Perfect fit? Yes, indeed!!!

I recently applied for a position at a high school in Columbia, MO.  It is for a full-time high school Japanese teacher!!  How cool is that?!  That would be perfect for me.  I love teaching Japanese... I'm good at it. And I love the high school age group, too.

I had an informal interview with the head of the World Langauges Department and found out...wait for it... they are moving towards integrating technology. Who just finished their master's program?  I did.

Also, they want to start offering online classes.  Who currently teaches online and is web savvy?  I am. My experiences teaching online have definitely been great  There are definitely things I would change if I were in the command chair.  Personally, I think having  a "live" online course or hybrid course is the way to go.  I've already starting thinking about how I would implement this, given the chance.

Also think it would be fun to try an "flip" class where I could record all the lecture, then have the students come to class ready to do the fun activities that teachers like to do, but usually run out of time for.


Anyway, I am still waiting to hear back about an official interview.  The informal one went well I thought.  They want someone enthusiastic and I think I fit the bill. I also am a dynamic and out of the box thinker, too.   As a bonus, they get all of the tech skills that they will be able to use as their district moves forward.

More on this as things progress.

Is it really the end?

Wow... it's been 3 years and 3 cohorts and it's over.  It somehow doesn't seem like it should end so abruptly.  I just got done re-reading my blog posts and we sure covered a lot.  It was almost like meeting an old friend and catching up. I must remember to do that more often.

One thing that jumped out at me is how fact technology has caught up.  fur.ly a few years ago was the place to go if you wanted your URL shortened.  However, now it's automatic for those of us who tweet or share YouTube videos.  That's just an obvious thing that jumped out at me.  I wonder how many other things have become standard and we don't even realize it?  Technology is advancing crazy fast... I just hope that train doesn't derail because I can't hunt.

Another thing that has really taken off are the QRC codes.  Three years ago when I started this program, you'd see them from time to time, but didn't know what you would do with them...really.  Now with the proliferation of smart phones, everyone is using them.

I have never been good at these final blog entry type things.  I am not a wordy person (on paper), but if you've had me in class you know I definitely contribute.  I said this earlier on in my coursework, but it bears repeating here, I think I got more out of this class than a traditional student.  To me, it almost doesn't make sense to do this sort of classwork sitting in a classroom.  I got so much more out of using the tools like google calendar, Skype, Ning, G+, etc. to set up online meetings and get stuff done.  We had to do it.  There was no choice to meet in person so there were times when we were trying to use a new tool (G+) and were were on Skype talking through all of the technical issues.  Experiences like these were priceless.

I also enjoyed looking back over some of my projects.  I especially liked the Pecha-Kucha project. I like the idea of story telling for a limited time and using pictures. I can see all kinds of really great uses for this.

Probably the best part of the whole course was sharing website, tips and tools with each other.  That was something I have always done both professionally and privately. But mostly it was me doing the sharing because I am the tech savvy one trying new things. So it was great to have stuff shared with me. Some I've gone on to use, other items have been bookmarked or saved for future use.  I have been able to some of these tools with my current position as an online teacher, but hope to return to a classroom as a teacher or a technology consultant so that I may really use what I have learned.

I would like to toast (with coffee) all the the cohort members in all three cohorts I was a part of and all of the instructors.  It was a great experience and I look forward to using this as I move forward!

Whew.....

I guess being the tech savvy guy who keeps making suggestions is a sure way to get something to do.
I have been transferring over the website for Toward Community to google sites to we can get rid of the old host service and clean up the site a bit.   If you take a look at some of the site event links...they're over 10 years old.  This is exactly why I am switching it over to an easier to edit format.  Because they had an exclusive web guy who did everything, it made it difficult to update.  Especially with everyone getting busy doing things.

I still need to update my project idea (as the one on my portfolio isn't the one I am currently working on (obviously)

I have discovered putting a FB "like button" on a google site is very difficult to do and have given up for now.  Adding the G+ button was ridicously easy though.


I have been focused on what I need to do still.   I need to find an information aggregator to the website/FB page can quickly and easily be disseminated.   That's the next big thing along with a little bit  of tweaking.

Then there will be the training.

Culminating Experience Part I

Whew....it's been a crazy  1 1/2 weeks.    For those of you who don't know.... I work part-time for an online school and don't have a classroom or school to create a page for.

So I am re-creating a page for Toward Community (a volunteer organization I am a member of).  While they do have a website, it isn't so useful as it uses somewhat specialized software.  So, I have taken it upon myself to migrate it to a google site to that more of the members can easily edit it.

I also want to integrate some other things like a tool to automatically disseminate information posted in Facebook, etc.  I'm going to look into a tool that someone can text to and it will automatically tween and post to facebook.  I will start looking in the google apps as I would like there to be a comment section in the site that can be automatically updateable. (Not a word, I know).

I would also like to find a way to "pre-program" content so that something is being posted every couple of days even if I or someone else doesn't actually post something.  It could be a quote or thought provoking question.... something.    

Needless to say, I'm excited to see what I can find out because I will be able to use these tools in other websites and projects I'm working on.

Time to reflect like the sun off of a lake

I really enjoyed this class.  Since I have taken more classes than the rest of the cohort I am visiting I have had an epiphany. That epiphany is that I really enjoy the group projects and more likely the case, I really like the discussions we have in our study groups and in class.  

The text book talked about the importance of communication, production and critical thinking.  This is what I liked about graduate school the first time around.  It wasn't all of the worksheets, quizzes and tests. Sure, there were a few tests and quizzes, but for the most part it was baset mainly on various products and/or portfolios we had to do.  This made sense to me.

The things we have been learning in class, applied correctly, would make a much better assessment of student achievement than all of those standardized tests that students are forced to take.  Being from Iowa, I apologize if you ever had to take the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.

This course has firmed up my belief that if we really want to test students abilities, we should be doing digital portfolios that are shared with an authentic audience. The artifact included in that should be authentic work or relevance and not some contrived project that has no real world application or purpose.


I have also discovered some cool new websites that I will introduce to my students so that they can have more options to turn in their work. Even though I am teaching online, it seems to me that some of the software and methodology is outdated.    I will take a moment to again praise goanimate.com because it is so dang cool AND can do Japanese.  That is a pretty rare quality.

Lastly, I will continue to learn from my colleagues and perhaps more importantly, from my students.  Students know a lot more than we sometimes give them credit for.  Just the other day a students showed me a really cool browser app that acts as a dictionary when you hover over Japanese words.  The Chrome version is rikaikun and the firefox version is rikachan.  I would never have found that with out talking to my students.

I will continue on my journey as a humble sensei, knowing I will always have something to learn.

Week 5 - Technology ,Creativity & School

This has been a interesting and busy week. We are to reflect on how what were learning affects our professional growth, etc.

What is interesting is that I am actually teaching online right now.... so I don't have a lot of direct influence with what my students use.  I give them guidelines as to what file types I will accept, but other than that... it's up to them to find the best software fit for themselves.   So in some respects I don't have a lot of say in what they use to do their projects.

Hoever, I am planning to use what I've been learning in this class and the revitalization it has provided me to share more resources (I've already shared some) with my students to provide them with alternatives to the standard file types they are supposed to use (RTF, DOC, TXT and PDF).   Those are pretty.... boring when you really think about it.  I mean, really....there are so many cool ways to accomplish things any more that I feel that my students are being limited by those file types.  That is partly due to my employer, but I have been told if I allow other ways of turning things in (like Google Docs), that's fine. I plan collect several resources (and possibly some videos) that promote different ways of turning in work.

One related thing that came up when were were discussing Sir Ken Robinson's video was the fact that our textbook talks about learning being social.  There is a strong emphasis on this and Sir Ken talked about hot the structure of schools can be a barrier to this.  This got me thinking and then one of our group members posed this question:  Do the standards help or harm learning?

This was a great question which set me off a little bit.   IF indeed social learning is where it's at.... then do standards really matter THAT much?  My father didn't have 1/100th the testing kids have today and he went on to law school.  My mother went on to get her masters in library science.   Also being in a career transition, the idea that you can teach hard skill but not soft ones keeps coming to mind.  I can't teach someone not to be a jerk, but I can teach them how to make a Prezi.

Listening to some of my co-workers and thinking about when I taught... this pressure to constantly be teaching a standard is a lot of stress.  However - the counter argument to this is ,"Well, you should be teaching them anyway...it's no different than what you already do."  I agree with this, but when put on the spot there are people who can quote the standards verbatim and creatively explain how they match up. There are other people who are doing the standard but can't see that they are to be able to show they are.  So, if that's the case... what is the push towards standards and testing really all about?  Is it about segragating our students by ability down the road?  Is it about their learning?  Is it about their teacher's teaching?  Or is it about treating schools as businesses and trying to hold them to a business model even when there are so many differences between the two that there is no possible way to make it work?

Tools, Teaching & Teaching Tools

Wow....it has been a busy weekend.  I've been out of town so I apologize to all my fans who have been waiting with abated breath for my entry.

Our group discussion was really awesome. We were talking about various tools that we could use to collaborate and which one we should choose to do our assignment.

After looking over the examples in the textbook and talking some more, we decided to play with Google + since I was familiar with it and no one else was. We figured we might as well learn a new tool that we will probably all be able to use.

We all got a pretty good taste of what was like, although it wasn't with out problems.  We were trying to use Skype while talking through how to become a G+ member and get everything signed up.  I think my group learned a lot about this cool tool and I learned a little about getting people on it.

I think that I will suggest we have our next group meeting there.  It really is a useful site and by getting them to use it more will be really beneficial.

Goanimate was cool!

That was awesome! I checked out Goanimate.com and it allows you to easily create and share animated shorts.  You can either record your voice or type in your text.   I can see lots of really cool uses for this.

The text book is really good. Lots of great links, ideas and suggestions.  I am really looking forward to meeting with my group to discuss it.

Week 3....

It has been a busy week, but it was fun to get together with my group and talk about the chapters.  I really liked the chapter on creativity. I think it's because it reminds me of when I first started teaching in Wisconsin.  I was handed 3 binders (one for each class I was going to teach) and let loose.

The binders contained our standards-based Japanese curriculum.  I was also told that as long as our students can reach the objectives (Students will be able to do~), it didn't matter how I did it.  I was given the analogy of driving to Milwaukee.  I could take the highway all the way down or maybe the scenic lake front drive.  It didn't matter as long as we all got to the same destination.  Very well put I felt.  It also gave me a little breathing room as I was able to relax and focus on how I wanted to teach and not worry about trying to copy someone else's style that may not match mine.


As for teaching problem solving... it reminded me of something a student said to me once, "Why do you always answer a question with a question?"   I told her that it was because I was her teacher and not her answering machine.  I would ask probing questions until they got it.  I tried really hard not to give out the answers.

Not giving out the answers can be really, really hard.  Especially in the high stakes testing world of today when we feel like we don't have a lot of time when we feel like it would be more helpful to just give them the answer so that they can get on task.    However, as we're learning... some of the best learning is when we're taught how to problem solve on our own or with guidance.  I love the whole zen of it all.  I feel like a martial arts sensei working with students named Grasshopper and Willow.

Although it can be frustrating for students,  I have always believed it is best to help students help themselves.  In my case it was because I knew I had already given them the tool to answer the question they were asking.  This method becomes infinitely trickier as there are so many resources that I don't know about and I will have to trust in my students to choose good sources and be open to them teaching me new things.

So... there's my 2 cents for the week.

It has been a crazy week....

Whew... what a busy week it has been.   Lots of stuff to do for class.  And, much like a "real" student... it is getting down to the wire for my posts.

As I've mentioned before I am an online "teacher".   I put quotes around it because about 90% of the time I am an online "grader".  The company I teach with has a self-contained course where the students do all sorts of activities that include reading, writing, listening and "speaking" which is really just recording themselves reading their written work in some cases.    
I bring this up because I really like how this textbook is laid out.  It gives REAL classroom examples for a truly facilitated experience which I feel I am lacking, especially since I am teaching a foreign language. Well, any course, really.

I understand that there are different learning styles that we all have、but I feel the work-at-your-pace with minimal feedback, other than a note or an email isn't the best way to teach.  This could be partly because I am only a part-time instructor and don't have office hours.    I'm not sure, I don't know what the solution is.   This comes to mind because the textbook gives many practical examples on integrating technology into an existing classroom.

Although I think learning styles all need to be accounted for and some students are more than capable of working on things on their own and doing well, I do feel that having actual interaction with a teacher is extremely important.   Things like the alligator in the sewer project in chapter 4 won't happend in a setting like what I teach in because there isn't a "class" per se.   I think that is were some students miss out.   I also think it will be all of the students who are not already highly motivated.

Let's be honest here, motivated students will do well in pretty much any setting.  It's the other students who might need a little motivation that I feel will miss out. They are the ones I feel need that flexibility and the power of the "teachable moment".  

 Humans are social creatures by and large and need to be in social environments.  Even though we have "social" media, a status update is not the same with direct communication with another person.

21st Century Learning

Well,  just minutes before our first class I was at my school board's meeting.  They had a presentation on the new 7th grade technology initiative/pilot program.

Although it was interesting, it wasn't an open forum for the general public to comment on.  I had a few questions since I now teach online.

One of the great benefits of online teaching is all of the hands on stuff.  My local middle school is using Gamestarmechanic.com (I think that was it) to have students write a story and a game that matches up which leeds to a lot of cross editing to make everything work together

The other thing the teachers commented on was their ability to communicate with their students. Two of them commented that even while they were at a conference.

Their presentation brought up a few questions for me.

1) Is there a set expectation for how soon teachers need to get back to students?  Do they have weekends off?  Is time allotted in their schedule?   I know where I work, we have to respond to emails within 24hours.    Also, if teachers are being paid to attend a conference or seminar....should the be responding to emails?

2) How long do teachers have to grade papers/assignments/projects?  I get 72hours to get my assignments graded.  

There are also some other concerns I have about the possible future of online teaching, etc.   I see a lot of great possibilities... but I think, depending on the political climate work conditions/pay/etc could vary quite a bit.

I say that because I am more of a facilitator who grades assignments, but the class itself is all inclusive.  My students have onsite, local "teachers" that assist in their learning in some cases.  I'm not sure of their qualifications... if they are actual teachers or helpers.  Other students work through it on their own.   So, what I am doing right now is very, very different from the classes we are taking or blended learning.

Well... I think I've rambled on long enough.

It's great to be part of this cohort.  I missed this class before and look forward to taking it with all of you.