Ch. 6 Kearsley

For online teaching to be effective, you must think about many things including:
- ensure a high level of student interaction/participation
- provide feedcack
- moderate/facilitate student discussions
- mastery of the online environment
- faculty collaboration

I feel that online teaching can be more time consuming than the traditional teaching approach. However, if well organized, the workload will not be so overwhelming. There many advantages and possibilities through distance education. Some of them include:
- community
- shared knowledge
- exploration
- authenticity
- studen-centeredness
- multisensory approach-
- collaboration
- unboundedness
- availability
For me, DE is an amazing opportunity to work and take classes. I love the many options that are available.

Standard and Lesson Plan

Standard/Lesson Plan
To prepare lesson plans, you must first think about what standards you want students to achieve. The content of the lesson’s procedures are focused around the standards. KY Core Content has standards for each grade level that students must meet.

There are many parts to a lesson plan.
Step 1: Gather resources, content, and the curriculum you will be using.
Step 2: Make objectives and goals.
Step 3: Make guiding questions that focus on real-life connections.
Step 4: Learning connections and teaching strategies.
Step 5: Assessment

To ensure that you write a focused lesson plan, you can link to
http://www.ncrtec.org/tl/lp/, for help.

For state standards, visit http://www.academicbenchmarks.com/search/?&state=KY or the KY Department of Education.

There are thousands of free lesson plans online. Using the internet is a great way to find new ways to teach content or to find enrichment activities. Planning lessons can be a very time consuming task. With many places to find resources from, it is not so overwhelming.

Innovate Course Designs

Innovate Course Design

When I googled innovate course design, I found several links to training material.

At the Lost Library of MOO
I found links at sourceforge.net for training materials. Some of the material consisted of software updates, install configuration procedures, and design concepts. Some of the linking sites to find additional training materials or ideas for course design at MOO are:

Links
-Wikispaces, CMS systems, Graphics, message boards, site management, blogging, frameworks
(all of these links can be found under the LambdaMOO Server Source at sourceforge.net site at MOO)

Examples of links:
- Wikispaces- offers open communication and collaboration/ availability for web applications
- Message boards (XOOPS)- a web application platform for developing large and small community websites

Week 6 Things to Write

The toolbox has had a tremendous impact, by making me think. I have thought a lot about what tools are essential for a DE class and why they are necessary. They have influenced my choice of design, making my design more focused. I no longer think in generic terms, but focus on what is the most important details to include in my design. I have obtained a great set of tools through this class, that assist me in making the details I include in my design, easier to find. I love so many of the tools and sites that I have explored. It is difficult to choose my favorite.

When designing a course it is important to use many tools. Having a variety of tools to choose from assists you in creating a thorough design. There are many tools that are necessary from both toolboxes. Without these tools it would take longer to research or explore specific topics. When given a topic to write about, you can immediately grab one of the tools that relates to the topic and get busy writing. Without these tools you would be surfing google until you were about to pull your hair out.

The course objectives are a fact of life. Without having these tools, resources, and writings you would not experience any growth. It is important to be equipped with many tools, to become a great writer/thinker. Without using these sites and tools, you would not develop a better understanding of the many facets of learning through technology.

Advanced Toolbox

In an advanced toolbox you could include the following resources:
- MUD, MOO, MUSH
- Link to a 3-D virtual world
- Skype, Gizmo, or IM
- Wikispaces
- Elluminate

For me, these resources are extensions of the basic tools in my toolbox. These links are easily accessible with a wealth of information. They offer an extra way not only to find information, but a way to communicate with many others.

Ch. 7 Kearsley

Some of the most important factors that I think make an online course successful are having sufficient course documents, content, ample tools, flexibility, usability, and organization. The course documents vital to making the class successful for teacher/student are syllabuses, lesson plans, contact information, and good communication. The tools, content, usability, flexibility, and organization are "ingredients of good-quality online courses." The students, if these factors are all available, should perform well.

Lecture-Ware, Elluminate

Online Learning

When I googled Lecture-Ware many universities came up with speakers giving lectures. Through Eluminate, many online learning sessions for DE and training are possible. There is a benefit to using the Internet while someone lectures.  The benefit is to enforce DE and for eLearning and open communication to take place.  Synchronous Learning Systems have created  new ways of teaching to integrate the real-time traditional classroom with the benefits of online communication and collaboration to reach a variety of learning styles.  For students with a disability, it reaches those learners through audiovisual tools.  (https://www.elluminate.com/ecc2007/sessions.jsp)