Every day, educators face each day the task of preparing their students for a world they can barely imagine. The scope of education grows wider and deeper as knowledge grows at a geometric pace and problems arise for which there are no solutions. This blog explores the challenges of leadership, schooling, technology, instructional technique, policy and practice related to educational challenges now and in the future.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Evolving Learning Management Systems
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Moodle vs. Blackboard?
It will be quite a while before I am an expert, but I hope to have a course site up and running for this summer. I’ll keep you posted!
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Learning Management Systems: Be Prepared!
More disruptive are interruptions at the regional and local levels resulting from severe weather events. As an online university, Walden has students from all over the country and the world. Thus, it is common for some students to have their communication with the LMS interrupted at one time or another over the course of a semester. Tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards are all regular interruptions in our classes. Since I live in the northeastern United States, I experience hurricanes in the fall and blizzards in the winter, so I may not be able to communicate with my class. Again, redundancy is the key. I have four laptops, all fully charged, and a cell phone that can serve as a modem fully charged with an extra battery in the event of a loss of power, and thus communication and connection to the LMS. If severe weather is predicted and there is the possibility that I may not be able to communicate with my students via the LMS, I let the students know via e-mail and announcement. I make sure I do this at least 24 hours in advance based on weather reports so that students can contact me with questions before a loss of communication happens. I also notify them when I am back online, or when the danger of a loss of communication is imminent.
Walden has a policy about communication, submitting assignments, etc. during unanticipated interruptions with the LMS in the Student Handbook and in the syllabus published as part of every course. Students are instructed to download and printout the syllabus with this information so that it is available in the event of an interruption of service. The Student Handbook is large, bust student are advised to at least download it for off-line reading. Instructor contact information, including telephone numbers, should also be downloaded.
Perhaps someday LMS’s will be impervious to weather, viruses, needed maintenance, or unexpected breakdown, but until then, I will draw on my Girl Scout training and ”Be Prepared”.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Born to be Wild!
Even though I’ve been an online instructor since 2004, I’m still very excited about it. Over the course of my nine years in this position, the options, tools and capacities of online education have tremendously expanded. Perhaps because I came into online education at a relatively early point in the development of this approach to learning, I never really felt overwhelmed because I had the opportunity to grow with it. At the same time, I have continually felt the need to keep up to date with need developments and learn new skills and tools. The research about online learning has expanded rapidly, so keeping up with that body of knowledge is also a challenge. Challenged, I think, is a more appropriate word than overwhelmed. I feel challenged in a very positive way. The certificate program has contributed to the positive challenges I have experienced through the new information, new skills, new people with whom I am interacting, and the self-reflection that is a part of each week’s learning. No – I do not feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’m riding a motorcycle on the open road singing “Born to be Wild”. Am I dating myself?
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Reflection: Balancing Substantive Feedback with the Desire for Immediacy
Online learning has many wonderful qualities - as well as some big challenges. One such challenge is the expectation of immediacy. The on-demand nature of the internet and social media has created in students an expectation of rapid feedback. Even when they know intellectually what the university’s feedback policy is, at an emotional level, they still want a quick turnaround of their work. The biggest challenge I encounter in giving feedback to students that reasonably addresses this need for immediacy while still providing me with the time to review each student’s paper in depth and provide substantive feedback. Yet in-depth feedback is exactly what students need if the integrity and the quality of the course and the student’s education are to be respected. University guidelines become the faculty member’s friend, but only if he/she sticks to them. If I’m going to ask a student to be patient and wait for substantive feedback, I’ve got to make sure I provide that feedback within the timeframe defined by the university. Only by working within the guidelines can the students’ need for substantive feedback be balanced with the desired for immediacy.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Creating and Maintaining Presence: The Biggest Challenge in Motivating Students in the Online Classroom
People feel motivated to participate when they feel engaged, connected. In the online environment creating that sense of connectedness and engagement that stimulates motivation is without question the number one challenge. The key to engagement, connectedness and motivation all lie in the same teacher/classroom attribute: presence. I call presence an attribute because in the online environment, just as in the f2f environment, presence is more than physical proximity: it is a feeling tone created by the instructor. It is the assurance students have that the instructor is there with them; that there is a real person who cares on the other side of the computer screen.
How does an instructor create presence? Being in the course on a frequent basis is a start, but only a start. The quality of the interaction with students when the instructor is in the class defines the nature and extent of the presence conveyed by the instructor. A personal introduction, helpful comments in clear, but friendly language, quick responses to student e-mails, timely return of work with substantive personalized feedback, availability to students through a variety of means (telephone, Twitter, text, Skype, etc.)….all of these things create a presence that is real and caring. That type of presence engages and motivates. Creating and maintaining that type and level of presence is not easy – which is what makes it, in my opinion, the biggest challenge in motivating students in an online class.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Challenges Teaching in the Online Classroom
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Online Instruction and Web 2.0: Richness and Diversity
At this point, I can say my teaching has fully transitioned to online. At the same time, I am still transitioning into what feels like a new frontier: the rich and amazing format of web 2.0. Just when I think I have mastered the skills of online instruction, some new web 2.0 tool comes along, and the possibilities for communication and online instruction seem endless. With each new Web 2.0 tool, I gain expertise, a new way to reach my students, and with that ability, I acquire more confidence not only as a teacher but as a citizen of the Web 2.0 world in which I now live and teach.
I could never leave Web 2.0 world. It is too interesting, and offers too many opportunities not only to do new instructional things, but to do very old instructional things better with greater outreach , more lasting impact and more fun for my students – and yes, for me. Consider, for example, my newest Web 2.0 tool: BlogTalk radio. I have so much to learn! Yet in the 3 weeks I’ve been using it, I already see that it is a powerful tool for Socratic learning and amazingly, although I have a class of 12 students nearly 2000 people have downloaded our BlogTalk radio discussions, and the papers I receive from the students after one of our discussions shows a level of critical thinking that is remarkably higher than I have seen in other classes of the same course. WOW! This Web 2.0 tool is pretty powerful stuff! Then, I set up a special Twitter account (another Web 2,0 tool) just for the BlogTalk show, and link the show and the Twitter account. The Twitter account was picked up by an international news service which is now directing people to the discussion site. So now I need to set up a Facebook page and link everything to my blog, which I have renamed. So much to do, so much to learn!
It would be a mistake to think that I have the necessary skills to be an online instructor and stop experimenting and searching. I have the skills to be an online learner and share with others what and how I learn in the amazing Yellow Brick Road of Web 2.0 as it leads to…….Web 3.0? What do I want to learn? Whatever I can and as much as I can.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
It's a new day, new blog, new approach
Things have changed on my blog! My thought process has evolved, and my and with it, my inner blogger has blossomed and expanded into internet radio. I've combined by blogs and and linked the resulting single blog to my new BlogTalk Radio show All Things Education. I invite you to visit the show page, where you can listen to archived shows online, download shows as podcasts for listening later, and follow the show to be notified of future shows. Currently, shows are scheduled for Sunday evenings at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, but additional shows will be added at a later date.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Hootcourse: Link between social networking and learning platforms
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
My biggest challenges in transitioning from F2F environment to an online environment
It’s hard to believe, but I’m in my 10th year of teaching online! At this point, all I feel comfortable saying is that I have learned a lot about online learning and I know the difference between online teaching and F2F teaching. That may sound like a simple – even silly – statement. But I didn’t always know the difference. In fact, when I started teaching online, I was completely unaware that there was a difference between the two, other than the fact that one was in real space and time and the other was in virtual space and time. The hardest transition for me was developing a new set of teaching skills specifically designed to capitalize upon the strengths and advantages of virtual space and time and minimize the disadvantages. The training and resources available to faculty now are so much better, but even if I had the advantage of those resources, I would still need to expand my consciousness as a teacher in ways I did not imagine in F2F teaching. I had to learn not just about making myself present in virtual time and space, but how to use my own virtual presence to draw others into a virtual instructional space that was engaging and transformative. My ability to achieve these goals is developing over time. I realize in the course how little I know and how much I have to learn. Between the technologies available to teachers and the research about teaching and learning that is continually coming out, I have realized that I am always going to be transitioning because virtual learning is dynamic. The day I say “I have transitioned’ will be the day I hang up my laptop.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Biggest challenges moving from F2F to online.
What are the biggest challenges your students face when transitioning from f2f environment to an online environment?
Last night I had my one f2f meeting with a new class of Advanced Technologies students. After the third announcement that class would be online after this one meeting, one student got a panicked look on her face. I talked with the students about the concept of “self” – of who we are. Are we our bodies? Can we be in the same physical space with someone and have no rapport with them, no connection? Yes – queues at the grocery store or the movies, etc.; waiting rooms at the doctors. It is not until we interact and extend ourselves in thoughts, and reactions, revelations about our inner being that we share persona. I learned this when I was in middle school and shared my Beatlemania with pen pals in Germany, England and Japan. There was no internet then – we connected virtually through snail mail, but the concept was the same. We shared our common interests, shared our ideas and ourselves, built bonds -- and never met, although when I read their letters I felt they were in the same room with me. They told me the same.
Developing the online persona is perhaps the most difficult transition from f2f to online, because it means understanding that “you” are not just physical, and that the “you” that generates ideas and forms relationships and solves problems is an intellectual being who does not have to be bound by physical space. Once a person understands and accepts that reality, the rest is just an adventure.
Kathleen
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
An Experiment with Prezi Pease visit
http://prezi.com/inpdjhiyp3pl/creating-presentations-using-prezi/?auth_key=87a22593fa0c240c946f6127c118f81408081f56&kw=view-inpdjhiyp3pl&rc=ref-29670399
Your comments and input are welcome.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
ONLINE- HYBRID- BLENDED EDUCATION: Week One Reflection
The first week in the Certificate Program in ONLINE- HYBRID- BLENDED EDUCATION was pretty remarkable! I met a lot of new friends and some old ones and felt really comfortable in a group of people with the same passion for finding new ways to incorporate distance education and technology into the delivery of instruction. What amazed me as we worked through our discussion was the variety of technologies we use and how many new ones are out there. It is almost impossible to keep up with the proliferation of communication tools and venues available in cyberspace.
Keeping up with what is out there is only one of the challenges of online education. An even greater challenge is integrating technology effectively to achieve the desired outcomes of curriculum and instruction. Technology tools for their own sake could actually detract from instructional effectiveness. Matching the appropriate technology with your lesson plans for effective online instruction is the key to success. Thus, I am hoping over the next few weeks not only to expand my repertoire of available instructional technologies, but also my knowledge and skill in understanding how to assess the needs of my students within the context of distance education and combine curriculum with technology to meet student needs and achieve desired learning outcomes. The prospect is both daunting and exciting!