Week Seven:

I have a few ideas for what I would like to use for my synchronous lesson. This lesson seems to be a good venue for topics that may generate more questions, as the teacher will be there to answer them. With this in mind, I tried to think of some of the lessons from my classroom where the students needed greater support. Some topics I came up with include: Verb Tense (an always fun adventure as I found out last year.) Prepositional Phrases Figurative Language Editing Rules The Water Cycle The Rock Cycle Discussing the causes of the Revolutionary War Fractions - Play the Fraction Cover-Up game. I would like to take a part of my asynchronous lesson and adapt it. I think it would be a good learning experience for me to do this. Im going to try it out and see what happens.

Week Six:
This week I spent a lot of time looking at my lesson. Whereas I recognize I still have a few improvements to make, overall I am happy with it progress. Following the self-assessment rubric I currently rate myself as between the Outstanding and Proficient columns. I have all the required content, and my assessments are directly tied to the objectives. I am still working on making sure my lesson addresses a number of learning styles and is accessible to assistive technologies. I will have all of these improvements done soon.

Week Five:
It was really interesting to look over all the different resources available for different learning types. At random times my students will have little bits of extra time. Some of these resources would be great as a tailored enrichment activity. List of resources for visual learners: https://bubbl.us/ : being able to create visual graphic organizers for new concepts http://www.khanacademy.org/ : this site gives learners a visual and audio explaination of new concepts. http://www.teachertube.com/ : teachertube gives appropriate videos to complement instruction. http://www.visuwords.com/ : visual graphic dictionary. List of resources for auditory learners: http://www.podomatic.com : collection of podcasts on a variey of subjects. http://www.podcastdirectory.com/ : another collection of free podcasts on a variety of subjects. http://www.naturalreaders.com : converts text into spoken word. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/: audacity is a free software for sound recording and editing.

Week Three and Four:

This week we were asked to facilitate a real-time chat activity. As suggested in the assignment, the Emerald group chose to use this opportunity to discuss our final netiquette project. Christina set up a chat session using Elluminate Live. Being unfamiliar with this service, I was a little intimidated to get going. However, Christina was very informative with a short tour, and our discussion took off right away. I definitely see the benefits of holding real-time chat sessions. In comparison to email or discussion boards, through the chat we were able to accomplish a lot in a short time. In addition to our chat in Elluminate, we had our project open and were able to discuss, edit, and finally publish the document as a group. If we were to try and accomplish this with other communication tools, it probably would have been much more difficult and time consuming. The only drawback I find with real-time chat is tracking questions when there is more than two participants. If one person asks a question or makes a statement, followed immediately by someone else with an unrelated topic, its difficult to track which response goes with whose statement. Overall, I really enjoyed this experience. I found my group members informative and easy to work with. I am planning on making greater use of this tool in the future.

Week Two:
As a new teacher I have found one of the most important tasks to tackle is establishing an effective and welcoming classroom community. Setting up an environment where students feel comfortable and encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions has been, and will continue to be one of my biggest goals. This week we were asked to compile a series of community building activities. Setting out to accomplish this task, I tried to look for activities I could use both for this assignment as well as in my classroom this fall. I chose the following activities to include:
Students will create an All About ____ poster using the Glogster site, to be shared with the rest of the class. Students will complete an introductory post (including a photo) on their Edmodo group page. Students will keep a weekly reflection journal, or blog. Students will participate in small group scavenger hunts in order to gain background information on the presented topic. Students will participate in weekly wrap it up meeting, either face-t0-face for traditional classrooms, or using Skype. After each project student will complete at least 2 constructive critiques of others work.

I believe all of these activities would function just as well in the traditional classroom as they would online. Where the difference lies between the two, is continuing to maintain and build upon that sense of community throughout the year. In a traditional classroom setting, students are forced to interact with and continue to get to know each other simply through being in the same physical space. Online classrooms are different. If the students are not required to work with one another after the introductions are through, they might as well be in a single student class. Activities like the small group scavenger hunts, and wrap it up meeting require the students to constructively work together, assisting in the maintenance of that classroom community.

Week One:

Quotes

What it means to me...

Knowles (1980) stated that setting up an In any learning environment students will appropriate learning climate is key to have a higher level of success when there is establishing a successful learning experience. a strong sense of a classroom community. He described this climate as one which causes adults to feel accepted, respected, and supported. Engaging the Online Learner Participants should be encouraged to share genuine emotions in a nonthreatening environment. Engaging the Online Learner There is a good chance that not everyone will be everyone elses best friend. However, when a majority of the members feel they are in a safe enough space to speak up about things in the public forum, rather than in individual e-mail messages, then this is evidence of a successful community. Building
community is an online learning environment: communication, cooperation and collaboration.

Students who feel safe and welcome in their learning environment will be more successful. Effective community building will allow students the opportunity to feel safe enough to fully participate in class activities.