Click into Online Learning

Because I think I am done! While I have not yet received instructor feedback on my final project, I feel confident that any chances will be relatively minor. After reviewing the work of my colleagues, I think my submission meets most, if not all, of the key criteria and is a good example of the expected outcomes.

With my surveys taken, and my final thank yous noted, I think I have successfully completed this course. Below is a reiteration of my Discussion Board post on my overall class reflection.

For me, the primary learning in this class was to be in the student role. I have taught online for six years, but I have never taken a 100% online course. This was an incredible learning experience for me. It really allowed me to reflect on my practice like nothing else has. I am able to see that some of the things I do are very good- and some of them are very annoying. I look forward to the semester break when I can make some changes that will make my course more student-friendly.

One thing I was hoping to tackle in this class was the idea of formative and summative work online. Because and online classroom does not contain the captive audience of the f2f class, this has to look different online, but I am still struggling with how to do that effectively. One conclusion I came to in my final project was that best f2f online practices should be incorporated into online classes. Since conventional educational philosophy says it is best for student to have assessments that are both formative and summative, I know that online learners need this as well. My quest for these solutions continues.

Overall, I am very glad I took an online class and got an understanding of the student role. I am truly confident that experience will benefit the students in my own classroom.

This week I found it difficult to balance work and school, but in the end I was able to complete all that was required of me on time, so I am pleased. Overall, I continue to be amazed at how much I am learning about my own teaching by being an online student. I am pleased that I am taking more than one online class right now because I am getting a broader perspective on the online student experience. More than anything, my experience as an online student will inform my future teaching practices.

Only one more week! Hopefully the heavy lifting is over.

This is the final project for Assessment for E-Learning FA-09 900 C. The purpose of this project is to demonstrate an understanding of incorporating key classroom planning methods and implementing them into the online environment.

To demonstrate these skills and understandings, I have created a culminating project for an online Creative Writing course I am currently teaching to online high school students. In this culminating project, my students will be asked to review the writing produced throughout the school year and both reflect upon their growth as a writer in the form of a reflective essay. Students will also present the writing which best reflects their skills and successes as a writer in the form of a multi-media presentation
http://sites.google.com/site/lardinoisa/

This has been my hardest week yet. I am frustrated with myself for getting off pace in class. I have found juggling the classroom and courses really difficult this week. I know I will have to work like the Dickens in the next two weeks to finish this course successfully. I feel disappointed in myself that I am not producing work that meets expectations. I wonder if my feelings are the reason I struggled with week 6 work? I must strive to regain my confidence so I am able to complete the work.

Ultimately, this struggle is good for me. Like many teachers, school is rarely a struggle for me, so this experience is a good reminder for me of how some of my students feel. As a teacher, I wonder how I can help alleviate this feeling in my students? As a student, how can I help alleviate this feeling inside myself? I have a feeling this, rather than the class content, will be my key learning this week.

Then consider taking this pre-course survey for Creative Writing Students.

It was fun to read Casey’s plan for her journalism class. It sounds like a fun, lively course where students would really get to sink their teeth into the subject matter. Because I am a licensed teacher with a BA in Secondary Ed and an ME, the content this week was not new material for me. I was introduced to Bloom in my 100 level Education classes and have been trained to evaluate my plans using this, among other, criteria. It was interesting to read other educators state they were not familiar with Bloom; since this idea has been such an automatic part of my training, I assumed this idea was a staple of education. Curious, I did a bit of research and I see this idea is introduced in 1956, gained popularity through the 80’s and embraced with zeal in the 1990’s.

I am looking forward learning more about the philosophies around assessment in the online environment.

MIDTERM JIGSAW ACTIVITY

Assessment Toolkit

by

Joseph Earley, Anna Lardinois, Miki Nomura, Ann Williams

Assessment in E-Learning, Fall 2009 C

Introduction

Today’s online educator has a bevy of tools available for use in the virtual classroom. Because of the array of options, even the most technologically-savvy instructor can find choosing the right tools overwhelming. The first step in the process of selecting the optimal classroom tools is researching available options. Educators must consider a variety of options when selecting tools to implement in the classroom, from the pragmatic questions of cost and ease of use, to the potential for the tools use to evolve as the course evolves. This piece offers insight on four potential tools for the online educator. CamStudio, a digital recording tool, is presented by Joe Earley; Wimba Voice, a tool to include oral language into an online course, is presented by Anna Lardinois; SurveyMonkey, an online survey tool, is presented by Miki Nomura, and Calendar Builder, and online scheduling tool, is presented by Ann Williams.

Digital Tool: CamStudio
INTRODUCTION OF CAMSTUDIO

Camstudio digitizes your computer monitor display. Camstudio is can be downloaded free from www.camstudio.org. Camstudio is owned by Macromedia and the software often accompanies software such as Flash, Dreamweaver and other Macromedia products. Camstudio is a sturdy, utilitarian software that does the work as advertised. It can be a functional, but limited tool for assessment. Its ease of use and operation makes it appealing as an assessment tool, but its clumsiness deters it from being a tool a teacher would rely on a regular basis.

BENEFITS & USE OF CAMSTUDIO

This product can do a number of very versatile tasks including:

* Creating a movie with viewer interaction
* Recording screen activity for instructional purposes.
* Enhance existing videos with a variety of facilities including highlights, call out boxes.
* Include a quiz or test in the middle of a movie presentation.
* Student made movies can be emailed, published to a blog, embedded in PowerPoint files, and copied to CD all as a means of sharing student work.
* Uploading a primary source photograph or work of art and asking students to annotate and describe the work of art.
* This will help students because they must annotate a photo or painting. They must make an oral presentation as they do it. They must use the technology in the way it was intended.

Generally it is a very powerful tool that has a number of versatile uses as an assessment tool.

WEAKNESS & CHALLENGES OF CAMSTUDIO

Generally speaking it is a bit of a clumsy piece of software. Here are some of the problems I had:

* I had difficulty adjusting the size of the movie window. As a result, I ended up filming much more than was necessary. This slows down the conversion and when working in a class setting would be a distraction.
* It seemed clumsy to stop recording. You had to show your pointer and then move it to the Camstudio icon in order to turn of the record function.
* Converting the .avi file to mp4 for upload required an extra 2 steps. It would have been preferable if the file could be saved as MP4 or MPG from Camstudio for easier upload or for a greater compression for email.
* The quality of picture was not as good as was the picture on my screen. There were color distortions and some blurriness. This perhaps was the greatest weakness. On a small scale for informal presentations or student work this could be overlooked, but for a serious presentation, this would have been a problem.
* Although video editing is a labor intensive process, camstudio made this process even more labor intensive.

APPLICATION OF CAMSTUDIO

This would be an assignment I give to student for a homework, or perhaps a short project lasting two to three days.

Students should choose two photographs, works of art, or political cartoons from the 1950s.

Students should use Camstudio to fully annotate and narrate a description of the image. Students should convert the .avi file to a usable mpg file and upload it to your history class blog.

Student narrative should last no more than 6 minutes, or about 3 minutes per image. You should address the origin, purpose, limitations and value of your image. The students should be able to give an ample description of the message and theme coming out of the image. Student may use Word, Powerpoint or OneNote to hold the photos while the annotate the images for recording.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE OF CAMSTUDIO

Student will be able to analyze and annotate two editorial cartoons from the 1950s, putting into context the relationship between the photograph and the history from the period.

Students will be able to compare and contrast the themes and imagery used by the two images.

Digital Tool: Wimba Voice

INTRODUCTION OF WIMBA VOICE TOOLS

Wimba Voice incorporates the use of threaded voice boards, voice-enabled email, embedded voice within course pages, as well as live group discussions and debates, podcasts and presentations. This tool allows instructors can easily incorporate synchronous and asynchronous voice recordings into teaching and learning activities that traditionally are text-based. The tools are available for use through a course management system, like Blackboard or Moodle.

BENEFITS & USE OF WIMBA VOICE

Wimba Voice enhances the online classroom by providing student and instructors the opportunity to incorporate oral language into the classroom. The tool allows students multiple methods of speaking, writing, and listening to foreign languages online. Because this tool offers so many engagement options, use of the tool may increase the interaction and student participation level in the online environment. The inclusion of voice into the online course could help foster a sense of community and make instructor feedback seem more personal. Student with developing literacy skills will find benefit in listening to, rather than reading, key instructional points and those struggling with writing skills will be able to display learning orally, rather than through the traditional written method.

WEAKNESS & CHALLENGES OF WIMBA VOICE

For all of the benefits and potential offered by Wimba Voice, this is not a tool that can be adopted on a whim. This is a pay tool and one cannot purchase a single license. That alone may take it off the list of potential classroom tools, but coupled with the fact that it cannot be used as a stand alone tool, but must be used as part of a course management suite may limit its use to only established online learning programs.

If a program were able to purchase Wimba Voice, the challenge would become training instructors and teachers to use the tool. A tool is only valuable if it can be used, and this multi-use tool will require a great deal of training to reach its full potential in the classroom. While the company website does offer training videos, the complexity of the tool will likely required user workshops to transition the tool from a neat novelty into a powerful classroom aid.

APPLICATION OF WIMBA VOICE

This tool will be of use in any online classroom. Courses that currently use text-based discussion boards can offer voice-based discussion boards. Asynchronous courses can present instructor lectures to all students to be listen to in the course, or as a podcast. Students, or groups of students, can present oral reports or participate in lively debates. Online foreign language students will have access to correct pronunciation and will be able to practice speaking skills with the guide of the online instructor.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE OF WIMBA VOICE

Students will increase participation in online environment due to the personal connection from interacting and hearing their instructors and peers.

Students will experience greater understanding of course content by incorporating both visual and auditory information in an online format.

Quiz Tool: SurveyMonkey

INTRODUCTION & BENEFITS OF SURVEYMONKEY

SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool that offers a variety of features you can choose from. It allows you to create over 20 different types of questions including open-ended, multiple choice and rating scales. More than 50 survey templates give everyone an opportunity to create a professionally designed survey quickly and easily. SurveyMonkey provides a useful tool such as a survey completion progress bar, require survey validation and collect the results from a web link or email. When results start coming in, you can also export the results to excel as well as view and analyze results as reports on the SurveyMonkey web site. If you have an email list of students, you can manage the list by tracking who responds and who haven’t. You can even send follow-up reminders to only those who haven’t responded. One unique benefit might be the student responses to open-ended questions. When compared to the traditional evaluation, the online format may produce more responses, longer responses, and more constructive comments (Looney, M, 2008).

WEAKNESSES & CHALLENGES OF SURVEYMONKEY

A limitation using SurveyMonkey as a student assessment tool is that the free account level on SurveyMonkey only allows 10 questions per survey and only 100 responses. There is a monthly fee for an account that allows for longer surveys and more responses. In addition, users of online survey tools may have the option to track who responds to the survey by email address or the computer Internet Protocol address. They may also choose to block tracking information from their view. One of the biggest challenges is the response rate. Some researchers said that the response rate could be higher for students who submitted traditional evaluations when compared with those who submitting online evaluation (Looney, M, 2008). When instructors attempt to gather anonymous student feedback, the email request to complete the survey contains no code to help the recipient judge whether their anonymity is guaranteed. Since instructors are enable to track who responds and who hasn’t, the response rate may be low if the students do not trust the instructor. The instructor needs responses from all students in order to use the evaluation to improve their teaching. Another limitation may be their log in system. SurveyMonkey only allows one user to have one account. Even if a school purchased an account for all faculties to use, they would need to share one login that may causes privacy or security issues among users.

APPLICATION OF SURVEYMONKEY

The instructor can use SurveyMonkey as both students’ self-evaluation and evaluation for the instructor. The survey may be gathered weekly and/or in the beginning and at the end of the course. Acknowledging the current learning state of the student may be a motivation to generate better performance for the instructor/students. There will be a room for improvement if it is used in the process of teaching and learning. In general, SurveyMonkey is a great online survey tool for instructors and students. It is easy and quick to design professional looking survey for free or low price. Using this survey tool helps instructors/students better performance in their teaching/learning development.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE OF SURVEYMONKEY

* The instructor will improve the quality of current development efforts
* The instructor will determine the effects of their development in terms of its intended outcomes
* The instructor will know which activities/materials affect student learning more than the other
* Students will recognize their current state and how much more they need to be improved in order to achieve their learning objectives

Planning Tool: Calendar Builder

INTRODUCTION OF CALENDAR BUILDER SOFTWARE

I choose to explore the calendar as a course management tool because time management is so critical when taking an online course. To have a small daily goal to accomplish is much easier than looking at the whole module or even worse the whole course. Sometimes, I find just getting a game plan for the week is a challenge.

I was a concerned that this was too easy of a tool for this midterm assignment. It was not difficult software to explore, but anytime I learn something new, it is worthwhile.

The Calendar Builder software was very user friendly. It downloaded, installed, functioned and saved perfectly. I have a one month trial subscription for no charge. To purchase the software was 19.95. There were many ways to personalize this calendar. I liked that I could save it as a jpeg file.

USES OF CALENDAR

Time management and organizing the module activities are the main uses of this calendar. The software had several versions of a calendar, so I could develop the format that would work best for me. I also liked the weekly planner so I could put more details on it.

BENEFITS OF CALENDAR

It was easy to modify and update, noting which assignment or discussion to work on. It was easy to add personal items on it. A computerized calendar provides a planning tool to completing the course work and having a little personal life.

It feels great to cross off the boxes and check off the daily job. It may give a feeling of being in control for the learner.

WEAKNESS OF CALENDAR

Is it just busy work? Not all learners will want to take the time to set this up. As a tool, would someone not reference it? It may end up in the paper recycle bin because it was one more thing to do for the course.

Many free calendar software options are available, instead of buying this software. The calendar template in Microsoft Word would work great for this purpose.

There is no way to factor in the unexpected. This may be an idealist activity not realistic.

This calendar program had so many options that the calendars could be very busy.

It was too simplistic of a calendar system. Calendar builder was not able to be tied into another computer application.

CHALLENGES OF CALENDAR

When the module opens on Sunday, it would be important to schedule the specific module activities. The more specific it is, the more effective it will be for the student to complete each activity in the module.

When the week falls apart, the calendar becomes the last thing to look at. It is only as good as our best laid plans.

APPLICATION OF CALENDAR

I plotted out this eight week course according to past assignments and due dates. I anticipated future activities.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE OF CALENDAR

Students will demonstrate effective time management and organization by creating a calendar that facilitates their individual needs to complete module activities on time.

Conclusion

Teachers in E-Learning environments are looking for functional tools to use in the classroom in order to enhance student learning. The four tools reviewed here Calendar, Camasia, Wimba, and Surveymonkey , all provide a series of functions that a teacher can use. The greater question the teacher must ask is considering the assessment goals and the functionality of these tools, are these the best tools to do the job. All tools have their weaknesses. In these cases, Camasia and Calendar seem clumsy and difficult to fully integrate into the classroom. Wimba may be prohibitively expensive . Surveymonkey is limited by the anonymity and the limited amount of responses. At the end of the day, all four tools can be used effectively in an e-learning classroom. Considering the sheer volume of new Web 2.0 programs and education oriented software available, with these or with any tools, the question is does the teacher want to lay the groundwork for this tool to be an effective assessment tool. All tools require a learning curve and require a commitment from the teacher to implement the tools effectively. Calendar, Camasia, Wimba, and Surveymonkey can all be used to enhance student assessment in the e-learning classroom, providing the teacher is committed to making them work.

References

CamStudio. (n. d.). CamStudio. Retrieved October, 14, 2009, from http://camstudio.org/

Gaide, S. (2005). Assessment. Evaluating distance education programs with online surveys. Online Education Report, 4-5.

Looney, M. A. (2008). Teacher’s toolbox. Using an online survey tool to enhance teaching. Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 113-121.

SurveyMonkey.com. (n. d.). Features you need, and nothing more. Retrieved October 10, 2009, from http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Tailwag Software . (n. d.). Calendar Builder.” Retrieved October, 13, 2009, from http://www.tailwagsoft.com/calendarbuilder/overview.html/

Wimba. (n. d.) Wimba Voice 6.0. Retrieved October 12, 2009, from http://www.wimba.com/products/wimba_voice/

Reflecting upon week 4, I find this week has further validated some ideas and led me to a new understanding of myself and my skills. I am enrolled in Assessment in E-Learning and E-Learning for Educators concurrently. The process of begin a student in both classes has been more educational than the content of either class. While both classes are hosted online and use the same basic structure, via course management system, the experience in each class is entirely different. Being on the receiving end of different approaches to online instruction has helped me see my course through the eyes of my student and help me solidify the reasons I do what I do in my online classroom and has prompted me to make some modifications in my approach. One thing I want to work on is being able to implement is to have students in my classes have their picture in Blackboard. Having images paired with ideas on Discussion Boards make the communication seem more personal and creates a sense of intimacy One thing I was to change is using the Socratic method of questioning to have students come to an understanding of course material. In the f2f classroom this works well- largely because of the immediate back-and-forth of the conversation. Online this method does not translate well.

Not only is being a student helping me refine my practices as an educator, but it has also made me aware that I have more technical skills than many others. I am always the first to say I am not a tech-ie and do not know much about technology, but this week I discovered that I might not know much about technology for a person who works with it everyday, I know more than many others. I have been under the impression that I have base-level skills, and operated under that assumption. After reading about peers not knowing how to use Google docs, downloading programs from the Internet and do very basic things on Moodle, I realize I have been over-estimating the technical skills of those around me. I need to take that into consideration when I am working with students and peers new to online education.