at the start of each week regarding new topics, then work on a portfolio project to demonstrate what I learned in that unit and then have time to reflect on what I did in written form at the end of the week. action plan: When I set up an online course I plan to something similar to how our course was set up with discussions, projects/assessments and a reflection piece. I hope to connect with the teachers in our virtual academies to see what they are doing to structure student interaction with the curriculum. I also hope to attend next years Southern California CUE conference to gain insight into new technologies I can incorporate to allow me to gather and analyze data effectively to drive instruction. standard:Standard J The online teacher interacts in a professional, effective manner with colleagues, parents, and other members of the community to support students success. strengths/weakness: My biggest strength in in this standard is that I am addicted to learning new technology and developing curriculum to support student learning. To stay current I subscribe to professional magazines like ISTE learning and leading-digital magazine June/July 2013. I attended the ISTE conference last summer and have since joined as an ISTE general volunteer. I love getting email from ISTE representatives and participating on committees. I was asked to write about the best math apps and was chosen as a featured teacher for the upcoming August 2013 edition of Leading and Learning Magazine. You can see my page

below and look for me in the upcoming August edition.

Staying connected to professional learning communities to update academic skills and knowledge and collaborate with other educators is of vital importance to me. Thats why I

am an ISTE member. I also attended the 2013 CUE conference and hope to attend the National Council of Math Teachers Conference this fall in Palm Springs. Learning and connecting with current educational trends, technology, standards and strategies keep my classroom fresh and exciting for me and my students. Also important to me is providing ongoing communication with parents or guardians concerning student learning. Last year what I did for my Algebra parents and students is I created a Algebra 1 website to house all of the curriculum, resources, videos and homework assignments I was using in my classroom. Here is the the link to my Algebra 1 site: moralesmathematics.weebly.com. As a parent myself, I feel the best way to keep parents in the loop is to grant them access to the curriculum and provide a detailed calendar of assignments. At any point in the year parents and students could log on to my website and view and/or print out the curriculum worksheets we were using in class and know exactly what their student was responsible for learning. I of course was always available for contact via email or phone but by having this website in place really answered a lot of questions for parents and gave them a starting point for tutoring and monitoring their student at home. Lastly, I was diligent about grading weekly assessments in a timely manner and posting grades online each week for parents to monitor student progress. personal growth: I just completed my Masters in Ed Tech from APU in June. After 3 years of going to school at night you would think I would want a break. But no! As I mentioned before I love learning but more importantly, I saw this class as an opportunity to connect with other teachers in my district who share my same passion with technology driven curriculum. I learned so much from the teachers in my cohort and expect to have a great week in the end of July working with them on a team to design online curriculum for the virtual schools in Riverside county. I hope to be able to integrate some of the curriculum into my own class and build on the shared ideas we create as a team. action plan: My action plan is to stay connected to teachers in our cohort. I asked Molly Large to send out a google spreadsheet to all the teachers in our cohort asking on my behalf to share their email,contact info, school site and curriculum area. I hope everyone fills out our google spreadsheet and stays connected to share new curriculum as we go back to our sites next year. I know I spend many hours each year developing new projects and am happy to share them with other interested teachers. I hope to foster that mentality with the teachers in our cohort so we can all benefit from quality curriculum our group creates next year. standard:Standard K The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment. strengths/weakness: Although I have never taught a strictly online course I am confident that I could easily learn any Learning Management System to add content and assessment in an online environment. As I mentioned previously, I built an Algebra 1 website to house the new resources we created at my site last year run my traditional classroom as a blended classroom via resources I post on my website, moralesmathematics.weebly.com. I create

my own videos that are tailored to students needs using Screenflow screen capturing program and post multimedia resources online to enhance the learning experience. Last year in an effort to bring more writing into math I created a Algebra 1 Final Project: "Create your own website". I instructed students on how to create their own websites using Weebly, and incorporated 21st Century skills into their learning. Students combined in class learning with web searches of math examples, images and video to create their own website that acted as a digital portfolio of their work. At the end of the semester each student presented their website to the class as part of our final exam review. personal growth: In this class I have learned more about how to deliver the curriculum in an online environment and create an online community of learners. I have learned many new tools and have had the opportunity to create projects specifically designed to engage and inspire online learners to connect with the curriculum. I am also happy for the opportunity to create an online syllabus that I could use as a starting point for when I become an online teacher. action plan: I am eager to teach online and am thankful I had the opportunity to be a part of this Leading Edge Certification Riverside county cohort of teachers. I know I have a gained an impressive skill set through this course that will help me move forward in my online career. Thank you to Molly and Tim for the leadership and personal attention you gave me during this class. I truly enjoyed learning in your class. How have you changed as a learner and an instructor through this process? This course was my first fully online course I have taken. All of my work both as a learner in my Masters Program in Educational Technology and Learning at Azusa Pacific and a High School Mathematics Instructor have been in Blended Learning Environments. Going through this first online course gave me a sense of what it feels like to be a student in an online environment. I learned how to navigate my way through a LMS to read textbook material, get instructions, communicate with instructors and classmates and complete and submit my course assignments. While doing so I came to recognize elements of good LMS design and and began thinking about how I could set up an online course when I become an online instructor. Another important aspect I learned is the importance of setting up an online community. Molly Large really made me feel comfortable as a online learner. Her timely response to my questions modeled for me what I would need to do as an online instructor. Also, the group introduction project, weekly discussions with classmates and the online group projects created a sense of community for me that made me feel connected to the curriculum and the class. This class showed me that creating a sense of communities is vital when setting up an online course. What is your action plan for implementing changes in your teaching practice as a result of new learning? I plan to implement many of the web 2.o resources we explored in this class next year when I teach in my traditional classroom. I plan to create a more blended learning environment for my traditional classroom students. I want to try a weekly discussion board for my students using Edmodo. Last year was my first year using Edmodo in my classroom and I used it primarily to deliver HW assignment and videos. Next year I would like to add

on the discussion board element to create a online community for my traditional classroom students whereby they can connect with me and their classmates outside of class. How do you plan to continue your learning about online teaching? The first step to continue my learning about online teaching is to meet with our cohort of teachers at the Riverside County Office of Education to design online Algebra 1 curriculum for the virtual schools in our county. I plan to offer my time and volunteer to assist in the area of Algebra 1 the virtual school teachers in my district. Hopefully they will welcome my volunteer efforts and allow me to learn more about what they are doing to build our newly formed virtual academy. I am also on the Technology Committee for TVUSD where I hope to learn and grow as our district implements technology to support Common Core standards. Lastly, it my goal to teach online and I will continue to seek out opportunities for professional development both in my district and abroad to move me forward in that direction.