CED0 550 Week 1 My New Adventures in Online Learning

This week I started a new adventure in as my cohort and I met for the first session of our new class, Online Facilitation - Taming the World of Online Learning. We started conversations using a platform named Brainhoney (I love that name), took a Gallery tour to explore a collection of online resources and read articles to increase our knowledge of online learning. Learning for me has always been an adventure, full of wonder, excitement, peril and resolve. I am finding that online learning is not different in that regard. Every time a new journey of exploration and discovery greets me at my door, it is an adventure for me and I know that I will have a good story to tell at the end.

This week I was asked to relate the examples of online learning to my own experience. My own experiences with online learning and knowledge of the subject before this program was very limited, I know this now. I did not realize how many states and districts are actually utilizing online instruction as a part of their curriculum. I have used online activities and assignments with my students, but this has not consistent or to the degree that I learning can be done. As we continued our discussion this week, I had so many questions about the implementation of on-line education; many were answered when I read the report, Keeping Pace with K-12 Online: a review of State Level Policy and Practice. Questions I had about those who make up the population of students enrolled in online learning programs. Districts have populations in their online programs that somewhat mirrors their population of face-to-face learners.

I really enjoyed the Brainhoney system, unlike when I have used PB Works, I didn’t have any problems navigating this course management system and utilizing the discussion boards. I was able to create new post, edit, reply to post and read the posts of others quite easily. For the tasks I was required to do this week, I was able to navigate it with some ease. I also had the opportunity to experiment with Elluminate, I had a ball testing out the tools and sharing funny moments with my classmates. This introduction to the tools of Elluminate went smoothly. I have even told some of my co-workers about the Three for Free as a way for us to collaborate and do some professional development.

I can imagine using Elluminate Live! for a web conference in order to meet and collaborate with my co-workers, work in small groups with my students who are at home sick or need extra help, hold a discussions groups with other educators across the country and have a reunion with my cohort after graduation.

I often think of myself as a constant learner and someone who is curious about new things. Something new I tried while working on this module was the tools on Elluminate and it made me think that I could really use this tool with my co-workers and students. One of my co-workers really wants to plan together but cannot stay after work for very long, this would be an excellent way to work with her so that she can plan with me and we could support each other. As the instructional technology leader for my building, I can also use this tool to provide support teachers learning to use new tools to incorporate in their lessons. Wow … this is exciting for me, co-workers and students. Stay tuned for next week’s story of my learning adventures…I getting my sea legs and it feels great.

Week 6 CEDo 540 – Whew! It’s a Wrap…Identifying and Evaluating Major Data Resources on the Internet

It is hard for me to believe to believe that I actually survived any class dealing with statistics, but I did and I am very thankful. What have I learned over the last six weeks? I have learned how to create survey tools to collect data, review and analyze data, compare data and make decisions based on the data I collect. Of the tools I have gained the one I will use first in my current position is that creating my own survey tool. I plan to use it with my students to create survey of my own to gather data about how they feel about our learning environment.

This class has been an interesting class and somewhat of a challenge for me because of the topic itself. My background with statistics was not favorable in the beginning but this class has helped me to view working with them in a more favorable light. I think the key was seeing them as something tangible that flows throughout the real world daily. Creating a plan before conducting surveys can ensure that I receive useful information from respondents and the specific data I need to collect.

Finally, I was able to build a collection of resources in this course that I know will help me at some point in time. If I do not use these tools for myself, I believe that I can share them and use to share with my colleagues.

Week 5 CEDo 540 Trends in Searching in the World of Google

This week I entered into another fascinating province in the world of Google, that place was Google Trends. I am amazed at how the Google team continues to think of reasons not to leave their universe and how creative they are in bringing the newest twist and turn to searching online. Before I enrolled in the MEIT graduate program searching online for me was very basic, extremely basic. I did not understand databases as they related to searching online. I did not use any specific search engine to locate information, I simply typed in a topic and waited to see what the results yielded.

Now, I have learned so much more about effective searches and the ranking of results yielded in a search. I am really enjoying learning more about Google product, especially because they are free. After exploring Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, I found them to be enlightening. However, I am not sure how I would be able to use them in my current position. This tool I believe would be very helpful for businesses or others who need to do market research of some sort before making decisions.

Will I ever use Google Trends or Google Insights for Search? I am not sure, it is possible. It did allow me to see what were some hot topics and what were not. I may not always be working in the capacity I currently do and I may one day need services such as those. I do have a new resource to tuck away in case I need it.

CEDo Week 4 Bill Tancer…Why it matters

This week I was introduced to Bill Tancer and I enjoyed spending time with him and have to that it was enlightening. What I found is that I may actually enjoy interpreting data if I have a better understanding of the data I am looking at. The description of trends in how data is being used and the new methods of some companies are using to collect it was intriguing. Proms dresses in January or at least that’s what the data was showing. I never knew what drove some companies to start their campaign for advertising certain products so much earlier than the actual season.

Bill Tancer described the importance of paying attention to the habits or online activities as a means to forecast the current state of spending or other behaviors of online. He described the many reasons for analyzing data and the “secret” strategy of businesses tracking the viewing or online patterns of their current customers when they viewed websites online. He explained the online of habits of the wealthier investors who chose to take part in more recreational online activities when they began to loose money from their investment portfolios.

As interesting as I found his discussion, I found it equally as disturbing. This adds to my concerns about internet security and how there seems to always be a way for those who want to monitor or “spy” on people via the internet. There was a story in the news a few weeks ago about parents who were concerned about advertisers targeting their children with advertisements with diet products based on the companies tracking their visits to various websites. The parents’ fear is that the advertisers or some other predatory entities will have access to their children, making them targets or enticing them into harmful behaviors.

The bottom line is that we live in a data driven society, this introduction to Bill Tancer let me with thoughts about how we get it and how we use.

CEDo Week 3 - How to Create a Survey that Works…Is that possible?

In spite of my reluctance to willingly participate in surveys, as someone with some business experience I do recognize they can be useful. Any business owner worth their weight in money wants to put the needs of their customers as a high priority or they will not be in business long. Many companies have learned that guessing about what their clients and customers want is not always effective. So what do they do? They hire a team of researchers, pay them to get in the trenches and find out what is on the minds of their customers and sometimes even more importantly, who are their customers.

To meet this objective the team has to know how to combine their product knowledge with their knowledge of how to reach the people they need to hear from. In the article, Designing Customer Surveys that Work, the authors – Richard E. Zimmermann, Linda Steinmann and Vince Schueler gave some suggestions on how to do this effectively. One of the first things they suggest doing is to keep in mind what your goals and objectives are. Those creating the survey must have a plan for what they are going to do with the data they collect – what is the point of the survey?

They also suggested some other things to consider for making a survey effective. I found the information in this article to be very helpful. It gave me some parameters to use when planning my next survey, but also some questions I may pose to the next group who asks me to participate in a survey. Additionally, it changed my mind about some perceptions I had about the process of surveying… sometimes there actually is a point and if people know the point maybe they won’t mind answering a few well crafted and purposeful questions.

CEDo 540 Week 2 - Surveys, polls and more…

Wow, I never thought that surveys were a fun or exciting way to spend my time. I hate to admit it (the honest person that I am… I really have to), but I am not always nice when it comes to taking surveys. When I get the phone call asking me to complete a survey, it’s never a good time. If they ask when if there is a better time to call, I secretly think, “hmmm…no.” When I get one in the mail, I throw them away. When I get trapped into taking one during a staff meeting, it feels like pulling my teeth, so I fight back by taking so long to do it that I hope they forget it. If a pop up request intrudes on my valuable time on the internet when I perusing a website, I simply close the window and continue minding my own business.

You want to know another secret? I use to be a phone surveyor in a previous occupation and I love putting together surveys for others. Shhh…don’t tell anyone. What I learned this week is that there are various tools for creating surveys and ways to make them more interesting, easier to take and more meaningful for the respondents. I also learned that completed surveys can yield important and very valuable data that can help me and others. I learned that even though participation in a survey may be optional, maybe I should choose more carefully which ones I skip out on.

After researching free online survey creator tools and visiting a site which acts as a database for software I found some real gems like Lime Survey, Kwik Survey, SurveyGizmo and Fluid Surveys. These creator tools were fun to use and offered ways to make the surveys I create more innovative and attention grabbers with the options of personal touches. I am so excited about sharing what I have learned in this program with others, sometimes I want to create a survey and ask people in my sphere what they want to learn about first. Hmmm… I think I will do that now.

CEDO 540 What are Statistics to me?

For me the very word “statistics” conjures up memories of math classes gone wrong. A twist of complicated formulas to figure out things I didn’t necessarily think I needed to know. This week in class helped to put a friendlier face on the word. It helped me to understand that statistics is just another way identifying data, something I deal with almost every day.

How do I use data in my classroom? I use it to measure the learning trends of the students in my classroom after quarterly district assessments. I use the data provided from the WKCE assessment to plan for instruction for the upcoming school year. Do I always understand the other data or statistics I am confronted with in the course of my daily work or personal life? Of course not, but it is my hope that this class will help me not fear working with statistics as much as I do now.

Facing the reality of how important understanding and using statistics can be for an educator is something that I know I will have to do. The very first video we watched in our class about statistics did a great job of demonstrating their real world application and making the study of them seem more manageable. It gave me a view of how and why data is collected for use in many walks of life and put a face and real purpose to the term. Scary or not, statistics are useful and many times needed to make sense of what is happening in the world.