lifelong learning…

What I learned that I did not know before was that it is possible for authors to come into the discussion and offer insight into an article they wrote. I found Bill Pelz’s presence in the course to be extremely cool! I couldn’t believe it when I checked my e-mail and found a response from him! This pairs nicely with Alex’s suggestion for me to invite a young composer into my course during the composer’s unit. I think that this suggestion to add a place where students could talk with a person who actually composes music would be wonderful, however finding out how to contact the person seems challenging to me and I wonder if there is some way to screen these people before allowing them to interact with children in 6th grade. I didn’t add this activity to my module on composers, but I think that the possibility to does exist. In fact, now that I think of it, there is a local artist Jared Campbell who went to Vestal Central Schools, where I teach who comes back into school each year to do a performance for kids. It would be really neat to ask students to watch one of his performances F2F, and ask him to come to class and talk with the kids about his life choices. I think this would be a wonderful “blended learning” opportunity for students to be able to get into a real live discussion with a famous artist, who is also a composer.

A few decisions I have made for my course are adding group work activities, as well as individual activities. I have also chosen to use assessments that are more project based rather than quizzes or tests. I have always found that I have produced my best work in areas that allow me to apply the content I have learned to a real life situation. This may be why I always did better in art and music classes which allowed me to create unique expressions of ideas. Multiple choice tests have always been a source of anxiety for me and I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on a 6th grade student. I could never choose the best answer because I would always second guess it and think that it was a trick question. I would spend 10 minutes thinking about the possibilities of the answers for one question and never feel confident with my answer…I suppose we all have our own preferred learning styles. I’m going to do my best to appeal to all of them!

During the creation of these learning activities I found that I had already thought through many of my activities but found myself pondering the subtle differences between a web-enhanced course and a hybrid-learning environment were. I am realizing that adding F2F components that allow students to interact in the classroom can allow them to get a better idea that the people they interact with on the Internet are real people, from their class and not just machines. I still am exploring how to create an environment that will be able to best utilize elements of being in a F2F class and blend these elements with the content presented in the course. One of my main goals is to allow my online course to do most of the teaching to keep class time free for students to interact with one another, discuss ideas they also discuss in their online discussions and give me time to be more of a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on the stage”. Finding that balance is something I think I am going to learn more about when I am using the course to teach actual students.

Regarding interaction in the course, I am going to ask students to discuss ideas using prompts, work in collaborative groups and complete learning journals. I am hoping to use F2F time reflect on discussions and perhaps use some scaffolding to get into deeper understanding of content.  Rather than having the students interact with me most of the time, I would like to get them working with one another, teaching each other new things and sharing ideas about their learning. I think that another way F2F class time will best be utilized is for interaction with teaching students how to use the software they will use when they are creating their projects. Such programs include Finale Note Pad, PowerPoint, Inspiration and Microsoft Word. Using class time for teaching students the mechanics of each of these programs, and allowing them time to practice using them with me available for questions and troubleshooting seems a good way to utilize F2F time. I would also like to give students a chance to share ideas from their learning journals with the class, if they choose to do so, and use some of the time for teachable-moments and discussion. Additionally, asking students to have a discussion about how to do group work and doing a sample “Jigsaw” F2F might help them better understand how it can work in the online environment too.

The most difficult part of this module for me was trying to figure out if my module structure was going to work. I know the general rule is 7 modules plus or minus 2, and I ended up with 4- five week modules, an icebreaker and a course wrap up. This left me with 6 modules, which I wasn’t sure fit into the best practices equation of 7 plus or minus 2.  I spoke with Alex and she basically told me that what my plan was looked ok. I’m sure that as I get into actually teaching this course that I will refine the content, and evolve as I become more comfortable using Moodle as a teaching tool, and learn what is going to work. My hope is that I will constantly evolve in my own thinking about how to utilize the best aspects of hybrid-learning.

I don’t really feel like I am resistant to anything at this point. I am understanding more and more that creating a course takes a lot of time, thought and energy. I find that I am thinking about this course all the time and constantly trying to reevaluate if what I am choosing to do in my course is the best choice for the students. I want them to feel comfortable and really get a feeling that their learning is fun and not work.

What is working for me? Well, I really enjoy the set-up and ease of use in Moodle. I think that having used Blackboard to create a course before has made it easier for me to understand how the system works. The build-it presentations by Alex are also really nice to watch because in the beginning (Modules 1 and 2) I found myself trying to figure out how to build pages on my own, only to find that I should have built a web-page rather than a text page. I am also really enjoying how Alex asks us to set-up modules and course information in a Word document and then to transfer the information to Moodle. This is good because if all information is lost due to some unforeseen circumstance, we still have the information we need stored on our hard drives. It is also nice how she has sequenced the way we build the course in that it allows us to think through each of the steps of evaluation, learning activities and objectives and make it easier to move to the next step of actually structuring the learning activities in modules. She “chunked” the sequences of how to build a course nicely, and that is probably why she is a leading technology and online learning professor! She is very understanding and makes her presence in the course known in a non-threatening way, which I think is amazing and challenging.

The only thing I would change about Moodle is the way the editing tools in moving objects and adding new documents works. It is very frustrating to be brought back to the top of a page each time a change is made. It takes so much time to scroll back down to where you were working just to move the placement of a document. I suppose this could be remedied by outlining everything I wanted to add first and making sure I build in a deliberate way, however when I am adding information in the 5th, 6th, 7th frames, I have to scroll all the way back down. This is a little thing…so I won’t sweat the small stuff. Overall, I really like how this course is panning out and I’m enjoying working on my course. I have a lot to learn and I’m loving every minute of it. (4)