Session 2 Reflection

As I proceeded through the many online tools in this week's work, I was struck by how many new technology upgrades are out there since I completed my master's at Stritch in August of 2009. I had some familiarity with Google Docs and social bookmarking but did not really see how they could be used in middle or high school classrooms (regular or online) until now.

In talking with our school's library media specialist, I now see how social bookmarking would be a great way for our middle school students to share their web resources with each other. These 7th and 8th graders so love to be connected online, as I have discovered by their strong use of our new SchoolFusion blogging tool. I now see where research projects could be greatly enhanced, regardless of the topic, by the sharing done with social bookmarking. I envision where my job, as well as our library media specialist, might be to teach our students social bookmarking so that they can utilize it in any class. I so wish that our proposed high school Digital Media course had been approved because that would have been an ideal way to present social bookmarking. However, I will certainly add a unit on this in my expanded (going from a quarter to a semester) Computer Applications course next year. I was also impressed with the many variations of social bookmarking sites. I thought they were all like Delicious and Diigo but now understand that there are alternatives such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and ClipMarks. I look forward to investigating these and others more so that we find the right match for our middle school students.

I had used Skype before, but only the audio version. Adding the webcam opens up a whole new world of engaging communication. I practiced using the webcam with my cousin in Texas. He was using his iPhone, which also has the ability to Skype with video. More importantly, I used Skype to converse with his 6-year-old daughter, just to get a feel for how she would react to it. As you can imagine, she loved it, demonstrating to me how this audio and video technology tool might work for online learning at even very young ages.

Online storage was interesting to learn more about as I had no experience with it. I tried out Dropbox and saw how easy it is to create an account and post public documents. In addition, it does save the need for jump drives, as you can access your files (I tried Excel spreadsheets and Word documents) anywhere. One major issue that came up in my school was that .exe downloads are blocked, meaning that I could not download Dropbox onto my classroom computer. This meant that I could not save a spreadsheet back into Dropbox after changing it without renaming it. Otherwise, I could see how Dropbox could also be a great collaboration tool, with some final results similar to Google Docs.

All in all, I am impressed with these new technology tools and the great potential they have in teaching and learning. If indeed I teach online courses in my district, I will be utilizing these and other similar tools in order to make the learning experience as rich and convenient as possible.

Session 1 Reflection

I was very excited to start a Stritch class again. I completed my Masters in Instructional Technology in August of 2009 and had fantastic experiences throughout the entire Stritch program. When I heard that my school district, Menomonee Falls, was thinking about introducing online class offerings, I looked to Stritch first to get the appropriate training. CEdO501 and 502 will allow me to earn the required 30 hours of professional development necessary to teach online classes, per Wisconsin DPI.

As an electives teacher (Business Education), I must always make myself as valuable as possible to my district and being able to teach online will help with that. In addition, 501 and 502 will allow to become a more proficient Financial Life Skills and Computer Applications teacher. I have already introduced blogging to my students through our new SchoolFusion website and communication tool. However, after seeing my students' enthusiasm and engagement with SchoolFusion, I would like to incorporate more of this online learning into my 7th and 8th grade classes.

As a primary example, we are pushing hard at North Middle School to incorporate cyberbullying prevention lessons into our curriculum. Using online learning tools would only allow us educators to better meet our students (almost all are digital natives) in the online world in which they live. I hope to bring resources from this course to use in that endeavor.

After spending our hour on Elluminate on Thursday, I left with the impression that online learning has greatly advanced in just the few years since I was taking my grad classes. I was amazed at how easy Elluminate worked in the areas of Louis communicating to us via audio, video, and text, as well as how we could readily communicate with each other via instant messaging, emoticons, and the green checks and red x's. My head was left spinning, wondering how I could incorporate an online classroom/virtual office such as this into my future conventional and online middle or high school courses.