Reflections on Fall 2014

 Reflections:

Week 1
My introduction.

Week 2
 This was a paragraph about the quiz we took. The results reflected my stile of teaching quite accurately.
Week 3
To answer about course design, this week is a reflection on how I analyze my students. A strength I have since it a core aspect of being an educational therapist. By the end of the quarter I know all my students and their personalities. Why they are doing well and why not. This allows me to tweak my curriculum to fit my students needs. 
Week 4
Here I explained  what I write in my syllabus and how it differs from others. I also linked a video. In general my syllabus is a short rule book and grade system information page. The rest of the information I put in my blog. Thanks to this class I blog for my classes.
Week 5
How would you create community in an online class? Here I talked about how it was not created in a class I took online, and how it made me feel. I then went on to explain what I do in my Ed therapy classes for teachers.
How does doing so fit (or not) with your discipline and pedagogy? How it fits ed therapy and why
How central might community be to your class?  Very important since it is the base of expanding our knowledge as educational therapists.
Week 6
Here I wrote about what type of links I use for my students classes and on my blog. 
Week 7
Well I am glad I went back to this week because I had posted the Pre-Algebra open book source and I had been planning on using it for next quarter, As far as my mind map I did not do well and usually have trouble with such a task. My mind map is as scattered as my mind and I am always lucky when I can frame my thoughts and hols on to it long enough to pass it on. 
Week 8
This post has a Prezi on what to look for when teaching students pre-Algebra. For next quarter I want to take this Prezi and transform it to show it to my students directly and see if it can help them understand better what they need to do to solve math problems. 
Week 9
This week was a FAQ page for my students. Having had many questions sent to me by my students made the process easy. I got good comments on my questions by the class.
Week 10
This week I spoke about my extension learning management system and how this can become an obstacle between my students and I. I have found a way to circumvent the system by uploading a word file in announcements that is written like a blog.  
Week 11
This week reminded me of last semesters class and my appreciation of the video on pedagogy and how I had used it in my educational psychology class. 
Week 12
This weeks question was a very open ended question. I ended up deciding to  talk about the classes I teach and referred back to the reading.
Week 13
Here I mentioned my plan would be to talk about my hybrid class for the final project. After thinking about it, I decided not to do this since it does not fit the weekly assignments.  I really like my video I found and posted in this weeks post. Finally my twitter comment brought me a lot of attention.
Week 14
Here I republished my and Claudia Magalhaes's video from our PLN post in the spring. I felt that this was worth it. It may look like a short cut but I learned again from the video and it reminded me that I intended on having my students do this for themselves.

Week 14

For this week I am posting a PLN Video I made last Quarter with my friend Claudia Magalhaes for our PLN week 22. I liked what we said and found that I wanted to republish for this class because I still agree with what I said and relearned from it.

Week 13

My final project is going to be my overall plan on developing a hybrid class for pre-algebra.

As far as PLN- The videos cover a broad topic on bringing together multimedia and multiple ways to connect with other and then incorporate this into, teaching and learning.

Twitter for me has not been a good form of communication or a way in which I have networked. I usually have friends who are also on facebook and I hardly ever tweet.

As far as networking I mostly use facebook, google plus and linked in. Their are several groups who have educational discussions. Groups such as AET association of educational therapists comment on these platforms.

using web sights to learn from and articles written by other people in our field has also been a good source for my PLN.

I would like to add a way to communicate in the classroom other than raising a hand to ask a question. Maybe tweeting (although it is not anonymous enough for the students I teach. It would be better if they could text me questions without others seeing them.

My PLN is not only limited to my work, but also to many other topics I am interested in.

Over all the PLN is an excellent way to connect with people who work with us and people outside of our people.

Week 12

My experience on creating web enhanced and blended classes, has been limited to Hybrid classes. I found that students did better when they met a couple of times during the quarter. During the meetings they could ak questions, develop projects and take the topic more in the direction they were interested in. Now I teach a face to face class that I intend to hybrid by next quarter.

In my face to face class I noticed that students comment on what I put on the blog and are spending the time to look at what I posted. If I post that I have a test or a quiz, more students show up. These students are college aged in pre algebra and are considered by the department as unable to follow steps and lectures. What I am finding is many function just like any other students and are up on technology. So they use it, and then they are happy to know I keep up with the blog.

My plan is to create the math class as an online class but still run the hour of class with available notes, practice time and question and answer sessions. It always surprises me what they come up to ask me. Some students are still asking about the week before, others are a chapter ahead. In theory if I put everything online, then students can pace themselves and finish as early as they wish and maybe prepare for the entrance exam too, skipping pre-algebra and going straight into algebra. Students who need more review would have review pages available online and tests and quizzes can be taken by the time they are ready rather than having the student who is behind get an anxiety attack because they don't know how to solve the problems and the student who is ahead miss half the classes.

The end goal is to personalize the course to fit the variety of students I am teaching, by using online black board.

Week 11

Learning online

I wanted to mention that the video on Pedagogy is great and I linked to it last semester for my online educational Psychology class that I teach twice a year.

How does all of this fit to online learning? the internet? social media? mooc's?  The articles give the pro's and cons. My discussion with my friend Claudia (after reading the articles) became, well it all applies. It depends on who is teaching and who is the learner. The medium (a text book, a chalkboard or a web page and video) don't really matter.

Really what is this virtual world (put together by silicon valley geeks)? My view of the geeks is the red nosed guy next door who sent the first connection between UCLA and Stanford University, my husband who is an antenna and system engineer and got me on wifi in the 90's with his companies wifi connection. Are these the silicon valley geeks? In answer to the New York times article that mentions geeks as the creators of the internet; They are the designers (and not young kids by the way although the developers kids are now involved in creating technology or software too) but not the creators of the internet as a whole. The internet is made up of all the contributions made by people from all over the world.

My question when I first got online in the late, late 80's was how do all these people have time to do all of this?   Just like this course, each of us pitch in our time and contribute to the virtual world. That is probably my favorite aspect about the internet in general. Whatever people are interested in or study or create or commercialize they can put it up online. Then other people can use it, copy it (hopefully giving credit to the original writer creator), create something new from it, or even complain about it and get angry that so and so misused the internet.

 My thesis for my bachelors, was education using video games with children. I tested my kids on reader rabbit, the jumpstart series and various other games (age 5 and 6). I then did research by looking for books on the topic and articles. My results with my kids were; great at math games, terrible at reading games.  My conclusion, if you are not sitting beside them and guiding them how to learn the material, they will do best at what they are good at learning, and find a way to go around their challenges. Hmm so much like the classroom. The other side of the coin was that they were having fun and felt like playing the games. Did they learn to read faster and better no (they needed special reading lessons because of dyslexia) did they learn math faster or better? they learned as quickly as it was given to them. They had the same results once they went to school. If they were accelerated in math they were very quick at learning. Reading took years and hard work that paid off.

In conclusion, the internet is a medium that the pedagogy applies to as it has always applied in any teaching environment. The pedagogy I would choose online is the same as I choose in the classroom. My technique is about individualized education plans while keeping a base of information uniform. The sources are dynamic and can be found in books from the students themselves or online. One thing I have found is when I switch to in class teaching, many times I miss the dynamics of online teaching. I don't have internet information at my finger tips and the time needed for the students to read or see the videos. I set it up as a blog so students can look at it on their own time.

Week 10

Learning management System at my extension is very cumbersome.

When I send in a page that is designed like a Blog the tech group then places it into the above categories. To the designers of the program the list looks like a logical setup for a course. What actually happens is that most students can not find the materials the instructor posted and have no idea what to do.

In the above system the Calendar becomes the control, what to do each day can be posted with a link to an explanation. The forum is separately loaded with questions or statements. Messages again separate from the forum, Chat room is non visual so no one is there. It also does not tell the instructor someone tried to contact them in the chat room. polls ? Roster is good. Syllabus is good but not downloadable so students have to go back to it. Lessons this is the big issue lessons, resources and assignments are all one big lump! I tried my first quarter to use this and the whole class was upset. They could not figure out which was which and how to use them. Test, quiz and Gradebook are self explanatory.

Taking this POT course made me fall in love with the blogging system. A lecture at the top and a list of assignments or videos one can watch. Then what is expected of the student.

My solution: After starting the POT class I decided to build a blog and link to it from announcements. Students loved it but the admin didn't. So I sent in my blog and it was all categorized appropriately to the LMS. I then decided I could blog within the system by placing a Word document linked from the calendar under Announcements.

This worked very well. I could put all my web page links, videos and page numbers for the text in the word document. I could also build my own video, and link it in the word document.

This LMS felt like a brick wall yet I was able to find a way to open a Window in it, and this seems to be working well.

This solution allowed me to make a broad course (research based) without being limited by my LMS. Students would receive the assignment and then were able to follow the document to read the lecture and then see any links I posted. This system also helps keep communication with the students more open because the could respond back to me via a link to email, or google hangout which vibrates my phone when I get an invite (my classes are small and made up of instructors and prek-12 teachers so I don't have to worry about being contacted to much). eventually through my LMS I would like to develop an LMS.

Chat between Personal Learning Environment ( PLE ) and Learning Management System ( LMS )

Week 9

FAQ-sheet; Educational Psychology 100% online class

Question 1)    I can't get into the online web page. How do I join the class.

Ans :          Please contact the Contact Online Services ExtensionOnline@edu (xxx) xxx-xxxx They will assist you with formatting your software and settings on your computer. This usually takes a week, so what I can do, is e-mail you a link to my first weeks lectures and assignments.

Question 2)   I don't have the text book yet and do I have to read all of the first chapter? 

Ans:          Many students do not receive the text book until the second week. You can start by reading the notes, watching the videos and developing your ideas through research on the first weeks topic. Once you receive the text you should try to read as much as you can of the first chapter. The text has interesting information and goes into depth on each topic.

Question 3) How do I contact you other than e-mail or through the web page.

Ans:           you can text me through google hangouts or google plus.

Question 4) How do we meet online.

Ans        4) we connect through google hangouts. By the end of the first week I will be giving optional meeting times, you can pick any of the meeting times and connect through google hangouts, it uses video and voice. We can also set up a group meeting.

Question 5) I learn best through lectures and am having trouble with all of the reading.

Ans        5) You can watch the videos available to you. They are directly related to each chapter and it's topics. Once you have done that join us for a face to face hangout session, and we can discuss the topics. 


Question 6) where do I find the videos and the research


Ans 6)  Go to the left column and you will find resources. Click on it and the the web links will be on the right side.

Question 7)  How do I know when to hand things in?

Ans 7) Look at the syllabus the schedule is on their,  I also post due dates and meetings on the Calendar. Please check the calendar on a regular basis.

Week 8

This week I decided to use Prezi. for my visuals. I am currently teaching a pre-Algebra class at the college level. The class is mostly for students with a specific learning disability. The rest of the class is a group of mixed students whom for one reason or another has either forgotten all of their math from high school or decided not to take the entrance test to college. I have one student who had a stroke.

With this mixed bag I have been trying to unravel how to teach so math makes sense to them. Some need the concept then the steps, others need the opposite and the student (who is very young 18 or 19 at the most) who had a stroke needs constant review and can not make jumps to combining steps. Now that I am in week 5 of the class I am transition the class to stations and packets to work more individually with the students. The first four weeks was revue of elementary math.

What I have gotten from this class is what I put in Prezi. What do the majority of students have trouble with, no matter the reason, in math (population 19 students).

Images for me are very important. I use videos online web pages pictures anything one can look at and gather information from that is not a whole bunch of words in paragraphs. So that is why I used Prezi, because the words are their without any images but circled and grouped. I believe this helps categorize the ideas.

pre Algebra notes on students in circles

Week 7

This weeks reading, Video and links were great (not that all the other weeks weren't great too). First of all the TED talk was up my ally. I love clips like those and you tube now takes down anything with a whole song on it using digitized recognition software. In my opinion he is correct in what he is saying.  Finally if a person does decide to create a piece and has the money to pay for the copy right license, they also have the problem that you tube or other host pages, will take down their work, then the creator of the piece has to petition to put it back up (source my son who reads up on these things).

As far as the web links the free ebooks are really useful. I have used the k-12 open text books and now I am looking into the college ones. I followed the link to the  California Community College Consortium page and then to a video by De Anza college instructors talking about open book.

This was an eye opener! I just started teaching a basic math class at a community college, and most of my class could not buy the book (the department has some books available to loan to low income students), and the ones that could, finally did in the second week. I was happy to see that instructors are considering these options.

After the links I looked for a book in pre Algebra and found a clearly written one, good clear steps and hands on activities:
Open Book pre Algebra

My mind map:

My mind map got as confusing as my mind. Under all of those links I had other links, such as video clips not whole videos when teaching online. Text book has the open source book.  Can't see them though.

Week 6

My online students get activities linked to the topic, including (hopefully fun) videos done by other math teachers about the topic I teach.

 I also include Forum questions that are designed to strike a conversation amongst the students. In my post certificate classes I seem to have a good response and can really get students discussing. The fact is that they are in a course out of their own personal interest. Therefore a discussion is what they crave.

The rest of the courses are less interactive and more research, text reading and practice based.


I am including a video I use for my math students.My favorite online math teacher is YAY math.


Here is an example:

Week 5

This weeks activities and reading reminded me of my attempt at getting a PhD in psychology in an online program. I was all gone ho about how I could increase my skills and become licensed to not only test children for specific learning disabilities, but also to put my psychology letter behind it so that it would be considered legitimate.
Biggest first step was finding a program that fit my needs. A program that aloud me to work any day of the week from anywhere. So I looked through many and found one that fit my needs. I would be able to move about freely without having to show up on campus, I would be licensed after taking the california licensing exams and I would be able to use the degree for what my goal was.
Taking the first course: This was the most impersonal system I had ver been in. Not only did it have the typical issues of being online (which I expected) but no interaction with anyone else, not even the instructor. So here I was reading about different methods, watching videos, doing research and posting statements and comments. The problem was that my statements and comments were to people who had taken the class several months or years before and my posts would be answered by the next soul that would come by who knows when. When I wrote my paper I picked a method that was very interactive with the client and would allow them to come out of their shell through questions given by the psychologist (design to trigger a response). I finally got feedback for my essays and the program specifically promoted behavioral modification (something I run from in my own practice as an educational therapist)  and I was told not asked how it is all done today.
At the end of the course I left the program and I still have not (but hope to soon) picked a new one.

The feeling was one of confusion, loneliness and criticism. I hope in my courses to instill a more sense of community and interaction amongst my students. I promote speaking to each other about their students and techniques they may pick to help their students with basic cognitive skills to support their academic skills.

Techniques by educational therapist may not fit the mainstream way, sometimes this may mean  running outside, swinging, climbing, pushing and pulling, working on timing all as the end goal to teaching academics. If the adult students in my class have a community that can give them feedback, they then can decide with confidence, what and how they will help their own students need to succeed.

My steps included for the integrated sensory class:
two face to face classes to learn the exercises hands on
online discussion about the students they are working with and what they are trying to do to help them in the long run.
materials to read
research
exercises to read about and try.
reflection on their studies and group conversation (virtually or in the classroom).

A long slide show (but well done) on online course and community:
building-community-in-online-learning-classes

Week 3

• Analysis- When I analyze students and what goals they intend to reach as part of my course, I begin from the top down. My first question is what is my topic?  For example I am teaching a Special ed Pre-algebra class. I then look at my student population- where some students could be in algebra and some should be in elementary math. I then give it a go at teaching my first day set up a straight forward here is the book, these are the chapters and this is the course goal. That is just the beginning! The actual analysis of my population begins at this point. I then look at the first quiz the first week. I listen to the questions and I pay attention to who is interacting with me and who will never contacts me. Once I have the class population in perspective I then begin the process of taking the core curriculum requirements and developing it around my students.

• Course Goals- My course goals are set by a combination of core curriculum requirements and population of the class, including their personal goals. 

• Learning Objectives and Design- Learning objectives are personalized to each individual student. Once I know where that student is in perspective to the course requirements I can then personalize the educational plan. All of this has to happen within the first week of class, otherwise students feel as though they have no direction. 

       The course tours were very interesting because they give a different perspective from many different styles. Since I tend to be Eclectic in my teaching style I like to think that I can use these examples to build my own courses from these examples.

My link is a page on Online Course Design information page:  http://www.samford.edu/ctls/archives.aspx?id=2147484104

Week 4

Hello,
After reading chapter 5 and watching the video, I went back to my Syllabi  and thought about how it guided my students and put it in perspective to the ones posted. I found that I treat my Syllabus more as a general contract that states for students, what specific items will be due and graded. Most of my students mostly want to know about what counts for grades and when is everything due.

The other important aspects are a general description of the course and what the goals are for me as the instructor to guide the students on what is the focus of the class. Finally I keep it short and concise. I do not have students who read every detail and if I am not teaching teachers, I am teaching special education students so the shorter the better.

As far as when I start teaching the class I structure it week to week. I give the whole weeks due dates on Sunday (online) and the first due date is Tuesday the last is Friday.

If I am teaching a short course such as four weeks, I set up the class so that all material can be handed in the last week. I do not announce this per say, but if I have stragglers, I do then announce specific items due and I announce that the, last week is a review week including handing in missing assignments and review before the Final.

A good video about Sylabi.
This is an effective step by step explanation of how to build a syllabus for an online class:

Week 2

I scored an 11 on the beginner’s questionnaire,  I am reflecting my mixed form of pedagogy, which is exactly how I teach. I am fortunate in the sense that my groups are usually small and I have to adjust my style when I suddenly find myself with more than six students. With one on one or online I can switch between student based and teacher based depending on the moment and where each of our goals are. I find that as an educational therapist and an instructor in an educational therapy program my students arrive with set ideas on what they are trying to find out. This automatically puts me in a position of teaching student based and at the same time I have long term goals that I wish to communicate to my student. Therefore using the moments given to me I guide the student while allowing them to guide me. I would prefer more hands on and less me telling them, but I find that sometimes it is just faster to say hey just do it this way! or other times I feel as though I am to exhausted to be that creative that I can just weave a concept into a person personal interest, but when I do (and most of the time I do) I seem to get a much better outcome.

Week 1

Name and location:

I am Michaela De Sapio Yazar I was in the second half of this class  last semester I had a great time with the work and fellow students, I look forward to another semester. I am blogging from, SiliconValley CA.

My general introduction:

I am a teacher by accident. I started when I was in high school by volunteering at the Children's Museum of Los Angeles and then every few years I would tutor, sign up for teaching part-time and substitute teach. When I decided to homeschool I went on the adventure of my life. I homeschooled My kids and any other kid whose parents would come to me for help. Five years in I decided to become more official and got my Masters in special education and my certificate in educational therapy and here I am having developed an eclectic teaching career. Most of the time I love it sometimes I wonder what I got myself into.

 My experience with my online classes is an instructor:

I was just appointed when I tried to apply my new found skills to my online UCSC courses that I teach at an extension. Although they like my work the university did not allow videos posted on any public site, or a blog also posted on any public site. Using Google plus hangouts was the only acceptable site. The first week of classes I had started with the blog and I got positive feedback from the students and kick started the course with a positive tone. This semester my personal goal is to take the course material I am learning here and properly integrate it into the UC webpage we are required to use.

Elephant and I in front of the Pantheon Rome Italy

Week 24

Week 1-12 will be Done in the fall and then will add it to My Blog.

Week 13 Introduction
This is my introduction

week 14 Creating Class Elements Part 1: Images and screenshots (Feb 9-15)
Here I posted about my use of images with students who have reading comprehension or difficulty with memory. I could have said more on use of images in online work.

week 15 Using video and Audio
Here I learned how to use screen o matic and designed a video with claudia about 3D shapes. Quality seemed good and thorough.

week 16 building a video
I really liked the Prezi software but was unhappy with the fact that it recorded out of focus. As of yet, I did not retry and am planning on do it before I start my course in May.
week 17 Article and survey
Yes I liked building the survey and believe it is useful to learn about my students before I start my classes.
week 18 online programs for teaching
I was very passionate about this one because I can see from when I work with my students that they also have difficulty with the UCSC format of their online classes.
week 19 teaching stile
This week was more about my teaching stile
week 20 technology
Technology is my passion and use it all the time with my students so as I could see I reflect my love for technology in the classroom.
week 21 moocs
Moocs were something I had read about and tried to look into but never really looked very far. From the research this week I got a lot of new information I had not done before.
week 22 PLN
Here again we did a combined video with Claudia. We had talked or discussed for a couple of hours about the subject. Then we realized that we should have recorded the discussion. So we went ahead and recorded a statement about the weeks work. The important thing to remember is how to teach PLN to students relative to their educational level and age group.
week 23 building a class week week 20
I worked very hard on this one because I had to first learn how to use the Thing think page. Once I got that down I moved quickly through the project. My original goal was to make it shorter but with similar information as the previous student. I think I succeeded at showing good links to read, I did not succeed well in communicating well and I did not take less time it turned out to be a broad subject.

Week23: Instructional design and technology

Week 22

PLN

Today Claudia and I decided to videotape our answer.

The web page for the article in the video is :http://onceateacher.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/pln-your-personal-learning-network-made-easy/

The facebook for teachers and their students: https://www.edmodo.com/

This weeks videos and articles are something I do and have done to learn anything new. How I would pass this on in a high school class would depend on my population. Personally I would stay within a framed set up, where my communication with my student and amongst themselves would be supervised. 

On the other hand in the college setting the course would be more open to social media yet with some pre established scaffolding so they can build their own PLN.

Week 21

 concepts of open learning

 Open learning is completely supportive of the concept that the internet is a world of knowledge at your finger tips. It is important and helpful for people connected to the internet to be able to learn from courses available online. The system is dynamic and each course has a personality of it's own.

Pedagogy clearly drives the structure of the variety amongst the courses. Students who need structure can take a course that is developed for a classic classroom setting, with assignments, quizzes and tests. Other systems are more open to projects and social support amongst the students and educators. The most open system (in my opinion) is the teach yourself from the broad source of the internet and a light frame to follow and learn from. 

These classes are excellent for people who do not have access to the courses they are interested in. They are excellent for a person who is limited on time, but wants to learn something new or continue their education. Finally it is good in general for anyone who needs it. 

The draw backs include keeping up with a class. Being able to engage in an unstructured program or just simply remembering to turn on your computer to get your work done. Many times people do not feel connected to other individuals in the classes because of lack of F2F time. Also if people post at different times or do their work at different times, conversations can feel disconnected and missing the flow of a good discussion.

Solutions to this puzzle are available in video, blogging, forums, social networks and skype like software. As time moves on the internet becomes closer to the dynamics of real life with the always unsolvable aspect of the person being separated by space and time. This should not be of any great issue if the purpose is to learn new intellectual ideas or skills that do not require major hands on practice with a teacher/ mentor standing beside the student. 

This is the reason that core courses should be and can be taught through the internet. They are courses that one can read about,view a video and practice independently. A language course say would be started at the most basic vocabulary then if direct practice is needed to learn an accent or how to say a word, video chat would allow direct instruction. On the other hand a course such as horse back riding, one could learn about the horse, how to care for the horse maybe even how to get on the horse, but then how to feel the horse, how to guide the horse, that is definitely a real world event. 

MOOCs creating an open course: includes language classes,
 http://hikmatnoma.wix.com/globalclassroom#!moocs/c1l5q

This article is anti MOOCs and counters my argument that it is a great idea and a way for anyone and every one who has a computer with internet to be exposed to hire education. 
Note: Notre Dame is a private Jesuit university (they are suppose to help the poor).
http://chronicle.com/article/Were-All-to-Blame-for-MOOCs/139519/



For fun you tube lessons:
Italian lessons video series:

Horse back riding lesson video series from you tube: This is an example of something that may not carry over to the real world.

Week 20

Technology in Education

                                       Technology? No technology? somewhere in between? 

In my experience, technology beyond the photo slides, type writers and movies, started when I was in my last year of High school. Everything was written by hand, we had type writers only in typing class (which I never took) and the information came from teachers and books. The one exception was my last two years in high school, I was at a school that had a dome to show stars on and Apple II's to learn how to program in basic ( I did take this class). 

My first experience with technology and education was in nursery school where the teacher had a movie in French used for teaching us a second language. Movies were used a lot throughout my school years. Once I went as a visitor to a Caribbean island elementary school, and they showed us a movie. I was aware that the people had very little and yet there we were separated girls on one side and boys on the other all watching a movie. In contrast I went to my friends birthday party where we all hung out crossed legged on the floor, cookies and cakes on the table, and the parents showed us a movie. Sometimes it just gave me headaches and made me tired and sometimes it was very exciting, such as when I watched a physics movie showing a bridge oscillating itself to pieces because of the wind frequency being just right to vibrate the bridge into a perfect wave. 

I am completely supportive of technology in the classroom. Sometimes I think why? a classroom with paper and pencils, some colors maybe a couple of magazines, that are about the topic at hand, and a few good books is all we need. From there the teacher and the students can create whatever they want. Yet, I have that in my classroom space, and many times I reach out to technology. Today my slide projector is on my computer (or phone for that matter) my film projector too and my record player that became a CD player is now also a downloaded digital piece I can play with a click. Therefore I consider my computer or my phone my tool box. What I do with the tool box completely changes depending on who I am teaching. 

I remember one day (Jr high age) going to sleep and thinking what would happen if all the people who know how to build roads suddenly were gone, how would we, who were left behind, know how to do it (I am not sure why road and not something else)? I knew it was probably written down somewhere,  but my Jr high library the size of a small kitchen, did not seem to have that information in it, and that bothered me. So when the world wide web came into existence on my computer, that I used for writing and creating art with, suddenly was a gold mine of information, and that is why I believe it is more than very important to bring it into the classroom. 

Students of all ages learn to use computers and other devices that can almost do the same thing, not only to watch the latest TV show for free or chat on facebook (which isn't bad when you have friends too far to visit on a regular basis), but also to learn how to learn from the virtual world and apply it or not into the real world. My job is to teach others, and hope that I can also teach how to teach others what they know and continue sharing information. Then people can take or leave what they need. Yes some will get trapped in the media frenzy and others will claim war on the same media frenzy, but at the end somewhere in the middle is the best place for technology. 

My tool box favorites:

• university pages in general,

• My favorite math practice page:  www.ixl.com

• TED talks are cool.  This is a long TV version on education.

• The famous Tacoma bridge 

 

• A page with a factoring calculator: http://www.algebrahelp.com/calculators/expression/factoring/calc.do;jsessionid=150F95DADE88DA742CDF87518FA6CF19?expression=2x^4+-+16x^2+%2B+32

• Since I lose my corn every year this was a great slide show to read about corn. Will I succeed next year? more research must be done.

http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/files/03%20Corn%20Growth%20and%20Development.pdf

• Finally-  How to build a road: https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,1607,7-151-9615-129011--,00.html

Week 19

Summary

          I have an eclectic stile of teaching. At any moment I can be dictating information a student has to know, or showing them where to find something online, or giving them a hands on activity to help them understand what they are doing. Sometimes I just interview the student to understand what they want out of their learning, before I start answering their questions. Many times I literally say "what would you like to learn?" and then find a way to help the student learn it. The difficulty is translating this stile to online learning and that is why I am in this class.

TL;DR(unless you have time)

                                                         How I developed an Eclectic stile

• If I look straight at Pedagogy:  My stile is somewhere between constructivism and connectivism. My teaching stile mostly developed before I ever took any teaching classes and I would say it is eclectic in nature. 

• My first experience with teaching was working at the children's museum in Los Angeles as a museum Volunteer running stations. My next experience was four years later working part time in a nursery parent preschool as a non parent assistant teacher. Three years later, I began teaching as a substitute teacher in My children's school district and simultaneously as an art docent. After learning about my  school district and being told my son was gifted as tested by the school, but had to be placed in the bottom reading group because he could not spell (Dyslexia). I pulled my kids out of school. I decided to home school eventually getting my Masters in education and starting my practice as an educational therapist.

•  Children's Museum and other child centered spaces:    I started as a volunteer at the Children's Museum in Los Angeles and for my senior year in high school I developed a photographic portfolio of children experimenting with the different stations set up with hands on equipment. At the time every station had an assistant who would tell the children what they were playing with and what it was used for. The great aspect of the Children museum was the hands on activities. Each station had a theme and many were based on careers such as medicine or technology. Other stations were based on learning about other people or places such as the blind room where one puts on a bandana covering their eyes and then they would touch the walls trying to feel what the different texture were like. For me it was a great experience and something I looked forward to going to every week. I found myself not only working with the kids but observing how the parents and teachers interacted with the kids. Many times a parent would not allow the child to actually do any of the work, they would do it for them. On the other hand the teachers would either let the kids run wild or expect papers to be filled out about each station, taking away from the experience. The best groups to work with were the kids who found something interesting and were allowed to stay and play. These kids seemed completely absorbed by what they were doing and became  interested in the activity to its fullest it was almost as if you could see them growing as they played, discussed and tried out the station.    

•  Using independent study program is really school at home:  I started with an independent study program that basically wanted me to run my classes like a school at home. Since that was counter productive and frustrating, I left them and went on to opening a private school affidavit and accepting three other kids to my three kid school house.

•  Eclectic schooling: One of the children homeschooled at home through an ISP and so this six year old felt that my house was play time and from there I developed my personal eclectic method. My kids only worked on what they were interested in and read what they wanted to read, played video games and built forts in the back yard. My job was to facilitate learning by developing curriculum that fit what they were interested in while still covering the three Rs. If someone asks me today how did you do it? I really don't know, it was really moment to moment, telling stories, listening to tapes in the car, group reading books old and new such as Harry potter and then all the books J.K Rowling stated were favorite childhood books (yes her plots are sometimes similar to her favorite books). At one point I decided I needed "Classical training" after all I was taking on other peoples kids and what if I was missing something? My masters program turned out to be a behavior based program and unfortunately most of my classes were about controlling the classroom and not much about teaching methods. After I went on to Educational therapy were it was more about methods for different types of kids. For example we learned about hands on teaching, Slingerland for reading and testing for learning disabilities etc...  

•  My practice is as eclectic as my home school. I teach kids how to study, how to look things up, how to keep up with online classes and organize themselves. Other kids I show them how to attack homework assignments, organize themselves and answer questions. ome students I teach them a subject like a tutor would but always with the goal of teaching them how to figure it out or look things up to reach there goals. My goal at all time is to make the student become independent of me. Not great for building a practice, but good for the kids. I truly believe that with time one can teach a kid to love learning by building interest in subjects and any type of kid can find something that will help them want to learn. It can be very academic or not academic at all. It allows them to say, ya I need to finish this to reach my goal. Now if I can translate this to my online courses for adults, I would be very satisfied.

• Some pages I like:
• Unschooling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling
• Eclectic educator by another blogger: http://eclectic-educator.blogspot.com/

• Experiment developed by a software developer in India:    http://www.academia.edu/1027631/Beyond_student-centered_and_teacher-centered_pedagogy_Teaching_and_learning_as_guided_participation

• Mexico a school on the boarder of the United States found through the internet a different way to teach:   http://www.wired.com/business/2013/10/free-thinkers/all/

Week 18

This is the course system I am suppose to set up in for a post masters class. Announcements speak for themselves. Calendar too and I just found out how to load to it. Messages are equivalent to e-amil and Forums are back and forth chat where I post a question to answer. I see Forum like a class discussion and it does not pan out to feel as a class discussion. For next quarter I will have a video chat or a group chat. Chat room is like IM ing and only one or two students ever show up. polls? Roster just a list of students. Syllabus the usual Lessons go with the book. Resources is where it gets interesting but the students usually do not look at them because they are sources that take time to view and read. Assignments although clear are not set up to open to other pages so that I can require videos or articles. Tests and Quizzes are easy to set up and grade.

What is missing? The classroom, the environment, the feeling that a person is there to learn. My goal this year is to use the schools interface, but then add on Google plus (The university requests us to use it) this can help us promote the feeling of community. I also like the idea of the blog. The way we are doing this in our class, I feel as though I can see other students stile,  what are their opinions and what they got out of the reading. My idea is a community needs to be formed in the classroom and this is what invites people to participate and return to the class. It is frustrating to be a person who is trying to learn about education and never see, hear or interact with anyone. It all seems counter productive.

In my high school classes I am on the other side of the coin. I work with homeschoolers who now use online classes to fulfill high school requirements. Just four years ago my kids who were home schooled did not take a single class online. They either attended community group to learn with friend  or attended college classes or community center classes. The rest of the time they played and used computers to play a variety of games (some inadvertently taught history and others were purposefully educational).

The homeschool kids today are in classes that look, act and talk like a classroom class. Same curriculum, same homework, same everything except the lecture seems to be missing and the other kids are missing too (they don't chat online because they never met in the real world). My job as an ed-therapist is to help the kids learn how to teach themselves. What we used to get from a lecture and our friends, is not in an online class. These homeschoolers usually work individually and they are suppose to sign in once a week to talk to their teacher about the weeks unit. I have found that what is missing is interaction with other kids and adults to learn from each other. Structure is missing too. For example a math project is assigned but no explanation is given on how to go about deriving the equations, finding data and keeping the task simple enough for a tenth grader to understand and put together. Sometimes a video is shown to the students and then a packet needs to be filled out, but half the questions were not in the video. What is interesting is that a text book is not assigned to these specific classes so the kids do not have a reference book.

I would like to see more interaction between the teacher and the students, more reference material and a viewable grading system. What I hope to do when I am working with these students is to fill in the background knowledge that seems to be missing in their classes.

Week 17

Growing up digital wired for distraction is an interesting article. The journalist focuses on how the new generation is trapped between two worlds. I have several students who do the same. They stay up late, using technology, social media and watching you tube. Some students such as the one in the article cannot keep up with demanding classes and their virtual world. In the case of my students who have found their passion online their interests are sparked by the technology and they find themselves focusing on their interests and barely have time to deal with basic requirements. Should the school fit the new way people learn what they want to learn or should the kids be limited so they pay attention to grades and predesignated classes?

The article focuses on the typical view that a kid who goes to school must do well in all their classes and then work on outside topics of interest such as music, film, sports and socializing. In my opinion a kid such as the one in the article has already found their passion and has started pursuing it through tools available on the computer. From my experience it is OK to let this type of student go more into depth and study their passion, while learning the rest of the curriculum relative to their passion. If they are film buffs then use film to teach and learn with.  If they are good at programming then allow them to develop software and create new programs, apps and other software based creations. This does not mean the three R's must be abandoned but a balance can be met for the future actress, director, artist, business entrepreneur or programmer etc...

My Survey: I am intending on giving to my students the first week of class.
The idea is to design the course around the student.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QP8LJXW

Week 16

For week 16 I took a while to decide what to do. In fact we are now in week 17 and I am posting week 16. I think I am beginning to look like my student from my Educational therapy practice where they are chasing their assignments like a run away train. I teach them to think ahead and prepare before it all falls apart, so this week I will post two assignments so that I can get to the station on time :)

My first video, I was developing on Prezi. I really like the way it zooms in and out and a logical pattern can be developed for it. I did the voice over for Claudias video and then built mine but did not get past the class introduction. I have still not decided how I am going to go about introducing topics for my Educational psychology class.

I then decided to record how to use the UCSC course web sight with an overview of my goals for the course. I have a diverse population in my class that also takes the course for several reasons. Students include Educational therapists, teachers and parents.  At least two students per quarter don't know how to use the web page and at least one student per quarter feels that my course is to routine. So I am still thinking of adding assignments that can replace the quizzes as an alternative option. Also in the video the tech group posted my questions in the wrong order so I will be using the screencast o matic again :) I think I am addicted to it now.

This is the intro video:

Week 15

Using video and Audio in the online class supports and enhances the experience of the learner. The difficult task to accomplish is to either create, or find a video or audio piece that can be recognized as being relevant to the topic. In a course I taught, I requested students to search Eric

ERIC - Education Resources Information Center

and/or youtube and youtube education, for sources that pertained to the topic. The idea was to run a discussion session around the research. It did not really spark a true class discussion and two of the thirteen students specifically noted the weekly forum to be irrelevant.

My course is starting again in April and I have decided to flip the stile. Rather than ask students right off the bat to research topics I decided to build the first assignments video. then have students discuss and  find their own sources online. The sources, can help them learn skills they intend to use with their students in the classroom or private practice (educational therapist).

With Claudia Magalhaes we built an answer to the class discussion by building a video with example for a ninth grade Geometry class. 

We used Screencast-o-matic and skype video (my son called me so the image would come up on the screen and then set the size from his computer. Any other way to make a small image of yourself on a mac book pro?

 

 

 

This is my interactive Glog developed to teach about teaching elementary math.

below is a link to the actual Glog

<iframe src="http://edu.glogengine.com/view/V8VKFfCh8zIdKaSFF0yY:6kokb4omvmmruvards9rqa0" width="560" height="758" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" style="overflow: hidden;"></iframe>

Week 14

Week 14: Creating Class Elements Part 1: Images and screenshots (Feb 9-15) 

Images are my favorite aspect of helping students understand what I am teaching them. Since I work as an educational therapist, I first find what is a students strength and what are the weaknesses. For students who remember what they see, but do not create their own images I use Quizlet.

This is my solution:

It does not work well with all kids, especially one with visual processing issues. But it does help kids who don't form their own visual images, yet remember and understand what they see.

The web sight gives students the possibility to study flash cards or play a matching game and a racing game with the cards. The person who builds the cards can add images and audio.

Introduction

Hi, I am Michaela I am Blogging from the San Francisco Bay area.
This is my new Blog for my POT (certificate class) class. I am interested in learning more about teaching online. My interest is specifically for teaching university level courses in Educational Therapy and online tutoring. I am interested in learning how to create a more specialized course where students can learn what applies to them, rather than a broad view of the topic.