#COVID19 #Coronavirus School Closure Online Learning Resources

As COVID-19 spreads around the world, the discussion of how to keep teaching and learning going in the event of school closures has been ramping up on social media. It's wise to be ready in case school closures hit your community. As resources have been shared, I've been collecting them in a Wakelet, which I have embedded below so others might consult it as needed. I will continue to add quality resources as I find them.

My favorite resource so far has been a blog post from Kasey Bell of ShakeUpLearning. It is based on an interview with a teacher in China whose school has been conducting online learning for several weeks now. What I love about it is the emphasis on process and procedure over tools, including the fantastic tip that now is not the time to try all of the new tech tools! It is the first resource in my Wakelet, but I encourage you to read it now before you even start looking at the other resources I've collected: 

Coronavirus Closures? Online Learning Tips for Teachers and Schools [Interview with an American Teacher in China]


I hope the resources in this Wakelet are helpful for you. If you have additional resources to share, please do so in the blog comments!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Please see specifics on my re-use policy before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

My Online Teaching Philosophy #OnlineLearning #OnlineTeaching #eLearning

Image from Flikr user Cambodia4Kids.org Beth Kanter.
Used under a Creative Commons license.

In January 2019 I began pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Curriculum and Instruction with a Specialization in Educational Technology at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. The program I am in is fully online, so I am able to study while continuing my current work as a Digital Learning Coach in Georgetown ISD. 

For my third course, Theory and Practice of Online Pedagogy, one of my assignments was to write my philosophy of online teaching. I am posting it here so I can easily access it and share with others in the future. And also because I thought it would be neat to get feedback from experienced online educators. The course finished a week ago, and my assignment is already graded, so I'm not trying to get help with my homework! 😉

Please take a look at my philosophy, and let me know what you think!

Sandy's Online Teaching Philosophy

Online learning has transformed and broadened the educational opportunities available to learners of diverse backgrounds, ages, interests, and abilities.  As an online teacher, it will be my privilege and responsibility to ensure any students entrusted to me experience meaningful learning which will enrich their lives by moving them toward reaching their personal and professional goals. The key to meaningful learning for students is connection: to me as their teacher, to their fellow students, to course content, and to real-world applications. My priority as an online teacher will be to create conditions in which maximum connection takes place.

Learning Goals

Connection is my favorite part of teaching and learning; it is what has excited me from the first time I entered a classroom. Getting to know my students as individuals and watching them grow in their understanding through connecting new ideas with previous learning has always given me a natural high! When I became an online learner myself, earning a master’s degree entirely online, I came to more deeply understand how vital connection was to me. In my traditional classroom experience, connection was a natural outcome of living life with my students every day. In online learning, I realized that connection was not a given. Unfortunately, I learned this by being a student in some classes where I did not feel my instructors knew me or knew how the course content related to my professional work.  

As I anticipate teaching online, my goal is to implement effective teaching strategies that were modeled for me as a student as well as best practices I have learned about in both my formal and informal studies. Students will be the focus of my teaching, and personal connection to my students and personalization of their learning experiences will be my top priority.

Teaching Methods

The methods I will use in teaching will be the primary vector for establishing connections and personalizing learning in my courses. My students will have a clear picture of my expectations and course content to be covered through a detailed syllabus and calendar which will be shared with them on or before day one of the course. Initial activities such as a Getting to Know You discussion board and a synchronous video conference will take place in the first days of the course, and part of the purpose for those activities will be for the students and me to introduce ourselves to one another and discuss the course expectations. Through these connecting activities, early on we will all come to understand that we are in the learning adventure together with other flesh-and-blood people who are unique individuals with valuable contributions to make to the process.

During my courses, my students will have opportunities to make personal and professional connections to the content through discussions, reflections, and posing their own questions to one another and to me. I will actively participate in the discussions and respond to my students’ reflections and questions to get to know them as learners, validate their ideas, and encourage them to stretch their thinking. Whenever possible, the content being discussed will be contextualized in real-world scenarios to make connections to practical applications of the learning. I will be available to my students by email at any time and through online office hours and appointments if they desire to further discuss content or other course matters in a more private setting, and I will reach out to and arrange to meet with students who I sense might be struggling with any aspect of the course.

Assessment of Student Learning

The assignments and assessments in my courses will focus on the application of course content in real-world scenarios. Informal assignments will include discussion board postings or reflections which serve as steps leading up to more formal assessments such as papers or presentations. Formal assessments will be assigned when students need to synthesize and apply large amounts of content or research that is new to them. Whenever possible, assessments will be project-based and will have a direct connection to my students' current or future professions. For example, if I am teaching a course to students who are practicing educators, I will design projects that result in products which my students could use in their current educational setting. Because my students will come from diverse educational settings and have multiple purposes for studying the content in my course, I will include choices for the format of product outcomes while clearly defining requirements for project contents through a rubric.

Assessment of Teaching

The most important evaluation of my teaching will come from my students. Throughout a course, as I monitor student progress and provide feedback on their assignments, I will also be assessing myself. I will ask questions of myself, such as, "Is the quality and content of my students' assignments what I am aiming for? If it is, how can I encourage my students to stretch? If it is not, what must I do to help my students improve and how must I do it?" I will also ask students for informal feedback at critical points in the course, such as when a major project has been explained or is coming due to see if there is any clarification I need to provide or any way I need to tweak the design of the project for the next course iteration.  At the end of the course, I will conduct an anonymous survey of my students to see how they rate the course overall, what they liked about the course, and what suggestions they have for improvement. I will study my students’ feedback, look for patterns, and make improvements to my teaching strategies in future courses based on the results.

In the first courses I teach, I will ask a fellow faculty member who is experienced in online teaching and willing to mentor me to be an observer in my class. Their feedback will be valuable as I am gaining my first online teaching experience and seeking to encourage student success and grow as an online teacher. To keep current on best practices and online education research, I will network with other online instructors and maintain connections to professional organizations through Twitter, blogs, and peer-reviewed publications. I also have a goal of conducting action research in my courses to assess and improve my instructional practices and student learning.

Summary

When I completed my master's degree in 2010, I was asked to write about my future goals. The goal I wrote about which called to me most strongly was the goal to invest in the continued learning of my fellow educators through teaching them online. I still feel the call of that goal and hope to realize it soon. Nothing inspires me more than investing in the growth of students, and to have fellow educators as learners in my classes, to connect with them where they are in their professional experience and partner with them in the next steps on their journeys will be an enormous privilege. I believe my philosophy of online teaching will guide me in building crucial learning connections for my students and providing them with a fulfilling educational experience.

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Please see specifics on my re-use policy before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

ThingLink for Video Adds Interactivity

I'm taking a MOOC through Coursera and UC Irvine called Advanced Instructional Strategies in the Virtual Classroom. This week, we had to turn in an assignment. One of the options for the assignment was to make an introductory video for an online course. I've used several video creation apps and programs before, so I thought it would be easy. But not so fast. The video needed at least one interactive element! That's not something I've done before.

Enter ThingLink for Video, which was one of the recommendations for adding interactivity made by the course instructor. If you are familiar with ThingLink, you know it's a tool for adding clickable icons to graphics. Recently, they've added an option for adding clickable icons to videos.

The only catch is, if you want to try ThingLink for Video, you have to purchase ThingLink premium. A one year subscription for educators is $35. I got a slight discount as a member of the MOOC, so I went for it. Even though I'd never signed up for or used the original ThingLink before. Time to find out what all the fuss is about!

So, here's how I created the video below. It's a mashup recipe, for sure!

• I used the free AdobeVoice app for iPad to create the original video, then uploaded it to the Adobe Voice website.
• I used Camtasia Studio on my PC to record the uploaded video while playing it from the AdobeVoice website. Camtasia is not a free program, but there are other screencast recording tools out there that could probably be used. They need to be able to save into a format that can be uploaded to YouTube, though.
• I saved the Camtasia video in mp4 format and uploaded it to YouTube.
• I used ThingLink for Video to incorporate interactive elements in the video.

And there you go! ThingLink for Video was very self-explanatory. There aren't too many options on the interactive icons when you insert them, which made it easy for a newbie like me. The thing I had a little difficulty with was adjusting where the links appear and disappear in the video.

There isn't a timeline you can drag the links on to tweak their starts, so you basically have to delete the link and start again if you didn't get the timing just right. Not too cumbersome, but it would be nice if it could just be adjusted on a timeline. Additionally, there are only three options for how long the link displays in the video: short (5 secs), medium (10 secs), and long (15 secs). Perhaps in future versions, the ability to more finely tune link lengths will be added.

All in all, it was easy to use and I think the video does its job. I've embedded the video below. Let me know what you think! Also, please share other tools you've used to make videos interactive. Thanks!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Still MOOCing Along...

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Week 4 of the Foundations of Virtual Instruction MOOC I started on June 30th is wrapping up today. By this time next week, I will hopefully have successfully completed my first MOOC.

Overall, it's been an interesting experience. Because I've completed an online masters degree, read extensively on virtual learning, taken an online course in facilitating virtual PD courses, and even helped design and facilitate a few online staff development courses in my school district, much of the content covered has been somewhat familiar to me. The upside of this has been my ability to focus more on the experience than the content in the course.

Quick Updates

In case you read my post on starting this MOOC, or if you decide to go back and read it, I'll update a few of my early observations:

• The 2 to 4 hours per week of work was a pretty accurate estimate. I've spent that much time on the content most weeks. Closer to 2 hours than 4.
• After a couple of weeks in the course and success on the quizzes, I decided to go ahead and pay for the Coursera Signature Track option, which will allow me to earn a verified certificate.  I'll put this on my CV/resume at some point and we will see if this makes any difference in future employment endeavors I might pursue.
• In my last post, I estimated there were about 200 people in the course based on activity in the discussion forums. Boy, was I off on that estimate! At the end of our first week in the class, the instructor sent us an update letting us know that there were over 12,000 people enrolled in the course!

New Observations and Thoughts

I'm really glad this hasn't been a full-blown college course. I had to say goodbye to a very precious pet during the second week of the course and have also been fighting allergies or something for the past week, so my enthusiasm for learning hasn't been what it normally is.

Although I've spoken to others who've taken MOOCs that they felt were the equivalent to college courses, I think this course is a pared down version. There is a ton of material in the lectures each week, but the assignments have not been super challenging. Multiple choice quizzes that make sure we are understanding the content which are between 8 and 10 questions each week plus one assignment where we had to turn in a lesson plan and then assess three of our peers plans have not been too demanding. And in the end, if things did become too overwhelming, I could have quit. No GPA to worry about. No harm, no foul. The no GPA part is good, because the final exam coming this week might be a challenge, given that I haven't been as focused a student as usual (see previous paragraph).

I do need to make an A in the course though if I want to keep open the option of doing an 11 week practicum with UC Irvine after finishing three more Coursera courses. Fingers crossed!

Discussion Boards Weren't So Bad

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In my previous post I mentioned that the discussion boards were going to be a challenge, and that I would have to be ok with participating in conversations while missing a whole lot of others at the same time. Well, the discussion boards did become the most interesting part of the course for me, but not in the way that I thought they would. I found myself hardly participating on the boards that were tied to the course content (these were encouraged but not required) and focusing a lot more on tangent topics/conversations started by my fellow students. I've been involved in threads on iPads in the Classroom, a thread that cropped up discussing the usefulness of the legal content presented this past week, and my favorite thread which has been actively discussing the quality of assignments we peer assessed this week.

I was especially interested/distressed to find out that even in MOOCs, people try to cheat! Reports of lesson plans copied entirely from other locations on the Internet (not even in a format that met the rubric) were posted on the discussion board. There is a way to report these in Coursera. I should not be shocked, but I was. I am always disheartened by cheating. Especially from people involved in education!

Reports of cheating aside, I've really enjoyed making connections and hearing the perspectives of people from K-12 to higher ed and from California to New Zealand to Malta. It has been a refreshing reminder of the very large world we live in, how connected it can be thanks to today's technology, and of the similar challenges that face education and educators everywhere.

As I write this, I'm in sixth place in discussion board participation. That's with just 52 posts on my part, which tells you how active the boards are (or aren't) even with 12,000 people enrolled in the course. 

One More Week...

Week 5, the final week of this course, starts tomorrow. After I survive the final exam and finish out the course, I'll be sure to share my final thoughts. Including whether or not I'll go on to the next course in the four course sequence. 

Any other MOOCers out there? I'd love for you to share your impressions/thoughts/experiences in the comments, including links back to your own reflective blog posts. :-)

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

So I'm Taking a MOOC...

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Under a Creative Commons License

Late last week I was innocently checking my Twitter feed, and I saw an announcement for a MOOC called Foundations of Virtual Instruction.  I clicked to investigate, and I was immediately intrigued for several reasons.

• The course is aimed at learning about K-12 online instruction, which I'm interested in knowing more about.
• The course is offered through Coursera, a known online learning platform which I have heard and read good things about.
• The course is offered by an existing higher education institution, the University of California at Irvine.
• The course lasts five weeks and requires two to four hours of work per week. Perfect for summer learning, especially since I work through the summer.
• The course is taught by an instructor who has experience in teaching online in K-12. (You can watch the video on the course info page to learn more about her.)
• I can take the course for FREE, but for a small fee I can also earn a verified certificate that proves I have completed the coursework. (More about this below.)

So, I found out about this course late last week and made the decision to jump in and sign up a couple of days before the course started on June 30th.

My Experience So Far

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I will sum up my experience so far with the sophisticated phrase: "It's been really cool!"

Here is what I have liked:

• The course syllabus clearly communicates what is expected and how the course grade will be calculated.
• The video lectures are professionally created and presented in short chunks and are interactive! During the videos, pauses are built in which ask you to type in a short answer or to answer a multiple choice question based on what you are learning. I don't know if data is kept on these questions, but they are excellent for giving the learner an opportunity to reflect on what they are learning.
• I have the option to earn a verified certificate for a small fee. I signed up for the verified certificate trial so I could evaluate the quality of the course and my likelihood of completing it (I've started a couple of MOOCs in the past and not made it through...) before paying any money. 
• They are serious about the verification thing! I had to take a headshot of myself with my webcam and input a typing sample that would identify me by my unique typing pattern prior to taking the first quiz! Apparently, I will have to do this each time I take or turn in any assignment in the course that is graded. This is more verification than I had to do for the online master's degree I completed four years ago!
• This course is the first in a set of courses that build upon each other. If I complete all four courses and earn verified certificates for each of them plus complete a capstone project, I can earn a Specialization Certificate from UC Irvine and Coursera. Coursera and its partner organizations currently offer 10 different specializations. It's not the same as college credit, but it is cost effective and shows your current or prospective employer that you are serious about continuously educating yourself.
• Based on the activity in the discussion forums, there are over 200 people in this course, and they are literally from all over the world! It's fascinating to see all of these people, in some cases to get a piece of their story, and along the way learn from their insights.

The one big challenge for me...

• Did I mention over 200 people? It may be many, many more than that; there is no official listing of the members of the course that I have found. The discussion boards became overwhelming to me within the first two days. People posting literally all the time from time zones around the world. The discussion boards are not required as far as the grade for the course goes, but they are highly encouraged in order for participants to engage more with the material. I want to engage with others, because I'm that kind of learner. I'm going to have to make peace with the fact that I can't read everyone's contributions, and much like I do on Twitter, I will just catch and interact with a few. I have managed to have more interaction on the "unofficial" open discussion boards which are not based on course content. So hopefully that will continue to be a place for connection.

So far, so good! The positives are definitely outweighing the challenges four days in to the course. Based on my experience thus far, I think Summer 2014 might see me complete my first MOOC. I will keep you posted!

Have you had any experiences with MOOCs? If so, I'd love to hear about it! Please leave a comment below. :-)

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Finding Content for Reteaching, Blending, and Flipping

Online content means you can learn anywhere, with anyone!
Photo by familymwr used under a creative commons license

Recently I had a wonderful conversation with my district's high school educational technologist, Kristin Thompson, about apps and online tools that could be used for formative assessment and reteaching of concepts. We talked about using a tool like Socrative or InfuseLearning to get a quick feel for where students are in their learning, and then apps like Explain Everything, Educreations, or ShowMe which teachers can use to create video tutorials based on learning needs.

In the hopes that at some point we might get to provide some professional development on this topic, I added that we should expose teachers to methods for finding those video tutorials without having to create them all themselves.

First, don't forget that some of the best experts on your content reside in your own classroom. Whenever possible, I believe students should be given opportunities to teach what they know to their peers. Any educator knows that deep learning of content really happens when you have to break it apart and teach it to others. Creation of video tutorials as summative assessments for students can easily serve two purposes:

• Students can demonstrate that they really do understand the content.
• The videos created can become part of a library that can be used for teaching, reteaching, and review - even in future school years if appropriate. With collaboration between teachers, a library could be built by students and teachers from multiple classrooms and schools.

Second, don't forget there are a lot of learning resources and tutorials already out there. Teachers do not always have to create all of the content they need themselves. We started brainstorming a list of places that teachers can find content for re-teaching, and I realized these resources would also be valuable for anyone practicing blended or flipped learning. Here's the list we came up with in a short time of brainstorming:

• Discovery Education - If your school or district subscribes to Discovery Education for online video, you have a fabulous library of resources at your fingertips! You can now search for content that has been aligned to state standards.
• Texas Education on iTunesU - Kid2Kid videos and other resources. Other states and numerous universities and school districts also have iTunesU channels you can explore.
• ProjectShareTexas.org – Standards search available right on the home page for math and science resources
• Club Academia – student created tutorials
• Khan Academy
• SchoolTube - You can search SchoolTube for existing content, or create a channel of your own to upload original educational material. One of the high schools in the district where I work has a channel with some great math and foreign language videos.
• YouTube – Bookmark reputable/high quality learning channels (like the Amoeba Sisters) when you find them rather than just doing general searches all the time.
• ShowMe -  Existing tutorials created using the ShowMe app
• Educreations - Existing  tutorials created using the Educreations app (which is FREE for iOS!)

These were ideas we came up with in a fairly brief brainstorming session. I know there are numerous high quality content repositories out there that could be added to this list. YOU are the expert on this! I invite you to share your high quality resources in the comments so we can all learn together.


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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

#EdCampOnline Experience 10-26-13 #ce13

Yesterday I had the exciting opportunity to participate in the first ever EdCamp to be held online. If you are not familiar with EdCamps, they differ from traditional professional development experiences in that they are organized by the participants on the day of the event. This EdCamp video gives a brief introduction to EdCamps, and this TEDxPhiladelphia talk by Kristen Swanson gives a much more in-depth story of how the EdCamp movement came to be and what it seeks to provide to educators.

I have watched many EdCamps from afar by following their hashtags on Twitter while they are taking place, but have never had the opportunity to participate in one in person myself. I am excited that EdCamp Austin is coming to my area very soon, but I was also pumped when I heard about EdCamp Online and registered for it right away. After being a part of yesterday's event, I am even more excited about the in-person experience I will be having in just a couple of weeks!

To preserve the experience, I created a Storify using the Tweets I sent out during EdCamp Online. They include general getting organized Tweets, information from the session on engagement in online learning that I took part in, and the wrap-up. Also included is evidence of some technical issues that were bound to happen with a large endeavor like this one.  I've embedded the Storify slide show below so you can see what my experience was like. You can also click here to view the Storify in a different format. 

I hope it will help inspire you to take part in an EdCamp experience at your first opportunity!

NOTE: When Storify shut down in May, 2018, I exported my Storify collections to Wakelet. Below is the original collection of Tweets I saved during Edcamp Online in 2013, now hosted on Wakelet.



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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

LMS & CMS Discussion - #TECSIG Fall 2013 Breakout Session

Some CMS/LMS systems districts are using:

• Moodle
• Schoology
• Edmodo
• Project Share Epsilen
• iTunes U
• Blackboard Collaborate
• Blackboard - U of H Clear Lake
• Desire2Learn

Administratively difficult to use multiple systems at university level. In K-12 also difficult.

If you work for a university or school district, who owns a course you create? If you put it together on your own time and are not compensated extra for the development, is it yours or your employer's?

If teachers put together a course with no editor, there is no quality control. Teachers may not have all of the skills they need to do online instructional design. Also, once the course is built, links go dead or change or become outdated. Continued design is a huge time investment.

Is there a need for dedicated online course instructional designers in K-12 education?

• Consistent look and feel? (Unified design)
• Deep understanding of the LMS/CMS and how it works.
• Keep course content updated

Do K-12 schools need courses completely delivered online? Is the cost to develop worth the need? (homebound, credit recovery, acceleration)

In K-12, CMSs fill a blended learning niche more than than a fully online learning niche.

• Lewisville ISD is doing a two day in person/three day online model with a group of students and students are seeing benefits.

Teaching online courses is a lot of work. It is a bigger time investment to design and implement online courses than in person courses. This is woefully misunderstood by administrators and teachers.

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

5 to 6 Hours of Basic Training on iPads? What?

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My last post was on the plan the educational technology team in my school district came up with for iPad Basic Training for Teachers. As iPads began making their way into our school district through different avenues last year, we felt it was important to make sure our teachers had a basic understanding of how to use the iPad before we even began to talk with them about using the iPad for teaching and learning.

In conversations with people inside and outside of my district, upon hearing we were proposing five to six hours of training in the basics, we were occasionally met with "What? You want HOW MUCH TIME to do basic iPad training?" The strongest reactions usually came from people who were already iPhone and iPad users themselves.

I'm going to list a few of the reasons we felt five or six hours was the minimum amount of time we needed for iPad basic training. They are not necessarily listed in order of importance, but all contribute to the reasons that prioritizing for this kind of training should be included in any implementation that puts iPads into the hands of teachers for the first time. The same principles can apply to any tablet, laptop, or mobile device you are deploying to teachers.

• If a teaching force is made up of typical adults, chances are only about half of them have experience with a smartphone. According to Pew Internet, approximately 56% of American adults own smart phones (data from April-May 2013).

• Only one-third of a teaching force has experience with a tablet device (data from April-May 2013) and not all of the tablets they have experience with are iOS devices.

• When planning for effective training, you have to assume that as of now the majority of your teachers have not used tablet devices before. If you are an edtech specialist or "natural techie,", think back to times when you have used totally new devices. I remember touching an interactive whiteboard for the first time in the early 2000's. I still remember the trainer saying, "Press harder, you won't break it." Breaking it was a real fear of mine since I had not used that type of technology before. Your teachers have a wide range of fears when adopting new technologies, too.

• Staff members who own personal smartphones and tablets use them for personal reasons, which are different from the reasons and ways these devices will be used in the classroom. For example, how a person evaluates an app they are going to download for personal reasons is very different from how they should evaluate an app they are going to download for use with students.

• Even teachers with smart phone/tablet experience do not know all of the ins and outs of the device. 
• They may have never investigated device restrictions or accessibility settings which might be beneficial in classroom use.
• Have they learned time-saving gestures such as the five-finger pinch for closing an app? (I learned that when I saw someone else do it, about a year after getting an iPad.) 
• What about the hidden-characters on the iPad keyboard, such as the apostrophe you can get if you long-press the comma key or the quotation marks you get when you long-press the question mark key? I didn't know those were there until I watched training materials we had gathered for our teachers. Based on their reactions to our trainings, many experienced iOS users didn't know about them either.
• Several teachers we interacted with admitted they didn't know how to download apps or manage an Apple ID/iTunes account because someone else in their family, often their children, managed their devices for them or did stuff for them when they asked for help instead of showing them how to do it.

• For those who are self-taught on iOS devices, if you added up all of the little bits of time you put into learning how to use your device as you needed to learn it, I would be willing to bet six hours would be a low number for the time you invested. 

• When deploying iPads for teaching and learning, time is not a luxury that exists in terms of allowing teachers to learn the basics "in their own time as needed." They need to be brought up to speed as quickly as possible so they will feel comfortable with starting to use the devices instructionally. Scaffold the "how to" so you can move everyone toward meaningful educational use.

In my previous blog post on iPad Basic Training for Teachers, I explained that we decided to deliver the majority of our training through self-paced online modules. Although our primary reason at the time was the need to reach hundreds of teachers with several hours of training, the online delivery of the training has proved effective for other reasons. It allowed those with more experience to quickly move past information on topics such as "The Parts of an iPad." 

The amount of material covered is best absorbed in small chunks as well. When we trained in person in two three-hour sessions on separate days, at the end of each session, the participants' eyes were glazing over. They needed to be introduced to the different concepts and then given time to experiment and play. And people with existing experience needed to be able to move forward faster. Online modules allow for personalization in learning. We received many positive comments in our end-of-module surveys regarding the ability of the participants to watch the materials online while practicing with their iPads, review the material as needed, and fast-forward through skills they already knew.

One of my favorite bits of feedback was from a teacher who had been a technology specialist on her campus several years ago and now serves as a classroom teacher. She took time to email myself and my boss. Here is what she had to say:

Well, for someone who thinks I am a know-it-all on the iPad, thank you for these trainings! I learned so many things just from Module 1. I can’t wait to finish the training! 

Thanks for all the time you put into these trainings!

As teachers are implementing iPads in their classrooms this Fall, time will tell how effective our plan was overall. But the comment above, as well as multiple positive comments in our end-of-module surveys, make me believe the approach was the right one to take. And I will continue to remind myself of the benefits as I think of the time we're going to have to reinvest to update all of the training materials now that iOS 7 is out!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

iPad Basic Training for Teachers

The Background

Photo Used Under a Creative Commons License

In the Spring of 2013, my school district committed to issuing an iPad to every classroom teacher. The purposes for this initiative were to give teachers an additional tool for teaching and learning and to familiarize teachers with mobile devices in anticipation of more iPads being purchased for classroom use and a grades 6-12 BYOD program coming in the next school year.

This type of initiative is exactly what my supervisor Kim (AKA @DigitalLearners) and I had been waiting/hoping for.

This is why we had been reading everything we could via Twitter and blogs and attending every session we could at professional events about mobile learning and iPads for the past three years.

And yet, when the prospect finally became a reality, it was a little overwhelming. From all of the wonderful resources we had compiled, we needed to come up with a plan to get our teachers up-to-speed and comfortable with using iPads, while planting seeds of a vision for the use of mobile technologies in their classrooms. Most of the iPads would be in the hands of teachers by the end of the semester. Time was of the essence.

Thankfully, we had had a couple of trial runs in the fall. Federal funds had brought small sets of iPads to each of our Title I campuses, and we had put together six hours of in-person training on using iPads in teaching and learning for math and reading intervention teachers at 10 campuses. Additionally, a principal at one of our elementaries had secured funding to purchase an iPad for each of his teachers. With these 35-40 teachers, we asked them to cover some basics that we had posed online, and we did an additional two hours of in-person after school training with them. You can see our training agendas for these in person sessions here.

We were about to distribute iPads to 800 teachers. The timeline and our number of staff members would not allow us to do multiple-hour in-person trainings with all of them. Yet we felt based on our fall experiences that five to six hours of "the basics" was vital to giving this initiative the basis it needed to get off to a successful start. Online training was the only viable solution.

Thankfully, in the bank of resources we had been collecting was this iPad training page from Comal ISD which included this proficiency checklist. Comal graciously gave us permission to adapt their materials, and thus iPad Basic Training for Teachers online was born.

Training Plan

We took our fall experience and Comal's checklist and divided the basics into five one hour modules. Only the first module is delivered in a face-to-face format. Here is how it is organized:

• Receiving an iPad Session (in-person): Apple ID Set-Up, Precautions, and Security
• Teachers view this video which goes over important policy, and they are introduced to the Teacher iPad Proficiency Checklist. EdTech staff assists teachers with creating an AppleID that does not require a credit card.
• Module 1: Vision and Basic Operations
• Module 2: Email, Calendar, Web Browsing, General Settings
• Module 3: App Management
• Module 4: Camera, iBooks, Educreations

Teachers needed to receive credit for completing the modules, so we set up eCourses in our Eduphoria Workshop system which include quizzes at the end based on the proficiency checklist. Basically, it's an honor system where teachers answer quiz questions with a "yes" or "no". Each "question" is one of the proficiencies on the master checklist, such as "I can create folders on my iPad for organizing apps."

We wanted the training resources to be readily available to our teachers on an ongoing basis without the need for a password to access them, so they are posted on our public website (see links above).

You are welcome to use the resources posted on my district's website and YouTube channel in your own trainings. I ask that you credit my school district if you use any district created resources or if you use the organizational ideas of our training. I would also appreciate if you share with me how you use it!

Why?

Are any of you thinking, "Really? Four to five to six hours of training on iPads? They're intuitive, right? Kids use them with little if any guidance. What the heck?"

Good questions! That, my friends, is the topic of my next blog post!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

Teacher, Teach Thyself! Free Quality PD Resources

You don't have to take or attend formal classes
to extend your learning.
Photo Source

It's summer in the northern hemisphere, which is a great time for educators to take a break from the daily bustle of teaching. It's also the greatest opportunity many of us have all year to extend our own professional learning and grow in our craft.

Depending on where you work, your professional development may be proscribed for you, or you may have a lot of freedom to choose courses or sessions you would like to attend or work through online. Regardless of your individual situation, there are countless learning resources on the web for you to take advantage of whenever you have a desire to learn something new. Even if you are required to take specified trainings by your school, you can still learn what you want when you want on your own for FREE using high-quality resources like the ones below.

Direct your own PD for your own professional growth and for the benefit of your students! Here are some resources I find useful and often return to when I'm looking for answers, to review prior learning, or to understand something new.

TeacherTrainingVideos.com - http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/
Created by Russell Stannard, a specialist in the use of media and technology. The tutorials on this site rival any that I've ever paid to watch, and they've helped me learn several programs and web tools. The site is a little hard to navigate in my opinion, but worth it when you find the software instructions you are looking for.

TeachingChannel - https://www.teachingchannel.org/

To quote from the website itself: "Teaching Channel is a video showcase -- on the Internet and TV -- of innovative and effective teaching practices in America's schools." Professionally produced videos which show knowledgeable practitioners demonstrating teaching practices that work in their classrooms. Get inspired with some new approaches to try out in your classroom!

Classroom 2.0 LIVE! - http://live.classroom20.com/
This site provides weekly live webinars with education practitioners that are sure to add to your teaching tool kit! Participating live is the best way to go if you can because it allows you to ask questions of the weekly guests. If the timing of the live sessions doesn't work for you, and/or you'd like to benefit from past sessions, you can view recordings of previous webinars on the archives page.

TeachParentsTech.org - http://www.teachparentstech.org/watch
This site is created by Google employees who want to help a more mature generation of tech users get their bearings in the world of technology. Each video is a short overview of a technology topic or tool. Many are focused on Google tools (of course), but there are also spots on other useful topics such as this one on how to create a strong password.

Learn It In 5 -http://learnitin5.com/
Created by Mark Barnes, an experienced educational technologist, the short videos on this site are aimed at teachers and are mostly under five minutes in length. They get straight to the basics of what you need to learn to use a techonlogy.

Microsoft in Education - http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/teachers/Pages/index.aspx
Teaching guides, lesson plans, and product how-tos specifically aimed at classroom and higher ed practitioners. One of my favorites is Digital Storytelling in the Classroom.

Microsoft Office Training - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training-FX101782702.aspx
General training resources for Microsoft Office products. This site has been valuable to me as our district is switching to Office 2010 this year. Resources exist for Office versions back to 2003.

GCF LearnFree.org - http://www.gcflearnfree.org/
Sponsored by the Goodwill Community Foundation, the tutorials on this site are AMAZING and FREE. Topics include, computers, reading, and math. There are free online courses in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access.

CommonCraft - http://www.commoncraft.com/videos
If you are a visual learner, this site is for you! Complicated concepts in business and technology explained using a unique animated format. You can view individually online for free, but if you decide to use these with students or other educators in presentations, please pay the appropriate licensing fees so these folks can keep creating these high-quality training videos.

Digital Discoveries from El Paso ISD
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL043738DAE4C604F8&feature=plcp
Tim Holt, Instructional Technology Director of El Paso ISD, presents short video segments on all sorts of educational technology, from using iPads in unique ways to using web tools with your students to directing your own professional development.

iTunes U - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz2aWABdeD4
If you own any iDevice, you probably have iTunes on your computer. But have you ever noticed iTunesU? An extensive repository of educational resources from universities and K-12 school systems all over the world, it's hidden right there in iTunes. You can take a course from Oxford or MIT if you want (not for credit, but it's the real stuff!). Several states like Texas have repositories of educational content as well. The video linked above gives a good overview. To explore yourself, open up iTunes on your computer, go to the iTunes store, and look for the iTunesU link in the top navigation bar.

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That's my list! It is by no means exhaustive. Have I left off one of your favorite go-to sites for continuing learning? If so, please share it below in the comments so we can all benefit. Happy learning!

Interview on Down the Hall Podcast

Graphic Used Under a CC By-SA 2.0 License

I recently had the privilege of being invited to be interviewed on the Down the Hall podcast. Down the Hall  is produced by the External Programs and Learning Technologies (EPLT) department of the University of British Columbia. I have networked on Twitter and on this blog with one of the podcast hosts, Dave Roy (@UBCMET), a Senior Program Assistant for EPLT, and it was Dave who asked me for an interview after hearing me in another recent podcast appearance.

It was exciting to be part of a program whose purpose is to reach an audience including "EPLT/Faculty of Education stakeholders (students, prospective students – especially at the graduate level, faculty members, prospective academic and/or social media contacts, and those interested in educational technology & social media in education)."

Dave and I had a great conversation, and I hope you will take time to listen to Down the Hall Episode 36: Developing the Practice. (Special "guest" appearance by one of my dogs thrown in as a bonus! Kudos to Dave for really good editing on that one!)

One aspect that made taking part in this podcast enjoyable for me was the fact that Dave provided questions for me ahead of time, so I could think through the ideas I would like to share. Even though I got to think about my responses prior to the interview, it did not take away from the natural flow of the professional conversation we had, because neither of us strictly followed a script.

Below, I am posting the questions Dave sent me, and the notes I made for myself to refer to during the interview. You'll see if  you listen to the podcast and read my notes that what I said and what I wrote don't exactly match. You'll also see there are three questions, but in the podcast, we only discussed the first two. As I've admitted several times before, I am long-winded!

I hope you enjoy listening to and reading this information. And that you will share any thoughts it provokes in the comments.

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Q1.    One of the areas of interest you mention in your bio on your blog is “educator professional development,” and many of the things you talk about on your blog and on Twitter are about resources for teachers to use in their classroom. How important of a resource are various social media for doing this? How can teachers enhance their own development by forming networks online and sharing resources? 

·        Social media can be a very valuable source of information and professional development for educators. What I love about it is it is a constantly flowing stream of knowledge, and you can drink from it as much and as often as you are comfortable doing so. And there are multiple entry points – Twitter is a very lively example, but educators can follow other professionals on Facebook, or find teachers with similar interests using tools such as Pinterest, Diigo, Scoop.it, or the innumerable blogs written by practicing educators. At first, they may just “lurk” and watch what others are doing, but eventually they will try some of the things they are exposed to and hopefully contribute back to others’ learning. 

·         Teachers who make efforts to learn from their colleagues online through social media are nurturing their own continuous learning and growth, and adding to their professional practice in this way is of great benefit to their students. No longer do we have to wait for just the right workshop to come along or attend a great staff development experience in the summer only to have it fade in importance by the time school starts. In the age of social media, I can be exposed to a new teaching technique or tool online, ask questions about it, and try it out as soon as tomorrow with my students. I can then share my efforts back out to my online network and get feedback on what went well and what I can continue to improve. Another teacher may learn from and enhance what I just tried today in their classroom tomorrow.

Q2.    You have 19 years of experience in education. How has the increasing use of digital technologies changed the K-12 classroom in your opinion? In your opinion, does it make it even more important for teachers to work on their own development to stay ahead of the curve?

·         First I need to point out that the quality and quantity of digital technology use varies widely from classroom to classroom, school to school, and system to system depending on the resources available and the quality of staff development that is provided.

·         But in places where digital technologies are being used well, teachers and students have unprecedented access to tools and information which make differentiation in instructional delivery and the ability to demonstrate learning through product creation far more possible than ever before. Teachers can now find text, visuals, audio, even simulations, for delivering required content to students to reach the multiple learning styles in every classroom. In places with access to easily updatable websites or learning management systems, they can even provide the content for students to consume or study at home, then work one-on-one or in small groups in the classroom the next day to customize the learning of the content for each child.

·         Complimentary to the ability to deliver content in a wide variety of mediums, students with access to digital technologies can demonstrate their learning by creating products using text enhanced with graphics and video, collaborating on blogs and wikis, designing web pages or apps. The possibilities are staggering. The digital K-12 classroom is no longer confined to the four physical walls surrounding it. When the resources available are leveraged properly, the resources for learning and the audience for witnessing student outcomes are literally without limit. And the exciting thing is no one teacher has to be an expert in all of these areas – the web gives access to teachers, both informal and formal, all over the world, and students and teachers can co-learn together.

·         I believe it’s vastly important for teachers to continuously develop themselves to stay ahead – or more accurately with the curve. The curve moves so fast now that staying ahead is almost impossible. But continually keeping up with what others are doing, tweaking their ideas to work in your situation and trying something new, is extremely doable with all of the information available through networking online with other educators and education entities.

Q3.    We’re familiar with blended and online learning at the post-secondary level, with UBC being heavily involved in implementing such courses with programs like the Master of Educational Technology. How do you think blended and online learning can benefit students at the K-12 level? What form would this kind of learning take?

·         At K-12 there are multiple ways blended and online learning can benefit students. Online learning can bring otherwise unavailable courses to students who are perhaps in smaller schools or systems that do not have capacity to provide instruction in on-site subjects like certain foreign languages. For example, in Canada you may have an overabundance of French teachers and we may have numerous Spanish teachers here in Texas. Students in each of our areas can benefit from instruction half-way across the continent. Similarly, homeschooled students can take higher-level courses that might otherwise be beyond their resources. Online learning can also benefit students who are not successful in the regular classroom. I’ve read about successful initiatives which bring students into schools to work in a self-paced online environment with certified teachers available onsite to assist with questions when face-to-face assistance is needed.

·         Blended learning also offers opportunities for students in more traditional settings to achieve at higher levels. We have had a few teachers in my district work online discussion boards into their traditional classrooms. They report that students who are less likely to participate in class discussions often put more effort into online posts. They also are thinking about learning outside of the traditional school day. One of my favorite examples was a high school English course I had access to mostly for technical support purposes. My email box was getting hit by discussions of Hamlet at 11 pm and 6:30 am. What teacher does not want to see that kind of engagement in students outside of the hour or so they see them during the day?

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Reflections on an Online Master's Degree - The Stuff That Could Have Been Better

In early February I wrote about the positive aspects of obtaining a master's degree online, and although I feel very accomplished in my studies and I'm very glad that I completed my master's degree, I think it is only fair to also write about the parts of the experience that I wish had been different.

Before I begin, a couple of side notes.

First, I intentionally did not name the university where I obtained my degree in the positive aspects post, nor will I be naming it in this post. My purpose is neither to recommend nor to critique a specific program, but rather to share my own expeirences and perceptions of obtaining a degree online. If you are really curious as to the school where I completed my program, a bit of poking around my blog will reveal it, since I had to complete some assignments as blog posts.

Second, I feel it is fair for me to publicly share "the stuff that could have been better" here because I have also already shared these observations/suggestions in end of course surveys throughout the degree program.

Now, on to my wishes for improvement. They are numbered for convenience but not necessarily in order of importance. Well, except maybe #1...

#1 Wish for Improvement: Professors Who Participate in Conversations About Subject Matter

I believe the program would have been vastly improved if the professors were more actively involved in the learning experiences of students. At minimum professors should participate in the discussion boards so that in addition to learning from their peers students can learn from the instructors' experience and instructors can learn from their students who are out in the field.

With few exceptions, each of our courses required us to complete weekly readings and post reactions to those readings on course discussion boards. We were then required to respond to the posts and ideas of our classmates. I can only remember one or two occasions throughout the eleven regular courses I took when the professor or an instructional associate (IA) posted their own thoughts on the readings or any reactions to the students' thoughts.

A few courses into the degree, the professors began offering live web conferences, and these conference opportunities became more regular as I progressed throughout the degree program. Attendance on the part of students at these conferences was rarely required, and they primarily boiled down to a question and answer session about the assignment or project expectations for the week. Other course subject matter or content was never a topic of conversation.

Having done my undergraduate work at a small university where professors personally taught our classes, I had greater expectations for interaction with my instructors. I wanted to ask them questions about course content, and I wanted them to question and challenge me on my learning. We were, in fact, discouraged from directly contacting professors in most circumstances and instructed to only contact our IAs who acted as go-betweens.

I also feel that interaction on on a deeper level would keep the professors more informed on the real-world job circumstances under which each of us were trying to complete our coursework. Staying in tune with the environments their students are working in can only serve to help the professors keep the content of their classes realistic and relevant to the K-12 world.

In the final course of the degree program, which was the culmination of an internship/capstone experienec, the professor was very involved in the discussion boards. The primary purpose of those boards was answering questions about the internship portfolios we were finalizing as we really didn't cover any new content in this course. Due to the high level of interaction with the professor, I felt like the professor truly cared about what I was doing.

Interaction between students and instructors is a key component of pedagogy and learning.

#2 Wish for Improvement: Authentic Feedback on Assignments

Every assignment we were given, including in some cases discussion board posts, had an assessment rubric attached to it. While most of the time I understood exactly what was required of me on an assignment, I never received any truly helpful feedback beyond a grade and comments like "Thank you for completing Week 3 Assignment" from the IA. Grading stopped with the rubric. I started my degree in June 2009, and I blogged about my frustration with rubric-only assessment at about the midpoint of my degree program. Unfortunately, it never really improved.

Why was I bothered by not receiving more individualized feedback or a few comments? There were several reasons it bothered me. First, I felt like I was just completeing activities on someone's checklist, and they were just being glanced at and checked off. When I put in several hours of work on an assignment, there wasn't any evidence that it had been thoughtfully assessed. Second, I didn't know if my ideas/approaches to completing the assignments were practical/useful/real-world possible in someone else's opinon. It's fine that it met a rubric, but could it translate to a real-world application? Third, no one is perfect. Even if I scored high on an assignment, I needed reasons why someone thought it was good (so I could replicate it in the future) or ways it could be improved or expanded. It did not help that when points were missed, I often had to email the IA for an explanation as to why; this information did not come automatically with the grade.

Again, in my final course, I had an IA who gave specific comments/compliments on different components of my internship requirements. The specificity she provided gave me a sense for the first time that someone on the other end of the "upload" button was really looking at my work.

#3 Wish for Improvement: Professors Should be Familiar With the Courseware/Learning Management System (LMS)

More than once during my classes when we got questions through to the professors via emails facilitated by IAs or web conferences, the professors admitted to not knowing how we (the students) were supposed to upload assignments or where something was located in the courseware. They frequently pointed us back to the IAs or even the technical help contacts for the courseware. Through information shared during the degree program and research I've done since completing the degree, I believe a third-party company was uploading all course content and the professors may not have had direct access to administrative features of the courseware.

Having been through training in the use of an LMS and having had to turn around that training to others, I understand that LMS's can have a steep learning curve. I also believe, however, that to maximize the effectiveness of thier pedagogy, an instructor needs to be familiar with and comfortable in whatever environment they are teaching in, whether it is a physical classroom or an online environment.

Concluding Thoughts

I am very thankful that I had the time, resources, and opportunity to complete my master's degree online. As I stated in my "Good Stuff" blog post:

Overall, I am glad I completed this degree online and I definitely see where I have grown professionally as a result of completing it. My perspectives on education and educational technology have been broadened. My interest in online teaching has also been piqued, and as a result I hope to find ways to facilitate online professional development courses for educators in the near future.

I do wish, however, that I had been able to interact with my professors more and glean more from their perspectives and experience. The interaction with my peers was exteremely beneficial and broadened my perspectives, but the lack of instructor involvement definitely left me with a "missing piece" feeling throughout my degree program.


Because of the way the courses in this program were delivered, I also have an overarching concern. I am concerned that the program is turning out graduates who may be in charge of online or e-learning initiatives in their schools and who may think limited involvement on the part of the instructor is quality practice because of the model they experienced while completing the program.


I believe based on my limited interaction with the professors that they have good intentions, and I realize I was in one of the first cohorts to complete the program. I sincerely hope that the feedback given by myself and other students throughout the program will lead to continuous improvement in the instructional delivery of the courses.


Have you or are you completing a degree online? What are your concerns about the experience (if you have any)? Post comments or blog about them and post a link below. Most importantly, make sure you are sharing your concerns with your professors/school when you are asked to do course evaluations.