Session 6 and Merlot

My battle with Camedia went into full swing yesterday as I tried my very hardest to upload my STAIR project to Filezilla and then post it to Merlot.... But, I can now report to you that after several tutorial videos, some Oreos and a latte, we have a successful posting! You can check it out my STAIR project here..... I had to post only the first lesson. My intention with this STAIR plan was to make several short lessons about Google Calendar. I will be posting my second lesson soon.

Now onto Session 6 and my feelings about Online Learning.

Before I get to the assignment I wanted to mention that I attended a seminar about the Flipped Classroom by Justin Reich at my school. I have been thinking a lot about the flipped classroom, and although I did not have a name for what I have been practicing in my classroom for math, it now has a name. I use Khan's Academy coaching and Mathletics in my classroom to introduce and sometimes teach math subjects to my students. So in that sense, online learning is a high priority for me, and it comes quite naturally.

Here is the assignment:

Look at the Michigan Online Learning Guide.

Talk about how you could use one of the technologies that qualify as an online experience with your students.

• What content could this help you teach?
• What type of pedagogical strategies might you use with your students?
• What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students? Why?

The first thing I noticed about the METS was that they were specified for grades 6-12, good thing I am in Grade 5... But, I did spend some time reading through and wondering why the lower grades were not included in this learning guide. Time to move on.

I enjoy blogging in the classroom, so I focused on that subject wondering if I could apply it further in my classroom. . I started out using a blog as a way to communicate with my parents; pictures, short updates, and some examples of exemplar work. I quickly gave up the blog and moved to Weebly. But last year I went back to blogging when we became a Google School because Blogger was so accessible with the students use of Gmail. Currently I use Blogger as a device for literature circles. My students are broken into small groups to read books of their choice and then blog about the book. There are rather loose roles that they take to produce their reactions to the books. What I like about blogging is the ease of use with the students and the ability to use multi-media quickly and attractively. Before I use the blogs for literature circles I use journalism, but when I introduce the blogging the level of excitement is far more tangible. The students excitedly want to know how to share it with their parents, how to add videos, and always ask, is it really live?

I might use Electronic Portfolios. Why? We introduced last year the student led conference. I was manipulated into having station which I painfully created for the students to rotate through with their parents, but none of it felt comfortable for me, and for several of my more verbose parents. So, I began thinking about electronic portfolios. The students could have chosen works in several categories to highlight and show their parents. Everything would be in one place. We could include reactions to writing filmed on the FLIP cameras, math quizzes (in pdf.), embedded blogs, writing.... I have been looking lately at mediums, my top choice currently is Weebly.

What would I not use? RSS Feed. I personally love mine, but a ten year olds RSS feed would scare me just a bit. Think of what they would put on there! I have no more to say about that.