What I am finding useful for teaching online...

What I am finding most useful is knowing the essential skills for an online teacher.  After reading about and taking quizzes on the skills needed to be on online teacher I know which areas I will need to improve in to be a successful online teacher.  Gaining experience using the web 2.0 tools is valuable also.  This is something that I think I could have done on my own but I am sure I learned faster and focused on the most useful tools exploring them in conjunction with this course.  After this course, I will continue to explore them and learn more.

synchronous tools and asynchronous tools

For this blog, I am supposed to write from my experience.  The problem with that is I don't have much experience using them.  The only tool I have used is moodle.  As a synchronous tool, I have taken my classes to the computer lab and had them follow links on moodle to explore a new topic and take quizzes all at the same time, but also all in the same room (not quite the same as an online course).  As an asynchronous tool, I have used moodle to guide students in a review for a test that they could go through at their own pace as little or as much as they wanted.  I think both tools were great and would like incorporate more in the future. The skills required to uses this tool are just planning and knowledge of the tool.

Competencies for online instructors

Going through the self evaluations and competencies for online instructors was helpful in identifying my strengths and weaknesses. My biggest weakness is advanced planning, which according to these assessments is very important. Hand in hand with that is my other weakness, attention to detail.  In the regular classroom, things always go fine because I do plan and see to the details but sometime I wait until the last minute.  I guess that is not a good thing for online classes.  Knowing this will help me, should I ever teach an online class, because I will be sure to plan and stress about the details long before I would in a regular classroom.  The advantage of planning in an online classroom that I can see from taking this class (which this is the only online class I have ever taken so correct me if I am wrong) is that you can set up the class (plan) and use the same set up the next time you take the class.  I find the regular classes that I have used moodle for are easier to plan for because I just look back and can see exactly what I did last time.  I think online teaching would be similar.

Applying new skills to my professional and personal life

Professionally
The new concept that will be the easiest for me to incorporate everyday is social bookmarking.  As I said last time, I am a traveling teacher, sometimes I bookmark websites on the computer in my office and then would like to share it with my students but cannot. Also, I am on the Internet a lot at home, if I find something great I can use this tool rather than writing down the website.

I will also be using google docs more. In the past, I have had students work collaboratively on documents through google docs.  It works well because if they have work time in class they don't have to worry about their partner having saved it on a Usb drive that they don't have along or their partner being absent. 

I would like to start blogging in my earth science class next semester.  In the past,  I have used moodle to make copies of my presentations available to students.  If I have a blog and a link to my moodle I could ask pose questions that require higher order thinking and they could look back to the presentation to help form an answer. In this class, I would also like them to work collaboratively on a geologic time line, we have done it with a paper and pencil in the past but I am trying to figure out a way to do it online.  Any ideas?

Personally
I am really happy to have learned about google hangout. I have family in two different parts of Texas that I could now "hang out" with at the same time. 

I am also planning on working on documents collaboratively.  I struggle as a writer, my grammar and spelling are sometime poor.  My writing is pretty boring, I don't use many vivid words. My sister is a very good writer and enjoys editing my writing but we cannot get together often.  Using google docs, she can edit my writing anytime and I can read her writing for enjoyment.

As far as web browsers go,  I am pretty attached to Chrome.  I will use others if I have to and I do understand how it is beneficial to be aware of the pro and cons of the others but I will stick with Chrome. 

My First Time Blogging

I am interested in becoming a certified online teacher because I am always looking for ways to grow professionally and I really enjoy learning about technology.  One problem I have encountered is that I attend a class or go to a workshop and see amazing things and then come back and have difficulty using them in my classroom.  One of my issues is that I travel around to different classrooms to teach, not every computer/ technology system is set up the same in these classrooms.  I have already spent a long time in my office preparing a presentation and then it doesn't work on the computer in the room I am teaching in.

I am hoping to "blend" my courses for those students that would benefit from having more online resources from me. There is already content on moodle but I would like more online interaction of the students.  Blogging may allow shy or quiet students to comment or ask questions they may not in class. There also maybe some difficulties for students, such as not all students have the same access to technologyl

One struggle I forsee for me in this course is communicating through written word. I am not a blogger ( I don't even use Facebook).  In reality, I created my blog yesterday, looked at the other blogs that had been created and realized I had to write more than three sentences, so I redid my blog.  If I was writing about science it would be easier but writing a reflection is a skill I am still developing (and now see is necessary for online learning).