Internet-based learning environments

This week in my CEP 811 class we learned about online learning. There was a reading that was assigned: Michigan Merit Curriculum Online Experience Guideline Companion Document. This PDF explained the core principles of online learning as well as the different types of online experiences, their quality characteristics and specific resources for each experience such as webquests, electronic portfolio, online field trips and simulations, etc. I don't have my own classroom but one that interested me that I have been hearing in my CEP classes was moodle. Many schools are looking into blended learning and there are many cyber schools. I have worked with learning management software such as blackboard while I was an undergrad at Duquesne and while I was student teaching at Chartiers Valley High School. Through looking at the moodle website and examples on the site, I was able to learn about the capabilities of moodle for online learning. The quality characteristics that most learning management software have are integration, sustainability  life-long skills and teacher involvement. With moodle, there is also collaboration through forums and wikis. The website gave a very clean appearance and I think that it is more user-friendly than Blackboard.

When looking at and evaluating moodle, there are a few key topics that should be addressed.
1. What content could this help you teach? Moodle could help me teach most Spanish classes. For me personally, I would want to use online learning in high school classes, when the students have a foundation for the language. In particular, I would like to teach more about culture through moodle. There are 21 Spanish-speaking countries and they all have different cultures and are located in different regions of the world. I would not be able to teach things about the culture of each country during the year due to curriculum. Through moodle, I would be able to have a page for each country which would have links to videos on youtube, pictures and information about the country's culture.

2. What type of pedagogical strategies might you use with your students? I would want to use direct instruction to teach the information. I would want to be able to relate grammar concepts and vocabulary to the information that I would be teaching in conjunction with the culture. Since learning is not face to face, students would need structured practice, guided practice and independent practice with the new concepts. The students would need to be able to differentiate between the different cultures and I would want to scaffold the learning by building upon previous concepts. I would also want the students to keep a journal and/or blog about the interesting information that they are learning so they could share it with me and their classmates.

3.What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students? Why? As a world language teacher I think the hardest technology to use with the students would be online gaming. I have not been able to find many "games" except for ones on quia. They are not really games and I don't think they are very engaging unless the learner has a love for the content. They are good practice for the students, but after a while they can become boring. I would love to be able to find good games for world language learners since many students enjoy playing games on their phones, video games and computer games.

Podcasting Lab

Link to mp3 file for podcasting lab. The mp3 files is about when I was student teaching and opened my laptop for the first time. I didn't know my username and password for the laptop and my mp3 is about what happened after.
mp3 for recording and editing lab

A Funny Thing Happened with Technology

Here is a link to the mp3 file that I created using audacity and lame mp3 encoder.

https://www.msu.edu/~slifersa/funnyabouttech.mp3

It is about something funny that happened to me in the beginning of my student teaching experience. When  I was student teaching the school gave me a laptop. When I started up my computer there was a log in screen to get onto the server. I typed in my cooperating teacher’s username and password and it did not work. After visiting the tech guys, I learned that I did not need a log in and just had to hit enter.
 

CEP 812 Personal Introduction

I created a screencast using jing and powerpoint in kiosk mode for my personal introduction for my CEP 812 course and Michigan State.

Here is the link to my screencast: http://www.screencast.com/t/hHTrg2Zf

Web Lab

During the web lab I worked with wikispaces. I have worked with wikispaces before while I was a technology intern. I helped to manage www.thedigitalshift.wikispaces.com. It is a resources for teachers at Hampton Township School District. I managed the world language ideas page. I also created a wikispace during student teaching for my 7th grade project www.exploramundoinc.wikispaces.com. I embedded their videos, documents, powerpoints and lessons. I also edited the Pennridge School District wikipedia site, where I went to school.

I really enjoy working with wikis and specifically with wikispaces. Wikis are a great collaborative tool and a great way to organize material for students. I created a wikispace and  uploaded information that I used for my project-based learning project while I was student teaching. I uploaded and embedded the calendar as well as powerpoints, vocabulary sheets and examples for the geography portion of the project.
I tweeted the link to my wikispace and shared it with teachers at Hampton Township and Chartiers Valley.

UDL Guidelines – Educator Checklist

UDL Guidelines – Educator Checklist
I.      Provide Multiple Means of Representation:	Your notes
1.     Provide options for perception
1.1  Customize the display of information	Feature: The information on the board is very organized as well as on the handout.
1.2  Provide alternatives for auditory information	Barrier: The directions are spoken and they listen to a video as well. While there are directions on the handout, the students may not grasp the information. A text-to-speech could help the students as well as a tutorial that is completely written with captioning.
1.3  Provide alternatives for visual information	Feature: There are pictures of the students and planets on the board. The planets are in the correct order and the class completes a written example on the board together.
2.     Provide options for language and symbols
2.1  Define vocabulary and symbols	Feature: Planets pictures are symbols for the planets. There is also a symbol that the students know for the ordinal numbers in Spanish.
2.2  Clarify syntax and structure	Feature: Examples of correct syntax are written on the handout, are spoken and are written on the board during the lesson.
2.3  Decode text and mathematical notation	Barrier: The examples are written in Spanish, with directions in English. The lesson is taught completely in Spanish.
2.4  Promote cross-linguistic understanding	Feature: Two languages are used an many components of a language such as speaking, writing, listening and some reading.
2.5  Illustrate key concepts non-linguistically	Feature: Students can see the pictures of their classmates on the pictures as well as visualize the order of the planets.
3.     Provide options for comprehension
3.1  Provide or activate background knowledge	Feature: Students view a video and all vocabulary from the unit is incorporated as well as grammar from the past unit.
3.2  Highlight critical features, big ideas, and relationships	Feature: Students can visualize the order as well as who is on which planet.
3.3  Guide information processing	Feature: The students first hear the example, then they see it written, then they write it, then they speak it. This is how language is learned.
3.4  Support memory and transfer	Feature: The student’s pictures provide meaning as well as the repetition and use of the verb Estar.
II.    Provide Multiple Means for Action and Expression:	Your notes
4.     Provide options for physical actions
4.1  Provide varied ways to respond	Feature: Students are responding through speech as well as in writing.
4.2  Provide varied ways to interact with materials	Barrier: The students cannot really build upon the material.  They interact with each other and their teaching in various ways. This is a barrier because the students are structured in the creation of their sentences and only one answer is correct.
4.3  Integrate assistive technologies	Barrier: No assistive technologies are integrated in the lesson.
5.     Provide options for expressive skills and fluency
5.1  Allow choices of media for communication	Barrier: The students are only able to communicate by writing down their answer, sharing it and writing the response. Students are not able to “create anything” so it is a barrier.
5.2  Provide appropriate tools for composition and problem solving	Barrier: Students are only able to “plug and chug” the information into a sentence on the handout. It is a barrier because there are no means for creative expression .
5.3  Provide ways to scaffold practice and performance	Feature: Students are building upon material that they learned in previous units (Estar).
6.     Provide options for executive functions
6.1  Guide effective goal setting	Feature: The students want to finish and be correct so the teacher can “save them” off of the planet.
6.2  Support planning and strategy development	Feature: The lesson is built up by having an engaging video of a dog traveling to the planets and then the students are left there. There is a build up to the end when the teacher “saves them” off of the planets.
6.3  Facilitate managing information and resources	Feature: There is not a lot of information or resources besides the video, handout and pictures of the planets/ students.
6.4  Enhance capacity for monitoring progress	Barrier: The students can only be monitored by the teacher walking around. If the class has 30 students, it will be difficult to effectively monitor progress so it is a barrier.
III.   Provide Multiple Means for Engagement:	Your notes
7.     Provide options for recruiting interest
7.1  Increase individual choice and autonomy	Barrier: The only individual choice is to write which planet they are on. All the answers will be exactly the same except for that one between all the students.
7.2  Enhance relevance, value, and authenticity	Feature: Actual pictures of all students are included on the planets. All of the students’ names are to be written in the answer, not just “the girls”.
7.3  Reduce threats and distractions	Barrier: The students will want to come up and see the pictures. They will be excited to see the pictures and may comment on their appearances instead of worrying about completing the assignment.
8.     Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
8.1  Heighten salience of goals and objectives	Barrier: The lesson does not address the higher order thinking skills and the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. This is a barrier because critical thinking skills are not being used.
8.2  Vary levels of challenge and support	Barrier: There is no differentiation between the learners. There is no enrichment in the lesson either.
8.3  Foster collaboration and communication	Feature: The students have to work together to tell the teacher and write the sentences on the board so they can be “saved” by the teacher.
8.4  Increase mastery-oriented feedback	Feature: The students are able to practice constructing the sentences using the correct syntax of the target language. They have to use correct noun and verb usage.
9.     Provide options for self-regulation
9.1  Guide personal goal-setting and expectations	Feature: The students are expected to finish and have a goal to so that they can be rescued from the planet.
9.2  Scaffold coping skills and strategies	Barrier: There is no high level of problem solving. The lesson is very basic and there are not many strategies that are able to be employed to complete the lesson.
9.3  Develop self-assessment and reflection	Barrier: They are only able to reflect if their answers were correct. There is no extension of the lesson.

© CAST 2009

While going through the checklist I realized that my lesson is "fun" and engaging. While that is good to have in a lesson, there is no differentiation, places of support, enrichment or many ways for the students to interact with the material. There is no extension of the lesson beyond itself. I created the lesson knowing my learners, but the lesson was not designed so that every teacher could use the exact same lesson and be successful  The lesson was not created for universal learners. There was not an overwhelming amount of barriers in any section but only a few had overwhelming features. While looking at the primary principles of UDL, not all are met. There are not multiple means of expression. The students are expected to be able to say and write the answer. All answers are expected to be the same except for one. I think that the means of engagement are substantial because they are engaged by the pictures of them and the planets, the video as well as the concept of being rescued and the personalization at the end. For the means of representation, the information is presented through the pictures and in the handout that includes the questions. The information is not presented in many ways for the students since the same information is only presented in one way. This lesson does not meet enough of the checklist of be considered UDL.