Create:  Using the examples above as a point of reference, create three original digital resources that could be utilized when evaluating student work. Then discuss in your blog how these resources would enhance the level of specific feedback offered to students. I'm currently in an online teaching endorsement program, and in one of our recent courses we have been learning about the importance of targeted feedback. (The artifacts shared here are some things I've recycled from submissions to my endorsement instructor). Candidates in the program have been taught that it is important that feedback must be aligned to the standards and learning objectives, timely, positive, and instructional. Lessons in the TOOL have been very closely aligned with what I've been learning in my endorsement program. One very interesting thing that I learned from Communicate 3, Lesson 1 is that there is an important difference in praise an encouragement. I know that I personally am "guilty...

Create:  Choose a standards-based area of study and create an assignment. Then create a method for assessing student work utilizing one of the mediums discussed in this lesson. Ensure the tool demonstrates an instructor’s employment of effective feedback. In a recent unit on evolution, students studied Charles Darwin and the various theories, experiences, and persons who shaped his explanation of evolution by natural selection. Students were then asked to create a product that summarizes their understanding of people and experiences that shaped Charles Darwin. Below I've outlined the details of the assignment, provided an example of a student submission, and an artifact showing my feedback to the student. STANDARDS: The Georgia Standards of Excellence for Biology that are assessed in this assignment are below: SB6. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to assess the theory of evolution. a. Construct an explanation of how new understandings of Earth’s history, the emerg...

Answer:  How does integrating synchronous learning sessions within the online environment assist in developing a learning community for students? Synchronous sessions "humanize" the online classroom, bridging the digital divide and helping learners get the full experience of working with others. Students receive the crucial element of real-time feedback, which unlike a discussion forum, includes visual/verbal cues. Comments and feedback mean so much more when the recipient can read body language and tone of voice and can express these in their own communication as well. Another benefit of these sessions is that students develop a session of connectedness with other learners. Putting names with faces helps them develop a sense of involvement and reinforces that they have a support network during this learning process. Through strategic planning for elements such as breakout groups, instructors can differentiate learning and promote teamwork among groups of learners just a...

Answer : What role or purpose do discussion forums serve in the online classroom and are they effective? How do discussion forums function as a teaching tool? How could they be used effectively and ineffectively? What are some best practices for facilitating forums online? As with a traditional classroom, online discussions are an essential part of learning because they foster collaboration and critical thinking, which are essential to students synthesizing information and deepening their understanding. They also function as formative assessments of students' learning that help teachers inform instructional decisions and practice. Online discussion forums are effective for these purposes if effectively implemented and used. In order for a discussion forum to be effective, the instructor must establish criteria for content, participation, and interaction, as well as stylistic/formatting conventions for the posts themselves. These must be clearly communicated and reinforced throug...

Answer: As an online instructor, how do you plan to incorporate news items and announcements? What resources would you reference to format news items? I plan to utilize news items and announcements to keep students and parents informed of upcoming due dates, synchronous sessions, and extra credit opportunities. I will likely use Creative Commons or public domain images that relate to the nature of the post to capture students' attention and generate interest. The image used below came from a quick search on Flickr . While I may change the format of my news items based on the nature of the post, I would keep items such as my bulletin board the same format for consistency and ease of use/navigation. Artifact: Create an example of a News Item and share the example in your blog. The image below is a news post I've shared today for an extra credit project I'm doing in my blended biology classroom. We are participating in #2018MMM (March Mammal Madness) as an engagin...

Reflect:  Consider the bulletin board examples in this lesson. Think about the variety of information shared in the bulletin board examples.  What information might you share as an online instructor through your classroom bulletin board? In my traditional classroom, bulletin boards would include a phenomenon to capture student interest in the unit of study, images related to the course content or current phenomenon,  upcoming due dates,   as well as student work and exemplars. A bulletin board in an online environment would include many of the same features: Links to supplemental unit resources Upcoming dates for projects and assessments Tips for technology tools utilized in the unit Information about synchronous sessions Contact information I believe the overall layout and type of content on the bulletin board should be consistent, so that it is easy to spot in on the homepage or in the LMS and so that student's know where on the board to find informati...

Answer:  Why is ongoing communication in the online classroom important? How does the newsletter differ from mandatory communications? Ongoing online communication is important to making the student feel connected to the teacher, their classmates, and the content they are studying. Taking courses online removes the daily face-to-face communication that students would normally get in a brick-and-mortar classroom. In my traditional classroom, there are bulletin boards with announcements and exemplary student work with feedback; there are morning announcements made on the PA system or school TV network; and I meet frequently and informally with students to ensure they're doing ok, both in terms of class and in general. These are things that an online student would not necessarily experience unless the teacher intentionally recreates them in the online environment.  The "disconnect" often causes frustration that leads to burnout. This is something I've dealt with personal...

Create:  Reflect on the needs for your individual Communication Plan. Then, construct a general outline. Welcome email Will post to LMS (Google Classroom) and email to all students/parents once enrolled (recipients BCC'd) Will include course expectations and outcomes, general details on how class will run, expectations on number of required synchronous sessions per unit/term, and a Google Form to collect student/parent contact preferences. Will include a message about our first synchronous session, which will be a Welcome Session in which we address the syllabus, course outcomes, and communication expectations Will include my contact information: email, school phone, personal Google Voice help line, Twitter, Remind messaging codes. Personal notes versus mass communication to stakeholders Mass communications to students and parents will be shared via Google Classroom announcements and Remind messages. Students and parents enrolled in these tools may set their preferences ...

Create:  Using the information from this lesson, create a digital resource that highlights the various stakeholders in online learning. Are there other stakeholders within an online environment not considered in this lesson? In a digital learning community, students, instructors, parents/guardians, and local school administrators are all stakeholders in online student learning. The roles of each stakeholder are outlined below. A few additional stakeholders that are not considered in this lesson are identified to the right of the main four.

Answer:  How can one refrain from violating  FERPA  and  TCPA  guidelines in online communication? What methods could be employed to verify that copyright is not being violated? Does copyright require that all work, images, words, and graphics must be original? As educators, we often engage in communication with stakeholders about students and their progress in learning. We must be diligent in ensuring that our communication does not violate communication laws such as FERPA, TCPA, and Copyright law. When using any form of electronic communication, we must be cautious to protect students and the privacy of their personally identifiable information (PII). To refrain from violating students' right to privacy, teachers should never electronically share PII including students' numerical grade, demographic information, medical information, special needs and/or services, as well as student or teacher-produced work and comments. Any of these items should be add...

Answer:  How have your individual communication skills changed with the innovations in technology? How have advancements in technology altered classroom communication? Will these change further? The TEDTalk by Sherry Turkle has summed up some of the conversations that I've been having recently with colleagues at work, with people at church, and with my own family. Technology has crept into almost every facet of our lives and has changed us in so many ways. I'm not sure that all of them are good. With technology tools such as teacher and  student email accounts, messaging services such as Remind and Google Classroom, and the advent of smartphones, I find myself communicating in ways that I would have never dreamed of communicating 10 years ago when I was in high school. Occasionally, I would email a teacher if I were absent for more than 1 school day to ensure that I didn't get behind on classwork or to ask a question outside of class. But I would have never dreamed o...

Answer: How has the Navigate module prepared you to meet each standard listed? What strategies will you take away from the Navigate module and apply to your teaching?  What lessons were most beneficial for you? Standard B:   The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment. Standard  I:   The  online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning. Standard  K:   The  online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment. The first section of lessons on Online Delivery Methods has helped me prepare me to meet iNacol Standard B.  Studying open source vs commercial technologies has opened my eyes to a whole world of emerging and e...

Create:  Select content to upload to the course shell. This process has proven to be much more difficult and frustrating than any of my previous experiences with online learning and posting assignments for students. As I stated in my last post, I worked with the free version of Moodle and found ways to create posts to share with students. (In my blended classes, I use Google Classroom). I figured out how to upload content to make it available to students as well. But I couldn't quite figure out how to upload the content in such a way that the Digital Citizenship tutorial was truly interactive like the demo version. By sharing the html links, I gave my "dummy students" access to the bare bones of what was shown in the demo, but it lacked the interactive components. This has proven to be very frustrating. Through my previous experience with my current LMS, Google Classroom, I'm very proficient with sharing links, files, and resources with students. Many of these thi...

Answer:  What are the options for grade reporting? Are there various levels? Which levels remain most valuable for the online instructor in regard to student performance? I shared in a previous post that I had selected Google Classroom as my chosen LMS. This was because my district is a Google Apps for Education (now called GSuite for Education) district. However, for these last two activities in Navigate, I decided to try out Moodle as well. (Not the best experience, by the way... Information overload). In a pre-populated teacher demo, and walked through a list of things you can do as a teacher . There were several features I thought would be useful (once I eventually learn to use them) such as establishing and assessing course competencies as well as checking for student progress by looking at activities completed. These are two features that I believe would prove very helpful in my standards-based, blended classroom. I really liked the idea of being able to define "compet...

Answer:  What are the most relevant features offered within an LMS?  Which features directly relate to effective online instruction?  How might you use these features in the online classroom environment. Instruction in any format -- online or traditional -- is only as effective as the communication that takes place during the process. To ensure lasting learning, communicati on must be a part of the learning process. Students must communicate what they have learned to their instructor (assessments OF learning). Students must communicate with others about their learning during the learning process (metacognitive and formative assessments FOR learning). Therefore, the most important and relevant tools within an LMS are those used for communication. Examples of these tools and their uses are briefly outlined below. Discussion Boards and Forums are helpful ways for students to interact with one another as they promote self- and peer-assessment, critical thinking, a...

Answer:  What trend that will make the most impact on digital learning over the next five years? How do you foresee this trend impacting online learning? Will this trend be a learning fad or will it become an essential part of online learning in the future? Explain. I believe that the MOOC movement will prove to have the most significant impact on digital learning in the next five years. I believe we will begin to see two major trends: An emergence of more organizations (educational institutions and for-profit businesses) that offer MOOCs and  Learning Management Systems. A growing disparity between large, well established schools and the local community college. MOOCs & LMSs: In an article I read for this unit about the intersection of MOOCs and LMSs, a clear trend was noted among some of the "big brands" in online learning, namely Coursera and Canvas, as well as Blackboard. These companies that have built their reputation as LMS providers seemed to have cross...

Answer:  Which LMS is best?  How does the selected LMS meet the needs of all stakeholders, including administrators, students, teachers and faculty, instructional technology, development, support, and parents? How does the selected LMS align with the initiatives, growth, and technological needs of your organization? I believe that the best LMS option for my classes would be Google Classroom, followed by open source Moodle, with all it's cool plugins, as an alternate. I know that Classroom was not really listed in the module, but it is listed by PCMag as one of the leading LMS for 2018 . Classroom meets the needs of all stakeholders involved in my personal situation. We are are GSuite for Education district, with every employee and student having a GSuite account. Among the plethora of benefits is single sign-on for all users' apps, including Gmail, Calendar, Drive (document storage), apps for creating content (Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms), and Classroom. We are also almost ...

Create:  Using the information from this lesson, create a digital resource that highlights the various roles in a learning management system. Below is a poster I created that describes the roles within a LMS.

Answer:  How does screen capture function in the online classroom? How would the integration of screen capture modify teaching methods? Screen capture and screencasting are an essential part of the asynchronous learning component of an online course. Through a screencast, instructors are able to create, curate, and deliver instructional segments to students enrolled in their courses. Whether it is a 2 minute "explainer video" on how to solve a math problem or a 10 minute video lecture on photosynthesis, screencasts are essential to online instructors delivering instruction. (They are also a way for you to become your own co-teacher! More on that later!) Creation is easy - I've been doing this since my student teaching days in 2011! New technology tools have certainly made this process even more streamlined. Because many people carry a cell phone or a smartphone, virtually everyone has access to a camera. Using a phone, one could quickly record a view of their compute...