Monday, August 8, 2011

Online Teaching Experiences CEP 811

The Michigan Merit Curriculum Online Experience Guideline Companion Document is a practical document that highlights the core principals of online learning and the characteristics of quality online experiences. The document provides a guideline and links for teachers to explore in order to enhance or supplement the teaching and learning that is going on in their classroom.

I think that all of this content will be beneficial for our students if used in the correct context and throughout their course load. For my students in French, I think web-quests, educational blogs, wiki, podcasting and videocasting, learning management systems, and electronic portfolios can all help me teach with technology.

Web-quests will allow students to use the Internet to explore the web and seek out information to complete a task. Web-quests also have the ability to be done individually or collaboratively with a group. 

Educational Blogs allow for reflection and writing, which are key components for any classroom and the learning process.

Wiki's are a useful tool to share information and collaborate for a common goal. This tool can be difficult to control if students are constantly editing information. Teachers need to make sure users are adding correct information and collaborating with others in the proper fashion. This can be a great tool and can foster great teaching moments about 'netiquette' when problems do arise.

Podcasts and Videocasts are great tools for the foreign language classroom. I have used them in the past for radio broadcasts advertising an event. Students create a poster and a radio advertisement to accompany the poster all in the target language. 

Learning management software allow teachers to deliver content and give feedback digitally. I think it is important that students have access to this information anytime at any computer. It makes the course materials and feedback accessible. 

Electronic portfolios would be great to showcase progress over the course of a school year. It can help show growth and serve as an easy way to share materials with others.

Every task is unique and I do not think that any one pedagogical strategy can be used. I think a couple main ones to focus on are collaboration, inquiry based tasks, presentation tasks, and most importantly, I think it is important to hit all different learning styles by providing instruction of a topic or tool in multiple ways and giving the students multiple ways to interact and experience the content or new technology tool. 

I think some of the tools above can be difficult to implement and it is all dependent on the technology skill level of your students. Some of the tools listed in the document are specific to the ACT/MME , careers, or just research in general. In the foreign language classroom at this point, these tools do not necessarily apply, as the students are testing on the state test or are they conducting research in the target language at such a novice level.

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