As I ponder on my last week of class, I'm thinking about what my future may hold if I do become an online teacher.  Spanish is such a skill-based class that it would require a synchronous environment, especially in the fundamentals of basic pronunciation, accentuation and grammar structure.

After all is said, written and done, here are my top five lessons I learned.

• Teaching online requires hundreds of hours of PRE-PREPARATION with thoughtful organization to different learning styles, addressing different student needs, with meaningful delivery and testing systems.
• Directions and course expectations must be clear and specific.  Examples of course projects/assignments should be given whenever possible to achieve learning benchmarks.
• The school day is a 24/7 reality where writing is the main component in communication.
• Class assignments take longer than in a regular brick and mortar classroom and many must be adapted for a successful online experience.
• Students require continual, timely feedback on assignments and assessments (both formative and summative).

WASCD Blog 4

Synchronous Tools
Most of the synchronous tools that I wanted to learn more about, I 've used in this class!  I would not have pushed myself into using such web conferencing tools (both audio and video).  Prior to this class, I had only used FaceTime on my iPad.  Now I've ventured into the Skype and Google Chat worlds.  During our Thursday night classes, whenever Kris puts up a graphic on the virtual whiteboard, I will print it out and write my own notes on it.  My dominant learning styles are visual language, visual numerical, and A-V-K (audio-visual-kinesthetic).  When I can print out the lesson topic and add my own notes, listen to fellow colleagues, and express my views, I learn the material best.  This is very effective!  A required synchronous tool skill set is that the teacher must be a facilitor of knowledge and discussion--a guidepost for the direction of learning.  An effective teacher must be prepared for any technolgical issues that arise--i.e. audio/visual is not functioning, screen freezes during class, broken links, etc.  Another effective tool is that the synchonous class can be recorded--making it also an asynchronous resource for absent students or a way to revisit the class.  The biggest downside that I would have as an online instructor is not being able to see my students' reactions.  I use body language and facial cues to aid in determining if my students are understanding the material in my classroom.  Unless students specifically tell me that they don't understand the material or homework objectives, I will assume all is well.  Expecting this assertiveness from teenagers will be difficult.  Many times, questions arise outside of the classroom.  In the online world, communication initially occurs via email or phone.  The turnaround time for an answer to a question could take hours if not days.  For some students this lag time in communication would require much effort and patience.  Being available to students by creating a synchronous virtual study time would solve this issue.

Asynchronous Tools
I can't believe how many aynchronous tools are out there!  Prior to this class, I was familiar with many Web 2.0 sites.  I've created online storybooks and photo albums, made videos and posted them on YouTube for my own class, and delved into the Moodle world.  The greatest advantage is the flexibilty that the teacher and students have in accessing these sites at any time.  I also like that I have time to reflect on what I've learned.  The asynchronous tools allow me to take my reflections/ideas and create something useful such as a blog or an online project.  The downside is that the instructor must continually keep the proverbial finger on the pulse of the web.  It is the instructor's responsibility to keep up-to-date on the latest web tools and then expose the students to them.  Just finding an effective website and creating a lesson will take hours of work--only to be obsolete within a year or two.  In a class such as this, Kris had to first ask us what our teaching disciplines were.  She then had to locate web resources for us to investigate that we would find useful.  Without fully understanding a discipline, a website might look good as a resource, but when investigated, ends up being ineffective for classroom use.  All in all, I still find the flexibilty and variety of asynchronous tools to be highly effective.

WASCD Blog 3

After reading the 51 Competencies for the Online Instructor and completing the self-evaluations, here are my strengths and weaknesses.

MyStrengths:

1. I am well-organized, thoughtful, creative individual.  I create to-do lists and complete things ahead of schedule.  I can create a syllabus and a good rubric.  I like to know what I need to do in order to learn at my best.  I would be able to do the same for my students as an online instructor.  I am also good encouraging high-quality work and giving prompt feedback, i.e. grading in a timely manner with an appropraite rubric.
2. I am a life-long learner.  I love learning new things and going through the learning curve/process--hence the reason for taking this class.  :-)
3. I enjoy reinventing parts of myself with reflection.  Reflection has made me a more effective instructor and a better person.

My Weaknesses:

1. I do expect things to work, especially after I've pretested them.  How many times have any of you had everything ready to go for class, technologically speaking, and it's a bust?!?!  The server is down, the Internet is slow (as I type this on Cyper Monday), the computer locks up!  Am I frustrated--YES!  I would have a backup plan (that's the planner in me)--but it wouldn't be as good as the original.  I would definitely use humor (Murphy's Law, anyone?), but I would have to better learn how to tame this beast of frustration!
2. Keeping up/informed with the latest technological trends is increasingly more difficult with each year I'm teaching.  As soon as I feel comfortable with one program, poof!--a new and improved DIFFERENT one is out there.  Yes, I let the students show me, but what I really need is the time to learn it on my own.

Bottom line:  I believe this is a definite educational trend, especially in the wake of all the virtual schools coming into existence in the last half decade.  My greatest fear is that I won't be equipped with the resources/equipment required, i.e. those components where I have the least amount of control.

WASCD Blog 2

After learning about the different browsers, I decided to get off my Internet Explorer habit and focus on some more secure browers.  I think the only reason why I never considered using other browsers was that I felt comfortable with IE and never really had any issues with it.

After Thursday's class discussion on browsers, I decided that I should try a more secure browser and just learn how to use it in the comfort of my home. I downloaded and installed Mozilla Firefox.  I liked that it imported all of my bookmarks, cookies, and homepage.  I'm learning how to utilize the tabs, as I am unaccustomed to this layout.  Luckily my husband uses this browser all the time and has been very patient with me.  I also have been accessing all my homework using Google Chrome, and I really am liking this as much as IE.  In all honesty, I would have never done this if I hadn't been taking this class.  Wow!  :-)

ADDED 11/13/12:  I just thought that I would add that I now feel more savvy in helping my students/colleagues with browser issues.  I feel very comfortable in Chrome (which many of my students prefer) and am getting to be proficient in Firefox.

WASCD Blog 1

When I first began teaching, personal computers were a rarity, the Internet was there but not really utilized, and wireless phones were the closest technology to the cell phone.  In the last 20+ years, standard textbooks with pencil and paper just aren't the norm any longer.  In this class I am hoping to further my tehnological skills.  I feel like the proverbial "fish out of water" when trying to keep up with all the latest technology (software and hardware).

I have just begun utilizing Moodle at my school district this past Spring.  I am now trying blended/flipped class learning for my students.  My goal is to learn how to incorporate the technologies/information learned in this class to become a more effective 21st century teacher.

Topic 4

I decided to utilize StoryJumper to create a story.  I watched the 6-minute YouTube video the website offers as part of its tutorial.  This video is very useful in understanding the fundamentals of creating a book.  I found it to be the best tutorial yet for any of the topics I've attempted to learn and use.

I really like the simplicity of the graphics and the layouts.  Being a high school Spanish teacher, this is actually an advantage.  I would prefer that my students spend their time and energy on correct Spanish grammar construction than layout design.

I did find a few glitches with this application.  When creating a book, it really needs to be 16 pages long.  I spent almost 4 hours creating a story entitled, "Momentito" to learn the program.  My story is only 14 pages long with text boxes and illustrations.  The program kept adding blank pages to my story to make it long enough in the editing/creating process.  I found this to be most frustrating, as I repeatedly deleted unwanted blank pages in the editing component of the program.  I also noticed that it's not always WYSIWYG.  One web page made the cover look like it had NO illustration, but when you click on the book to read it, the cover has an illustration.  Go figure!

Another problem that occurred was when I needed to reprint just one page after fixing a mistake; it added blank pages to the end of my book.  I'm assuming this is because I do NOT have the 16-page minimum.

Finally, I could not figure out how to do correct Spanish punctuation, i.e. upside-down question marks and exclamation points, as well as accents and tildes in this program.  I used Microsoft Word to construct those words/phrases and then copied and pasted.

I actually had a lot of fun creating this book.  I like that I have the option of sharing this book online or keeping it private.  I can also purchase a professional hardcover version of my original story (provided it is at least 16 pages long).  Prices begin at $19.95 and increase based on story length.

As a bonus, my tweener son wanted to start his own book online because he thought my book was "silly in good way, Mom."  I plan on showing this masterpiece to my colleague and then using his wonderful wit to expand it to that magical 16 pages (or more if our creative juices are really flowing).  My ultimate goal is to use this book in my Spanish III class this fall as a comic relief when reviewing grammar basics.

Topic 3

I first tried Poll Everywhere and created a sample poll--What is your favorite color?  I tried to type this question in Spanish, but I could not type an upside-down question mark or accented vowel.  I used Mircrosoft Word to type in this quesion and then copied and pasted it Poll Everywhere.  I have seen this used during a quick inservice this past spring.  I like the instantaneous results, but the limitations are that every student in my class needs to have access to either a cell phone or a computer.  This may present a problem, as my building has one writing lab with a classroom set of computers that is shared by the entire staff.  The other limitation is cell phone signal strength.  My cell phone carrier has a weak signal in my classroom (1-2 bars only).

I then decided to try Hot Potatoes after reading some positive reviews on the blogs.  I went through the tutorial and created my own exercise.  I created a JMatch using 5 clip art images (used Microsoft Office clip art saved to my desktop for easy access) with its corresponding Spanish vocabulary term.  I then saved and went to "Create Web Page" and chose the "View the exercise in my browser".  I like the standard and drag/drop choice.  The flashcard option would be useful for my students, but it didn't seem as user friendly.  I also noticed that altering clip art size is a must.  I found that 100 height is a good size and then keep the width to whatever the program automatically adjusts it to for proper ratio.  Anything larger and 5 clip art pictures didn't fit well on the screen with a height larger than 100.  I found that I had to delete the entire clip art image link to resize it; I couldn't figure out an easier way to do this.