Online+Learning+Presentation

Online Learning in K-12 Classrooms  Nicole Blanco Online learning is a type of distance education, delivered via the Internet, which “offers formal instruction and other resources that comprise a course of study” (Cavanaugh & Clark, 2007, p.5). The primary purpose of online learning is to expand access to education and provide curricular options for students. Also known as “virtual schools” or “eSchools”, this particular modality of education separates teachers and learners in time or space, and is often viewed as a tool for education reform. Online learning is maintained and operated through a Course Management System (CMS), a virtual environment in which the instructor is “capable of posting assignments, online assessment, discussion forums, communications, scheduling, and announcements” (Hargis & Schofield, 2007, p.35). A few examples of CMS platforms include moodle, Rcampus, Blackboard, Dokeos, eCollege, and eFront. While most common CMS services are not free, there are a number of open source course management systems, including moodle and Rcampus.

Effective online learning does not seem as though it would be easy to implement. In fact, there are many potential reasons teachers may resist embracing this relatively new way to teach students. Some reasons include limited access to Internet, a student or teacher’s lack of technology skills or tools, student procrastination, the time and effort needed to train and learn to use a course management system effectively, as well as the time and effort needed to design course materials, and little to no face-to-face interaction with students. However, I believe that the benefits for students and teachers outweigh the drawbacks. Students may benefit from this type of learning environment because it is an alternative to traditional classroom settings, it encourages active participation in the construction of one’s own knowledge, it meets the needs of a variety of students, including various learning styles, leads to improved problem-solving, creative thinking, decision making, and time management skills, and it also provides opportunities to collaborate with others around the globe. What teachers may find beneficial include the opportunity to reach and engage all learners through personalization and individualization, allows for a variety of courses or projects based on student interests, promotes self-directed learning, increases student motivation, and allows for management of classes, coursework, grades, and communication in one location.

References Cavanaugh, C., & Clark, T. (2007). The landscape of K–12 online learning. In R. Blomeyer, & C. Cavanaugh (Eds.), What works in K–12 online learning (pp. 5–19). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. Retrieved from the Walden University Library using the Education Research Complete database. Hargis, J., & Schofield, K. (2007). Integrating online learning into elementary classrooms. In R. Blomeyer, & C. Cavanaugh (Eds.), What works in K–12 online learning (pp. 33–47). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. Retrieved from the Walden University Library using the Education Research Complete database. *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Learning Modules Stephanie Cunningham Upon researching course management systems this week I was very impressed and excited to share information with my colleagues. In the past we had used a program called Class Jump to encourage online use on top of the classroom. The program was loved by the middle school but quickly lost its use and teachers stopped updating the information. When I checked out Rcampus (2011) and Moodle (n.d.), I found a lot of the flaws we had with class jump solved. I presented the information on Rcampus and explained how I felt it fixed our issues and would help improve student involvement, parental involvement, and our students reading issues.

The feedback from the presentation was good. A lot of the teachers liked Rcampus and were interested in the enhanced features it allows. They agreed with the one problem I mentioned in the presentation. Our students do not have computers at home, so the full implementation of the program is going to be hard, as many students cannot access at home. They did agree that the use after monthly benchmarks is a much better use of students’ time when they finish early. They of course brought on another problem they see with the use of this system. It becomes one more thing we have to use. There are so many different programs and user names and passwords that the students must remember it gets confusing. Also nothing on our end is streamlined. If we could use it as our grade book and not need to have grades in one place and another it would be better.

Overall, the implementation of this program is going to need much more teacher buy-in. Since I am currently not in a placement where using a course management system would be effective, I am working with a middle school teacher to pilot the program. We are going to work on implementing it with one of his classes to see how the students respond before encouraging the whole fourth through eight grade staff to use. Having the data from our students will help encourage teachers to use the program. We are hoping that by the middle of the year we can get some feedback to present to the other teachers. Our principal says the goal is to be using a system like this in the classrooms by the 2012-2013 school year. References: Moodle. (n.d.). Moodle. Retrieved September 26, 2011, from @http://moodle.org/ RCampus. (2011). RCampus. Retrieved September 26, 2011, from @http://www.rcampus.com/

__**Online Learning in Elementary Schools **__ By: Mary Hayn My team and principal all reacted very positively to adding Moodle to our instructional strategies and technology skills. One aspect of my presentation that showed the urgency of using online learning was showing how the middle school was already implementing Moodle. My team was unaware of this, and felt behind the times. By showing my colleagues pages made by middle school teachers and administration for professional development opportunities gave my team some motivation and confidence to try Moodle themselves. One problem my team found with implementing Moodle in our classrooms is time to learn it and the issue of training people how to use Moodle. Since Ohio is in the beginning stages of implementing new content standards, all of our professional development days are assigned to learning how to implement the new standards. I agreed with their concern as did my principal. There are many ways that I will work my colleagues at Royal View to implement Moodle. First, my colleagues need to aware of their students computer skills. “Before implementing an online program in an elementary school setting, the practitioner needs to consider the nature of the learner. With younger students, however, there is a natural learning curve required for operating computers successfully.” (Hargis & Schofield, 2007). After my colleagues assessed their students’ computer skills, I would want to prove how easy it is to setup a Moodle page and how it would not be as time consuming as they originally thought. I would hold a simple workshop in the computer lab for any Royal View staff member willing to set-up a Moodle page. I have already been successful in having some colleagues create their [|own simple page]. With this time and experience, I am confident that my colleagues will use Moodle with their students for authentic learning experiences that promote 21st century skills. In conclusion, the endeavor of learning and implementing Moodle may be tough to sell to my colleagues, but will be worth the stress once everyone sees how easy it is to use and implement with students at any age.

References:

Cavanaugh, C., & Clark, T. (2007). The landscape of K–12 online learning. In R. Blomeyer, & C. Cavanaugh (Eds.), //What works in K–12 online learning//(pp. 5–19)//.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education. <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">Gillard, S., & Bailey, D. (2007). Technology in the classroom: Overcoming obstacles, reaping rewards. //The International Journal of Learning//,//14//(1), 87–93. <span style="color: #800080; display: block; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; text-align: left;">Hargis, J., & Schofield, K. (2007). Integrating online learning into elementary classrooms. In R. Blomeyer, & C. Cavanaugh (Eds.), //What works in K–12 online learning//(pp. 33–47)//.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

<span style="color: #000080; display: block; font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-align: center;">Spotlight on Emerging Technology: Online Learning in K–12 Schools <span style="color: #000080; display: block; font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-align: center;">Susan Craig <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">The purpose of this week’s application assignment was to develop and present to local educators a slideshow encouraging the implementation of online learning in our school district. Because our high school has already recently taken this action, I chose to emphasize the need for greater challenges and course offerings for our academically gifted students as our district is small and does not offer the financial resources needed to add AP courses in a traditional classroom setting. Just entering its second year of operation, the [|Montana Digital Academy (MTDA)] offers, free of charge to Montana students, a range of courses including regular high school classes, credit recovery courses, and Advanced Placement courses. While our students have been encouraged, this year and last, to enroll in MTDA’s basic course offerings, the AP courses have not been promoted and were therefore the focus of my presentation. Fortunately, the presentation was an easy sell as our high school principal is an online health instructor in the MTDA and one of our science teachers is the lead chemistry teacher. Additionally, I am a math coach in the MTDA Connect credit recovery program. There is already enough collective knowledge about the advantages of online learning amongst our staff that the focus of the debrief session was on how to go about encouraging students to challenge themselves with AP classes. Our guidance counselor was present for the discussion and while it is too late to enroll students this semester, he agreed to work with students to encourage the AP classes for next semester and next year, especially while the MTDA is still funded by the State of Montana.

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">It was gratifying to have the knowledge that I have gained in this course as I presented and discussed the online AP courses with my colleagues. Interestingly, the idea for this discussion was sparked in week two of the course as I read Christensen and Horn’s (2008) article about current trends in online education. This week’s application assignment required that I take that idea one step further and turn that discussion into a formal presentation which is beginning to yield positive results.

<span style="color: #000080; display: block; font-family: verdana,geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%; text-align: center;">Reference <span style="color: #000080; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 90%;">Christensen, C. M., & Horn, M. B. (2008). How do we transform our schools? //Education Next, 8//(3), 12–19. Retrieved from [].

** Online Learning in K–12 Schools ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Students make important contributions to their learning community through their individual strengths, weaknesses, cultures, abilities and exceptionalities. Therefore, teaching needs to provide various avenues for these characteristics to be exhibited. The use of technology inside the classroom can assist students and teachers utilize skills to live, work, and learn in the 21st century. This research will analyze and articulate the results of presenting technology to assist this outcome. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">My presentation focused on features of RCampus online learning to address instructional gaps at Hillsborough High School. It could be argued that [new literacies] will become even more essential because reading and writing become even more important in an information age” (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). Therefore, student demographic and high-stakes reading and math testing statistics were utilized to reveal trends in student performance and instructional shortcomings in these academic areas. The presentation emphasized the ability of this technology to assist teachers with instruction, thereby improving their student’s success.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">The feedback about the information in the presentation was unexpected and exciting. The teachers who attended had between 4 and 15 years of experience. The principal has been an administrator for 29 years at the same school. All were familiar with the increase in online course popularity. However, online course management was new to all. The teachers shared their thoughts and challenges of organizing and sharing physical and digital resources. The principal eluded that email was the extent of his technological experience. Apparently, he has overused digitally competent staff (secretaries and technology teachers) and under-informed others (common curriculum teachers). The implementation of an online learning program within the school’s current culture would be a substantial overhaul. However, the principal did agree to provide myself and the two teacher participants funding for annual premium plan subscriptions! He requested data reviews per semester and the addition of one teacher per department within one calendar year.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">School administrators can bring teachers into the 21st Century with the right tools. However, presentations of such tools should be considered carefully. “Displaying too much information can be difficult to read or interpret. However, information that is overly simplified may be perceived by the reader to be trivial or irrelevant” (Johnston, 2007). Administrators prefer presentations using statistical data and suggestions for improving future reports. It will be interesting to evaluate the results of this minimal, yet enormous, change within our school over time. The number of participating teachers and the perception of online resources throughout the school culture need to be included in future evaluations.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">References

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Johnston, S. (2007). Developing quality virtual courses: Selecting instructional models. In R. Blomeyer, & C. Cavanaugh (Eds.), What works in K–12 online learning (pp. 21–31). Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Leu, D. J., Kinzer, C. K., Coiro, J. L., & Cammack, D. W. (2004). Toward a theory of new literacies emerging from the Internet and other information and communication technologies. In R. B. Ruddell & N. J. Unrau (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (5th ed., pp. 1570–1613). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">RCampus. (2011). RCampus. Retrieved from <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">@http://www.rcampus.com/