Online+Learning+Presentation

**Online Learning Presentation**
** Layna Winter: Online Learning Community: Leading Technology Change Reflection ** I think the presentation went well. I received a lot of positive feedback. I do believe that some teachers do feel overwhelmed, mainly because we are implementing a great deal of new technology tools within our district to our teachers and students. The consensus from a principal and a few teachers is to deliver the training for new parts of eChalk and other technology in small segments. This would allow teachers to work on it, have time to absorb and then move on to the next stage of delivery. I will be implementing this type of training on Tuesday, September 27th with one of the elementary schools in my district. I will keep you posted on the effectiveness and results.

The following professional development goals were discussed to effectively implement new components of eChalk:

8 Making sure class pages are up-to-date ( ongoing ) 8 Utilizing lesson plans ( 10/01/2011 ) 8 Teachers participating in grade level information sharing groups to enhance learning environments and share best practices ( as groups are created ) 8 Activate student accounts (beginning with HS, MS, 5th, 4th, 3rd) 8 Begin using discussion boards and blog pages(on-going as students accounts are activates )

Utilizing the different components offered through eChalk will expose students to authentic learning exercises such as email, blogging, and on line discussions. Students will have to make real-life sensible decisions as to how to respond appropriately and intelligently when participating in a “public” forum. I am very hopeful that, when given the opportunity to deliver more training and coach the teachers and students through our new technology tools, implementation and usage will increase. ** Michele Scavone: Online Learning Community: Leading Technology Change Reflection ** The closer I come to the end of this program, the more I am aware of the possibility that online learning will become a large part of our public schools. The 21st century has arrived and educators need to catch up to the growing technological trends. My principal allowed me to present my presentation at the Language Arts weekly meeting. Attendees of this meeting are the following: Principal, Grades 2-5 Language Arts teachers, and the Special Education teacher. I was rather nervous coming into the presentation for many reasons. The Language Arts teachers have been feeling overwhelmed with changes to lesson plans, instructional practices, and extra-curricular activities required by administration. So needless to say the mention of something new to add to our growing list was a death sentence. To my surprise, my colleagues were enthusiastic about my presentation and had many questions and comments. I would say a majority of the questions and comments had to do with the financial aspects, pertaining to district and students, of online learning. Working in a low socio-economic area we cannot assume that all of our students have computer access at home. Throughout our meeting, we did find ourselves talking about implementation of online learning in the upper grades. Although I did try to bring the conversation back to our grade levels, it kept moving back. I believe this continued to occur because the older students are more computer literate and more capable of self-directed learning. At the conclusion of the meeting, we decided to continue using the online tool Engrade and encourage our students and their parents as a communication tool. Engrade is a free online grade book for teachers, which also offers an online homework calendar, student messaging, attendance, reports, wikis and more. By using this tool to its fullest capacity will help get both teachers and students used to online communication and record keeping. **﻿**

**Michael Wanmer: Moodle Presentation Overview**
Moodle’s chat features, forums, workshops, journaling, and calendars are support features that all classrooms will benefit from. “ A combination of flexibility, independence, and experience with online tools improves critical thinking, research, and computer skills in online learning. In well-designed courses, virtual school students demonstrate improvement in problem solving, creative thinking, decision making, and time management, but they may struggle in listening and speaking” (Cavanaugh & Clark, p.14). During this aspect of my proposal, all of my peers were enthused to interact with the site to find its full potential in their classrooms. All of them were eager to share their ideas on how to incorporate the peer collaboration features. **Actuality of Incorporation** “The tools of technology today will empower individuals through education by giving them the means to convert information into knowledge, understanding, and wisdom” (Jones, p.xxiii as referenced in Johnston, p.21). Regardless of any obstacles we may have to overcome at PVIS, at least the history department is eager to see it to actuality. My principal is currently soliciting the school district to find out what rules and regulations must be followed before we begin our preliminary use of Moodle in the history department.
 * Meaningful, Authentic Student Learning Opportunities**

Michael, it is always good to hear that colleagues are eager to incoporate new technology tools into their learning environment. You are also fortunate to have your principal on board with implementing Moodle.

Layna

//**﻿Alexis Scheck: Presentation Notes for a Bullying/Character Education CMS **//

I began my presentation of CMS with the idea in mind that we can begin small. I remembered Dr. Tomlinson’s words that as long as we are always moving forward, and taking “baby” steps, we are making progress (Laureate Education, 2010). I decided to go into the presentation with a specific end goal in mind. By the end of my presentation I was hoping my colleagues would be onboard with creating a CMS to support our character education building curriculum. With new laws about anti-bullying in effect this is a theme that is important in our school. However, in elementary education where the teacher is responsible for all subject areas, character education can be a challenge to implement. Furthermore, our school counselor has expressed interest in doing more classroom lessons but doesn’t have the time during the school day due to one on one or small group counseling sessions.

Since character education is not a core and/or graded subject the principal was more open to the idea. Furthermore, I suggested I hybrid course in which the CMS was supported with weekly or monthly meeting with an instructor/counselor for more personal face-to-face support. In addition, the focus group we choose to work with would have an opportunity to share what they like and dislike about CMS during these meetings so we can continue to make the program more user friendly. By the end of the presentation we set up a date to meet to begin setting up a CMS on Moodle.

Dean Phillips: Presentation and Reflection: Moodle...Learning Management Made Easy
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==== Upon the conclusion of the short presentation, which primarily focused on a brief overview of Moodle and some of its key components, the discussion quickly shifted to the process behind implementation. Staff and administration alike, even though there were only five teachers, one paraprofessional, and one administrator, were interested in what it would take to install Moodle on the local server at the school. The research that was conducted for this assignment was not in depth enough to answer this question, however, I was able to point them to the forum where many technical questions have been asked and answered. ==== ==== My feeling upon engaging in the discussion, and my reflection after the discussion and presentation, is that generally teachers are interested, but they are apprehensive due to the time it would take some teachers to become proficient in the management of the system. The computer skills they have acquired on the job may seem adequate for their own purposes, and while they may be aware of the various resources available (Internet, databases, multimedia resources, and software), they lack the motivation, ability, time, or financial resources to adopt unfamiliar technologies (Gillard & Bailey, 2007). It seemed that the elementary teachers were more apprehensive than the secondary teachers, as can be expected. ====  Another discussion that was started because of the presentation was that of the success of online teaching. It seems that teachers are very careful about adopting a system that they may feel is in conflict with the traditional teaching philosophy and methods. As educators, we should be using technology as a critical design factor, in combination with research on how people best learn, to establish new and different environments for student- centered learning” (Lemke & Coughlin, 2009). 