Teaching Online

What technologies can I use to help my students?  That is a tough question.  Not all of my students have access to the same resources.  They only thing they have consistent access to is basic school supplies.  Now if I imagine what it is like to teach online and know that my students have access to a computer and internet, then I can make some better choices.  

Edmodo is one of my favorite online sources for teaching and learning.  I think I would give Wikispaces a chance for cooperative learning groups.  Between these two I think I could successfully teach History.  The best part about teaching History is that most of the primary sources that you need can be found from the Library of Congress.  

The pedagogical strategies that I would use are: 

•  COIL: Checklist for Online Interactive Learning.  I would create a checklist to help keep everyone involved on track.  
• Webquests and cooperative learning groups
• Google Hangouts
• Video and Text instructions   

What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students/peers? Why? 

Technologies that require me to be online or logged in to the work that they are working on could be harder for me to use.  It can be quite hard to find a time that everyone can work and I'd hate to have to stay logged into something all day just to make sure something is done.  I like freedom and flexibility to work with structure to help guide learning.  My perspective of online learning is that it is or can be mostly student led.  Anything that is too focused on teacher involvement is too teacher centered for online learning.  

How to study History StAIR

For CEP 811 we were asked to make a StAIR (Stand Alone Instructional Resource).  Here is a link to the folder of resources that helped me create this StAIR.  My StAIR is about How to study History.  Many students enter my classroom and don't have a clue to what it means to study History or what I want them to do when I say, "Analyze this primary source.  Then answer the questions"

So here is my StAIR   Most of the information is compiled off of the internet.  I've come to the conclusion that there are few sources that define primary and secondary sources in the same way and in a method that makes since to most people.

You can also find this StAIR posted to Merlot.

Let me know if you have any questions.


FYI!

How to Study History by LStark is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Wiki Spaces

So this week we conducted a lab on the uses of Wikipedia and Wikispaces.  I chose to explore Wikispaces.  First off I want to identify by bias here because I'm not a fan of anything Wiki related.  Just the word makes me want to ignore the site.  So that being said, I was not looking forward to this assignment.  However, exploring Wikispaces opened up the idea that some parts of Wiki world are useful.  I like the idea of using something like this for collaboration.  However I believe that are other ways to do this just as effectively.  We were also asked to find the wikipedia page for our school and make changes on it.  I added to the sports section that our Basketball team won state for the first time.  This is a HUGE moment in school history as this is our first state title EVER! I understand the purpose of this part of the assignment but all it really did for me was prove WHY Wikipedia can't be trusted as a valid source for information.

I think I need to play around with this some more and I might use it for group work in the future.  Will this small interaction lead me to becoming a full supporter of Wikipedia and its extensions, probably not. I'll still give out zeros for using it unless otherwise instructed.      

UDL

Link to my UDL Checklist

UDL means Universal Design for Learning.  This week we were tasked with evaluating a previous lesson plan  with the UDL checklist.  Universal Design for Learning address different learning abilities and the way the brain reacts to learning.  As I began to analyze my lesson plan I realized that I couldn't exactly explain the why of learning.  The skills to interact with primary and secondary sources are essential skills for History learning.  My lesson plan addressed the what and how of learning.  It is missing some differentiation but I think with some review and enhancements it will meet many more parts of this check list.

The major components of the checklist are:

UDL Guidelines - Educator Checklist
I. Provide Multiple Means of Representation	Your notes: Recognition (What of learning)
1. Provide options for perception
2. Provide options for language and symbols
3. Provide options for comprehension

II. Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression	Your notes: Strategic (How of learning)
4. Provide options for physical action
5. Provide options for expressive skills and fluency
6. Provide options for executive functions

III. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement	Your notes : Affective (why of learning)
7. Provide options for recruiting interest
8. Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence
9. Provide options for self-regulation