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CEP 820: Teaching Students Online

"Examining ways in which educators can bring the world into their classrooms with technology to better meet the educational needs of students across the lifespan. The course focuses on ways in which teachers and students can broadcast their ideas and information to the outside world for purposes of collaboration and communication. The course includes discussions of various online learning management systems including their functions, strengths, and weaknesses along with the exploration of various teaching methodologies and how they should be used in the online environment to ensure teaching and learning success.CEP 820 has was awarded an Honorable Mention in the 2012 MSU AT&T Award Competition in Instructional Technology." (Retreived from MSU website on April 27, 2014 at 11:56 p.m.)

 

You can read more about the course and award here.

 

CEP 820 was instructed by Spencer, Sandra, and Ann and broken into three "dorms" where students could benefit from more personal attention. I was in Shaw Hall and Spencer was my dorm "Master." He was very helpful along my CEP 820 journey. This course that lasted from January 6, 2014 through April 28, 2014. Course assignments and descriptions are below. Click the titles or buttons to view.

Reflection

 

The critical design process for the creation of the CEP 820 CMS was very challenging the initial time to say the least. However, being on this side of the journey (thankfully) and having already been “around the block.” I can honestly say that although it was challenging every error made was a valuable lesson learned. Doing this a second time would  definitely result in success. I feel competent in this area and feel confident I could create another online course with more ease and less stress. Thanks in part to the awesome support of the instructors.  Following is a description of that journey.

 

First of all I had to choose a topic to teach online that would be self-sufficient for the most part. Sounded easy enough. However, for a person like myself who has her hands in several projects, I could not decide. Should I do Shakespeare, Greek Mythology, Poetry, or Latin and Greek roots? Unfortunately I do not have a “just pick one and move on” mind set. Not being decisive slowed me down. After too much thought and deliberation I decided I would do Poetry but with a twist.

 

Since I teach in an urban district and I am all too familiar that if a student is going to be engaged in a lesson it must be meaningful to him/her and he/she must be able to relate. So it was settled. My CMS would teach all the basic vocabulary and concepts of Poetry as a regular ELA classroom would but with an unconventional delivery. Because my students could care less about DWM (Dead White Males) I decided to avoid traditional genres and content used to teach poetry and deliver instruction by a more familiar means. Therefore, I decided to find poets that my students could relate to and poetry that my student would find meaningful. These two components would peak my students’ interests resulting (hopefully) in success. It’s worked in the past in my real classroom. The engagement level rises like no other subject. Motivation and drive take over and I soon would have students ready to create their own poetry; ready to deliver and all.

 

So how could I create the same success online? Well I had to begin by finding a Course Management System (CMS) that would support my goals, objectives, and lessons. After reviewing several CMS sites and past students CMSs I felt Haiku would best satisfy the needs of my online course. And in retrospect it does. Though there are some things lacking on my part at present time (syllabus, rubrics, videos) those will still be implemented at a later time as I will use this CMS in my professional portfolio with all the updates.

 

What I liked about Haiku was the ease of organizing material and uploading videos and images. Because many of my students are low-performing, I found it necessary to use videos (Spoken Word) to study poetry versus reading text. Haiku allowed me to do this with ease. I also liked Haiku’s collaboration with other educational sites like Glogster, Voice Thread, and Prezi. I was able to embed a Glog as a project exemplar; something my students need for better understanding of assignment.

 

In addition to my approval of Haiku, I predict that my students would find the site easy to use and navigate. I like how Haiku provides an easy layout minus a lot of room for clutter. My students need simplicity and Haiku offers that. I did have trouble incorporating PowerPoint presentations. I followed the directions and when I tested and tried to view the document it was extremely slow loading. I wish the PPT presentations could have been embedded. Also, a lot of my files appeared to be too large to be uploaded into Haiku.

 

Overall, I found Haiku to satisfy my needs and the needs of my students, speaking theoretically of course. And since Haiku is not in its beginning stages, it is likely still new, like many CMSs.  I expect Haiku to continue to improve over time.  I would absolutely use Haiku again and would recommend it to anyone else interested in creating their own Course Management System.

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