CED 555 Blog 1 March 25

It's still difficult for me to believe that the end of the program is now in sight! What will I do with myself when school is over? Perhaps I'll finally be able to keep a decently clean house!

I'm thrilled that this class was created in order to help us get through our final project. I've been considering what I should do for my project. I've become particularly interested in how technology can be used to differentiate instruction. This is what I'm considering doing my project on. Does anyone has any thoughts on this?

This weekend I'm going to sit down and write my vision and mission statements. I admit that I'll have to do some thinking on this. As we've gone through the program, I've been pulling out some of the projects we've done, knowing that we would be doing this portfolio. I hope that I'll be able to integrate most of them.

CED0550 Week 3 News Aricle

On February 10, 2009 vitual schools made front page news of the Waukesha Freeman. Joe Petrie wrote an article called "Virtual Schools Virtualy Full." The article cites the fact that in 2008 an enrollment cap of 5,250 students was placed state wide upon on-line schools. The number of enrolled students is quickly approaching the cap. According to the article, a state audit found that open enrollment is fuelling much of the boom in on-line schools. Enrollment was capped by the state until research on the effectiveness of on-line education could be performed.

The questions surrounding on-line education are not just a manner of it's effectiveness though. There are financial considerations as well. I'd like to understand more about the financial side of the matter.

I will be watching the issues surrounding on-line schools closely. I suspect that there will be many developments within the next few years.

CED 0550 Week 2

Last week we used the break out session more. I think that was my favorite part. To anyone that says on-line learning doesn't allow for students to collaborate easily, I would show them the break out function in Elluminate.

My manager once ran a cyber school and is becoming a great resource as I work my way through this class. Today he let me borrow a book called "What works in K-12 On-Line Education." I skimmed through the table of contents and the book looks very interesting. If I have any Aha moments, I'll post them to this blog.

CED 0550 Week 1

We've used Elluminate a couple of times in the program, but there are so many tools we hadn't explored yet. Just for fun I signed up for a "Three for Free" account. It'll be fun to place around with it.

As I have mentioned in a class post, I can't believe that more teachers don't take advantage of Elluminate and LMS. I seems like a great way to engage students in a different way.

I think it will be nice to just concentrate on learning a couple of tools during this class. In so many of our classes we look at so many tools that we don't have a lot of time to investigate them thoroughly.

CED0540 Week 5

Through this class I've had an opportunity to explore how data is gathered and reported on. However since I handle the data for a my school district I also know that the data is only as good as those who input the data. Garbage in - garbage out. It's really important to gather data from sources that are reliable. Even then there can be inconsistencies. We in education have only started to maintain large amounts of reporting data since the advent of NCLB. Many states and districts are still working out the kinks.

I've found a couple of good data sources for classroom use. I would like to know more about how data is used in classrooms to inform instruction. There is a lot of information contained in teacher's grade books and other records. Teachers should be encouraged to explore this information and use it to enhance student learning.

Ced0540 Week 4

I was fancinated by Bill Tancer. It's amazing how much data can be collected online.

I want to explore more about how I can use data in my future classroom. We are currently reading Courageous Conversations About Race in our district. As part of the work, our district has pulled a lot of information on our students of color. Are they performing the way we think they are? How this data inform our efforts to close the achievement gap? This work will be a process.

CED0540 Week 3

I've been considering how to use surveys in my future classroom. I've been reading a book called Science Formative Assessment: 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning by Page Keeley. I just read of a formative assessment strategy that Keeley calls Student Evaluation of Learning Gains. The strategy includes statements that the student reacts to using a 3 to 5 point scale in the areas of student interest, content knowledge, and skills. The purpose of the strategy is to gather data for the teacher to use to gain feedback on student perceptions of a given unit.

It strikes me that knowledge of how to design a survey would come in useful when using the assessment strategy. If the survey is designed correctly, the teacher should be able to walk away with a good sense of how students feel about a unit and then be able to determine next steps.