Week 9 Reflection - The Curriculum Unit

Blog reflection: How did you and your partner divided the work? Did that work out? What were the pros and cons of working with a partner at a distance?

Curriculum Unit Collaboration
Dividing Up the Work
The division of work was a relatively easy exercise for Cheryl & I because we simply examined the topics of interest that we had posted in the discussion forum and fit those components into the outline that I had suggested so that both of us had a comfort level with the unit. Additionally, Cheryl had proposed using the WizIQ platform so she began investigating that tool as a platform, while I offered to investigate Ning as a platform. In the end, we decided to use both since the former is better suited for synchronous sessions and online tests, and the latter is better suited for asynchronous discussions, online chats, and course organization of materials. We did have a minor hiccup when Stephen decided to join the group but he shared that he was interested in using CCDT as a framework for the course so he ran with that. When he left the group, we still appreciated the work he had done as a jumping off point for framing our curriculum unit using the "Teaching for Understanding (with Technology)" methodology. 


How did it work out?
Cheryl & I worked very well together. We shared the same ideas about what we wanted to accomplish with the unit, how much content should be provided, and the components that should be included. We posted our initial outline to the Wetpaint Wiki but expanded upon the outline to create a working syllabus using Google Docs. We also used Google Docs to create an assignment/web 2.0 tool mapping document. We began using Skype to communicate but faced a few challenges along the way (see below). We also used the Ning chat to share information, Ning platform to demonstrate the course features that were illustrated in the course syllabus, and WizIQ to "record" synchronous session samples and create a sample online test. From a timing perspective, I worked on the initial outline first and then was away for Spring Break. During that time, Cheryl expanded upon the outline (although she did have some down time due to the power outages resulting from the storm!) and when I got back we collaborated together on finishing the syllabus. 


Pros and Cons of working at a distance
The biggest "pro" for me is that we can work within our own schedules. Since I was away for Spring Break, I was able to check messages on my phone to stay in the loop and also work on the unit before and after break. Cheryl was able to work during break and other convenient times for her. The other big "pro" of working at a distance is that we are in the shoes of the students. In creating our unit, we are also experimenting with the tools we will be expecting our students to use in the course and are therefore more aware of obstacles that may arise and can prepare for them. The biggest "con" of working at a difference is actually the technology itself. Yes, I know, I'm a technology geek. But I can still complain, can't it? You'll see below some of the challenges we had with the technologies themselves. However, here I want to mention that even in a synchronous environment like Skype there are visual cues that are missed. If we were working f2f, facial expressions, hand gestures and other subtle cues may have changed the outcome of our final unit. Or, at the very least, may have expediated the production of the unit. The small video screen in Skype doesn't allow for the same kind of interaction although it is better than text-based chat.



Web 2.0 Tool Challenges
I opted to break this section out from the overall reflection above because I wanted to highlight the importance of quality tools and appropriate expectations that students should have of the tools they use. In collaborating on the unit, here are some of the technical challenges we faced:

• Skype - We initially began using Skype to communicate but unfortunately Skype crashed Cheryl's laptop and it was unusable for several days. We had to then resort to other modes of communication like Ning chat. Also, we had quite a scheduling conflict. Between my student teaching schedule (during days), classes (at night) and Cheryl's weekend job finding time to talk was a challenge. At one point, we realized the only time to talk would be as Cheryl traveled to her job on a Saturday morning. This meant no Skype. We had to rely on the good old-fashioned cell phone. However, as my husband reminded me, that still using technology (including the Bluetooth hands-free component!). 
• Wetpaint - Some time during the weeks I worked on the unit, Windows decided it would be a great time to do lots of updates. After the updates, I could no longer copy/paste into Wetpaint because of some new security rule using Firefox. When I tried, I lost all of the data I had just copied in including all the new text I had written (not copied from anywhere) and the site just said "Copy/Paste Not Allowed" or something like that. I had to start all over again. Ugh!!! So, then I used IE instead of Firefox but the formatting was a mess. I finally switched back to Firefox on my laptop (instead of my desktop). In addition to this problem, I found Wetpaint's "EasyEdit" to be anything but. I like to get down and dirty with the HTML code and pretty-up my pages but Wetpaint doesn't let you do that. It's very un-user friendly.
• Ning - I really enjoyed using Ning as a platform although I did not some challenges from a course developer perspective. 
• You can't change the order of the discussion forums once you create them. And you have to create them in reverse order.
• You can't upload documents. You have to add links to the documents as a "Note".
• The RSS feed which I thought would work similar to Netvibes is less user friendly. It does not list the overall feed but rather individual entries on the feed which would make it hard for students to examine each other's blogs. 
• WizIQ - There are also several challenges with WizIQ. In general, I was comparing it to Adobe Connect and while it does offer online tests (which Connect does not) there are several components which are lacking:
• Online tests can not be edited after they are created.
• Desktop & Browser sharing can be used but can not be recorded without a premium membership.
• You can not see the faces of all the students; only the teachers video is accessible. (This may be available with a premium membership).
• In one of our classes, the WizIQ session crashed and everything after the crash was not recorded. The folks at WizIQ (who, by the way, contacted me unsolicited for feedback, told me that this is a technical problem on their end and they are looking into it).
• I do think the whiteboarding capability is a little bit better than Connect. 

Web 2.0 Tools that worked Great

• Google Docs - I know a lot of people are favoring Google Wave which allows for simultaneous edits, Google Docs worked great in our case. It was easy to see what changes had been made and by whom. And, it allowed us to create our curriculum unit at times convenient for both of us.
• Ning - The free platform was easy to use and offered a way for us to demonstrate what the course would look like for the students in our course. We could have also used Moodle which is open source but I've used Moodle before and thought it would be interesting to see the advantages of a social networking platform over a more traditional LMS. The main advantages are a nicer chat interface, photo & video integration, and in general more available features that can be added, moved around, etc...
• WizIQ - While we had problems with the platform, it did offer a free way for us to present examples of what the synchronous course sessions would look like. It also allowed for us to present sample tests which are important in a K-12 environment though not necessarily included in higher education online courses or classrooms. 

That's about it for this week. Overall, I thought the collaboration went extremely well and I am very pleased with the output that we were able to present. The curriculum unit is something that I think I will actually be able to use when I become a teacher.  

Online Schools Wetpaint - Our Unit
Google Docs - Course Syllabus
Google Docs - Quick Reference Guide
Ning - Expressing Yourself Online Course
WizIQ - Sample Session 1
WizIQ - Sample Session 2
WizIQ - Sample Unit Test
CCDT - Course Framework
Sample Rubric

Week 7 Reflection - Beginning the Curriculum Unit

Blog reflection: What did you think about, or worry about, as you began to grapple with creating a unit for an online course? 


For me, I like to start with what I want the students to learn (what is the desired result?). For the purposes of lessons/units created for TC classes I also like to think about the grade level & subject because I am going to be certified K-12 and want to demonstrate a good cross-sampling of experiene. So, I decided that I wanted to target secondary level students for the subject "ELA." Within ELA, I wanted to focus on personal creative writing and my goal was to have students become comfortable expressing themselves through various forms utilizing online tools.


Putting an outline together was a fairly easy exercise for me but what I struggled with is conciseness. In other words, it's very very easy to include too much. I wanted to make sure the unit covered the necessities for establishing an online collection of personal expression without overwhelming students. 


Another concern that I had was finding a partner. I made sure that I posted my ideas on the discussion board early on but it seemed that everyone had the same thought. We were all posting ideas but there wasn't a lot of overlap going on. So, I decided to provide more detail in order to entice someone to join me. Fortunately, this strategy worked out and I am very happy with my partner. We seem to be in synch with the goals we want to accomplish, the tools we want to use, and the level of effort we expect to put into the unit. This is always a concern where group projects are concerned.


Finally, I am beginning to work through how we ensure that the curriculum unit meet iNACOL standards, use the tools that we want students to learn effectively, and properly assess the students based on performance tasks. I am also concerned about how deep to go with regard to the unit design. It would easy (albeit time consuming) to get lost in the details and end up creating too much content for the assignment. On the other hand, I would like for the unit to be usable and valuable, something that I can actually implement in the future (or at least something that can kickstart an actual unit).

Week 6 Reflection - Our Schools

Blog reflection:  Has your view of the schools you chose to research changed from the first week you looked at them? If so, how? (To answer this, you should look over the descriptions of your schools in the wiki and at your blog entries. You should also review how you placed your schools in the Google spreadsheet and see if you want to make any changes.)


To begin with I need to identify the two schools that I researched. The State school is North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) and the charter/for-profit school is AccelerateU run through BOCES. In general, I think my view of NCVPS has remained fairly consistent since the beginning. I was immediately impressed with the comprehensive nature of their website and the clarity by which they present their objectives, offerings and additional resources. They are focused on both academic enhancements and credit recovery, utilize a wide variety of technological tools and provide ways for learners to interact with other learners, as well as the teachers and content. I also believe that my classifications in the "Online Programs" spreadsheet were on target. I am still disappointed that they do not provide a mechanism to search courses or to view a demo course, however I would be inclined to recommend this school for North Carolina residents.  Here is my NCVPS research on WetPaint.


My view of AccelerateU has change a little bit since beginning my initial research. For one thing, I lowered the position of learner-learner interaction on the spreadsheet because it was not clear that much of this activity is actually taken place. There may be some use of discussion boards, and there may be cases where students are accessing the AccelerateU content from the same location (a local traditional school) but this does not seem to be prevalent. Also, most courses are designed to be self-paced (within a range) making for more difficult student interaction. I was also unhappy to discover that although the AccelerateU program seems to be the most comprehensive online offering for New York State students, it is not available to all students in all regions. The local BOCES chapters must be a member of AccelerateU for students in those regions to participate. Here is my AccelerateU research on Wetpaint.


A brief comparison of both schools based on the spreadsheet data indicates the following main differences:

• Students participate from anywhere in both schools, but AccelerateU students may also participate from a local brick-and-mortar school.
• Learner-teacher interaction is stronger at NCVPS than at AccelerateU, although the latter has on-site facilitators. This also means students at AccelerateU have more facetime than students at NCVPS which does occasional phone conversations.
• Learner-learner interaction is much stronger at NCVPS.
• On the learner autonomy measure, classes at NCVPS are course-paced while classes at AccelerateU are self-paced.
• NCVPS is more of a virtual classroom than AccelerateU which provides more virtual courses. 

Schools in the Press 

I couldn't find any press releases about AccelerateU. A search in Google just found a newsletter produced by the school called Choices. The newsletter is located on the same domain as the school but interestingly I never discovered it when research all the other aspects we examined. This is a downfall of the site because it would have been interesting to read through some of the articles. The site does not provide any press releases either although they do display a logo for "2004 Center for Digital Education Winner" but clicking on the icon brings you a to a "Page Not Found" message on the Center for Digital Education website.


A search for press releases about NCVPS brought me to a video discussing NCVPS's use of Web 2.0 tools which I was pleased to see. The other thing I found was ScreenToaster's list of NCVPS lessons, like this one from a Digital Photography class. These aren't as good as a demo course, but better than nothing. The Virtual Learning Consultant Blog provides information about what activities NCVPS is working on, like an upcoming presentation on SecondLife and their presence on Twitter. This blog is also linked off the school's website under "Director's Chair." 



Several other articles appeared in the search including: "Discovery Education and the North Carolina Virtual Public School Partner to Provide Services Bringing the Highest Quality Digital Content to Online Students", "Online Learning Report Shows N.C. Virtual Public School Fifth in the Nation in Enrollment", and "North Carolina's Virtual Public School Celebrates First Year". There is also a list of all documents available from NCVPS at Digital Repository of the State of North Carolina. The school also has a presence on Facebook. Finally, the school itself provides a repository of news and announcements on it's site, including podcasts, EdWeek articles and other sources of information. 


NCVPS clearly has a much larger presence and is more well established than AccelerateU and is a model that other schools should look towards.


Wrapping Up 

Overall I think that my research has proven to be indicitive of the many varied options that exist for virtual schooling and I am excited to see what happens as schools evolve and new schools appear. In the meantime, I wanted to share some links that arose this week for future reference.

• Online Learning Institute 
• Journal of Interactive Online Learning 
• Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (book) 
• Millenials Quiz