Week 7

Last day already???

I am very glad that I took this class. I have found many more resources that will improve use of technology in my classroom. I have also learned about use of those tools to improve learning in the classroom. The transition ahead of us is scary. The volume of material, the instruments to use that technology and the infrastructure are mind blowing. Especially since I can't even install chrome on my computer and keep it! The IT department here is very helpful and will certainly grow in size to deal with the increase in technology use. Faculty will need training and guidelines for technology use. Goals need to verbalized and benchmarks established. The goals also need to be reasonable, customized to each discipline and flexible.

I feel this transition is necessary and important. It needs to be well thought out and implementation needs a very concrete yet flexible plan. The transition should not be so fast as to lose students and faculty learning needs. It should also not be too slow where some classes are no different than before the use of technology. Classes will also need to maintain high academic standards.

I guess that my final thought is:

Dream big, plan small, be flexible, and make sure to laugh along the way!

Week 6

This week was tough! A new LCMS will be a big challenge. We still have teachers that miss the old paper absentee list and rebel against sending in attendance. What will happen with a LCMS? I'm not even sure if that is what we are talking about. The abbreviations are driving me batty. All the letters are so similar. I am very excited about combining our FAWeb system with Faculty Applications. That will make everything easier. The choice of system is finished but I didn't see much input from the users as one of the blogs suggested. In fact, it seems that we are letting our IT department pick the system.

In terms of the assignment, I did not do as good a job as I wanted. I will have to spend more time and arrange components to achieve the goals I have. I have needed to spend more time on organizing materials since attending the AP conference in Chicago last summer. I am not sure there are enough hours in the day or days of summer to get this done to my standards. I know that I can change it later but I am uncomfortable with how little time and effort I can put into this and still do my current job. (This might be a reflection of my current situation and end of quarter issues.)

This too shall pass!

Week 5

New Toys! This week we were using new tools, things like video casts, voice casting, YouTube and Jaycut. I found that using technology can be great but there are things that go wrong. One lesson learned is to make sure that the technology will work as predicted with the class. Trying things at home will not be enough. We also have some special issues here because of our computer setups. Our tech department is great and very responsive but they definitely need to be more involved as we go forward. I believe that this type of technology will be a great asset to our students in the case of snow days and absences. I can also see video clips of pre-lab demos or demonstrations of difficult labs. I also am convinced that IE needs to go and hopefully we can go to google chrome or firefox! I tried chrome here and there are issues with permissions to go on the Internet.

Overall this week was positive but, I hate listening to my voice and seeing myself on screen. I will have to work on that.

Week 4

Each week is getting more challenging. I like that. I am definitely out of my comfort zone. I am having some machine problems. I can't get my mini PC to insert the video I captured from Jing into a PowerPoint. I'm not even sure it's possible. I have used many of the OER sites and they do have tons of information but filtering it is still difficult. I am more careful with search terms to increase the good over bad hits. This helps but as always, time is limited.

I tried Prezi and think I will need to spend a good deal of time to get the results that I am looking for. I like to interface but the learning curve, for me, is a little to high for mid semester. I am afraid that in the summer I will forget to invest the time. I am sure I will make the transition but it will take time!

Week 3

This week we developed a web based lesson plan. My plan is more multimedia that a straight web project. I enjoyed using the template from Carmen. I felt like it helped me think through all of the items that I would need to develop new web lessons. I think that this type of lesson will work for chemistry but it will be easy to fall into the trap of doing the same thing that I have always done. I need to find tools that will get me excited to use the new tools over the "old reliables" like lab, lecture and notes. I am also interested in what tools we will have for students to use since not everyone will be able to use the computer lab at the same time.

Week 2

This week was our second face to face meeting. Again we went to a number of websites and created new accounts. It is clear to me that there is more information out on the web than I ever knew! I spent more time tracking down useless sites than I spent on the "good" ones. (See my class websites document on the wiki). I also learned how to add a page to our wiki and link to that from a page within the site. The directions are in the wiki and very clear! The website that I discussed in detail is great. I am trying it out with my AP Chemistry class. It is a LMS that is free. I like that I can create/add content from my existing materials quickly and easily. Students are very famillar with the interface since it is just like facebook. I can upload videos, documents and images. I can also create quizzes very quickly. These quizzes are then in my gradebook. It is very similar to BlackBoard LMS that I used at EKU. Students can use features like chat and post to let me know about problems, concerns or new content.

This coming week we will not meet F:F and so I am a little worried that I will miss an assignment.

First Week

This week we created new accounts and used new programs. It seemed to overwhelm some of the class. It is a lot of logins and passwords but with repetition it should be very useful. I am happy to learn new software, I am hoping the coming weeks will help us to incorporate these into our classes. Goals and expectations were well communicated and reasonable. I enjoyed the concept mapping and hope to use it in my AP Class for kinetics. This tool might be useful for them to use after lecture.

I could use a location to "bookmark" the websites for this class that is accessible from both home and work. I also need a clearer idea of what is due when. I can find that on the wiki but I need to have those deadlines in my outlook calendar to make sure that I don't miss any.