Barniclej's Blog

Final reflections

barniclej — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:32:22 +0000

Final project is done, evaluated, commented on and I don’t have to redo anything! What a relief. I was a bit nervous that I didn’t have enough information on the assessment tools, but it was worrying I didn’t have to do. Can’t believe the class is over. I will miss it. I have learned so much. I have notes scribbled all over the desk so now I have to organize them for better referencing. Probably use the e-portfolio! I have also Diigoed (is that a word yet?) many things, so need to organize them as well. We had a great bunch of colleagues from all different areas which I believe is very helpful. Sometimes when everyone is old hat education, you miss other perspectives. Thanks Datta Kaur. Well done!

Mod 7 reflections

barniclej — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:33:03 +0000

Posted my final assessment toolbox to the discussion forum late last night. I think everything is covered. What a workout! I actually enjoy putting the whole thing together, it is just time consuming. With so many web 2.0 technologies out there to help with the assessment process, it takes time to check them all out and decide which would work best. I’m sure there could be more tweaking done on these four activities, but it certainly is a good start. Can’t wait to put it into motion with my independent students this fall. I think they will soak it up. Finding out what works and what doesn’t work, reflecting on them and making adjustments to the course will mean that it will only get better as time goes on. It is a never ending process and it is just the initial work that soaks up the most time. I also look forward to using elements of this in other classes, especially my beginning campus class so I can get those students to collaborate more. Will now wait for comments & recommendations from classmates (who have been so helpful) to improve and/or correct some errors. Thanks everyone.

Mod 6 reflections

barniclej — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:34:48 +0000

Well, the problems of modern technology were apparent in our VYEW presentation Tuesday night. Datta Kaur had her ppt uploaded which was very helpful. Unfortunately, audio was not working so we were left with only the chat feature which on that site is less than desirable. I did end up talking to Pam and Mary from the other section for a bit. Fun to meet new people!

After listening to the presentation which was subsequently posted on D2L, I feel much better about what is expected on the final project. After reading the masters project of 2001, I have decided to switch my online course development from Spanish I to Spanish V independent, since I have also found out I have that on my schedule for the coming school year. I think the blended environment suggested by Data Kaur in her paper, will work very nicely for those students. Now to work on learning objectives and pre-course survey.

(saturday) Am posting my four final objectives to discussion board. I know they all aren’t quite right, so am hoping for some guidance. Why is this so difficult for me?

Mod 5 reflections

barniclej — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:26:13 +0000

Learning objectives – not as easy as it sounds. As teachers, we know where we want our students to end up, but to put it precisely with the right amount of action verbs and steps needed is proving a bit more difficult for me than I thought. Will keep practicing since I need to have four learning objectives for the final project.

Anyone who as taken an education course shudders at the words “Bloom’s Taxonomy”!! And, here we were this week again faced with working with Bloom. The case study was interesting in that it is easier to find those objectives that fit into the taxonomy as opposed to writing objectives that use the levels of the table. Casey’s class got to be a bit repetitive with the read, discuss, and write routine. I think she needs to vary her different activities. Especially if the class goes to an online class, she will need to up her use of web 2.0 tools for the different activities. She could use either the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy from Andrew Churches or the visual web 2.0from Fisher that one of our classmates shared.

More thoughts tomorrow

Went back through all of the discussions today and was glad to see that I am not the only one having trouble with the objectives. I am seeing myself what can happen in a discussion forum as far as an assessment tool. There are some students who are exceptionally good at what we are doing and it can be intimidating to those who are not grasping the concept as well. On the other hand, one can learn good things from their posts and they of course offer good advise to others. As the learner, it is important to reap the good from their work and not feel the inferiority! Onward and upward with the writing of final project objectives!!

Mod 4 reflections

barniclej — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:26:20 +0000

This mod we were working on a jigsaw method midterm project. Our group was only 2 people so we were not able to experience the whole ‘group’ experience. Gwen and I were able to communicate and write on a google site I set up which made things go quite smoothly. It is nice to be able to do all your work in one place, clean it up and then have it also as the presentation tool – serving two purposes in one. I am going to try and use these methods more in my upcoming classes this fall. I really think my students will enjoy working that way. Or at least it will be interesting to see how well they manage that.

Gwen was a great partner and everything went quite smoothly between us for our project. I do enjoy the collaboration, just wouldn’t want to do it for every assignment,

I enjoyed looking at all the different web 2.0 sites and learned about some new ones which I will continue to investigate. Also, I found a new wiki website called Wetpaint wikis in education which may work better in my classroom. Will have to make sure it is not firewalled at school since that has been a problem in the past with other sites. I also came across a good tech site called Tekzilla.com that answers many questions but sometimes gets a bit too technical.

Mod 3 reflections

barniclej — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 01:45:03 +0000

Busy week this week – lots to read and do. First was the Dr. Bonk video on collaboration. He talks about collaboration in teaching and how the teacher has now shifted from the deliverer to a guide. I realize he is speaking in terms of using technology, but we have been “guiding” for awhile. Collaborative group work has been around for awhile, and now we are just shifting it from inside the classroom to online. I’ve seen that shift in my own classes where I have moved their partner or group work to online collaboration. Same church, different pew!!

Reading Dr. Bonk’s The Perfect E-Storm was quite the eye-opener. Several of his emerging technologies were new to me and many of my colleagues as I found out in our discussions. The real eye-opener for me was when Dr. Khalsa suggested I look at the date of Bonk’s paper (June 2004) and realize that many of these so-called “emerging” technologies have not really caught on. Just because it is out there, doesn’t mean it is going to work in education.

My “aha” moment for the week was that I was actually able to construct a concept map on 20th century Spanish painters using a technology new to me – Inspiration. I’m usually not one for ‘mapping’ anything out ahead of time. I have my methods and I suppose it is a ‘map’ in my head, but I have never put it on paper or computer. It is very messy (see for yourself (concept map))so it looks like I have to practice more and work on making it more efficient. The most fun was putting the pictures in! I viewed and commented on several of my classmates’ maps, and they did nice, neat and clean ones. I have my work cut out for me!!!

Happy 4th of July! Let freedom ring!

Mod 2 reflections

barniclej — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 03:34:45 +0000

Feeling a little more in the swing of things as we start to get into the nitty gritty of the course. Highlight this week was creating a new blog on wordpress. It is a little more sophisticated than blogspot but have been able to work my way through, make links to everything and even change the theme. That change meant finding where my links went, but was able to find them and put them back in the sidebar. Phew! No one has left a comment yet on my blog, but hope they do soon to maybe leave me some pointers!

Readings this week were again interesting. I especially soaked up the Lee and Allen article on Edublogs as an online assessment tool. In the discussion forum, I did ask how others believed we can transfers formative assessment to summative since we are now going to be evaluated on standarized testing. CC has led me to some research that has been done on this point (thanks, CC) and I will follow up with that. Lorrie has also added some great resources as we attempt to bring this into our classrooms.

The Muirhead article has some excellent suggestions for alternative assessments. However, since he is talking about adult learners, these may not necessarily translate to our high school students who are not as self-directed or motivated. Rubrics have been a useful tool in my classroom for awhile now and I think it has become a “gimme” for any project students do. They need to know what is expected of them. The one scary point in his article is the concern over excessive administrative time. How much more time are we going to need? Initially I think it will take more time, but as one continues and gets accustomed to the process, just like any other new thing, the time demand will decrease.

Looking forward to our cooperative project.

Mod 1 reflections

barniclej — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:24:45 +0000

Missed out on this week’s discussions as I was unable to make any internet connections in Barcelona. It’s the problem you have when you stay in cheap dives! Was able to have my partner interview at the end of the week. Met Ann O’Harris. We have similar movie tastes and she has my dream job of a school librarian. Read our interview on the next page. We discovered that we could chat on the Windows email which made it much easier than sending emails. My discovery for the week!

Readings – didn’t realize Wikis had been around for so long. A few teachers at our school have started using them and I used one in a class last semester. Really think I will be setting them up for my upper level classes this coming year. I think it will be a great way for them to work on their projects without sucking up class time. The think-pair-share I have actually been using, just didn’t know there was a name for it! For foreign language, the pair collaboration really works well. Working inside the black box – I agree with the peer assessment and it has worked well in my classroom. I’m not sure if the self-assessment will be as successful. That takes time, and my students don’t seem to want to take the time. They would rather have someone just tell them if it is right or wrong. This would mean “retraining” and I need to look into how best to do that.

I finally feel ‘back to normal’ this week after odd sleeping hours and catching up on the jet lag. It feels good to be back in the swing of things and this class group seems very interesting and looks like I will learn a lot.

New link

barniclej — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:52:26 +0000

Yea! I was just able to link from wordpress to my eportfolio! It was a bit clumsy since I had to go to help and work through all the steps, but it worked!

New blog site

barniclej — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:38:02 +0000

This is my new blog site. It will be used for my summer 2010 class Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom. But, I might get used to it and use it forever!!