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:  What synchronous vendor application/tool did you select? Using the application, what did you experience using the synchronous learning tool? Was the task easy? Challenging? Did the process present problems? As I've shared in previous posts, my choice for synchronous sessions has been Google Hangouts (specifically Hangouts on Air). I choose Hangouts because it is a part of the GSuite apps that my students and I already have access to. Our in-house instructional tech team also is available for support with this particular tool. Overall, my experiences with Hangouts and Hangouts on Air have been positive. Hangouts on Air (via YouTube Live) allows me to run synchronous sessions at home or work with my students wherever they are. I used this twice during a two week absence when my child was born, as well as for a few at-home review sessions the night before students had a big test. I create the Hangout in advance and share a link to the Hangout through one of my communicati...

Answer:  When would an open source application take precedence over a commercial product? What are the issues when choosing between Open Source vs. Commercial Software? In this lesson, I have researched the open source and commercial the virtual classroom options presented and evaluated each from the perspective of a teacher looking for options for synchronous learning. When comparing the open source options with commercial options, I have found that most of the features are comparable. The main reasons I would say that open source options may take precedence over a commercial product would be cost and the ongoing collaboration among users and developers. I foresee though that t hese advantages would, of course come with concessions.  Many open source programs are free or "freemium," meaning you can get all of the basic functions with some additional features for a cost. Commercial software offers some free trials or "freemium" versions too, but commercial softw...

Create:  Using the information from this lesson, create a digital resource that explains the differences in the asynchronous and synchronous methods of delivery. I have really enjoyed this section of the navigate course. I have found that many of the ideas in this section are relevant not only to teaching online, but also to teaching in my blended classroom. I currently use technology tools to provide students with both in-person and online learning experiences. I've even begun using synchronous online learning experiences, such as YouTube Live study sessions , with my traditional students. In this module, I created the following slideshow to illustrate the differences in synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences that I would hope to one day implement if teaching totally online.