Final Thoughts

Lee asked me to write a personal reflection of my unit design and creation.  I did not realize how much I had learned over the last few weeks.  I looked through all of my blogs, and reviews of all of my readings.  I am glad that I took really good notes throughout the weeks, because I am afraid I would forget something.  There are so many new technologies that I cannot wait to implement this upcoming school year.  I am also excited about how well my unit course will be accepted by the students.  I think they will like the course because of its design and online implementation.  Thank you to Lee and all of my peers that helped me to create a really awesome unit.  I am still working on perfecting it, and I know that my students are going to learn a lot just by experiencing this unit.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5dsHcqLjk9SdDlUZmR2TEtlSDQ/edit?usp=sharing

Week 7 Post

This week has been hectic, yet refreshing.  The critiques that I received from my peers give me hope that I am moving in the right direction with my course and that it will be a success for my students. 

The QM rubric was a great success for myself.  It was easy to use - although there were some phrases that confused me.  I was not sure what it was asking, but the critiques that I received from my peers really helped clear up my misunderstandings.  I think the QM rubric was valuable in the review process that was completed this week.  My peers went step by step through the rubric and pointed out what I was missing or how I can clearly state something that was otherwise confusing.

Reviewing other courses really helped me to see what I was doing right and what I could improve upon.  I reviewed Barbra's Point Hope Project and thought - wow!! I loved the videos that she either found online or created herself - straightforward, yet informational.  Colin gave me a great new idea on another course that I might want to create down the line.  I also loved his use of technology throughout the course.  Seeing these two great courses gave me inspiration for my own.  I think reviewing another course was almost as beneficial as hearing the critiques from the peers who reviewed my own course.

There are a few kinks that I have to iron out.  At the moment, my introduction video is not recorded, so I will have to work on that.  I need to include our institutional policies and be more specific about the academic support my students will have throughout the course.  I need to work on my evaluation section - add the point values for A, B, C, etc. and be more specific about the requirements for the discussion board - initial and followup posts.  I am thinking of creating some sort of rubric for this.  Since my students will not be familiar with Voicethread, I will have to create a how-to video on using this technology tool and its benefits.  And finally, as far as my resources, I forgot to cite them and one peer suggested a brief narrative of what the students will find.  Now, I should get started!!

Thanks to Gary and Ryan for their great critiques.  I could not have asked for better peer reviews.  I appreciate all of your time and consideration for helping me to create the best course possible for my students.

Update for Week 6

It seems that my documents that were saved on Google Docs were set to private.  I apologize to anyone who has tried to access my course and could not.  I have set them all to allow access to those with links, so please try again :)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5dsHcqLjk9SV3h4cTFrbkxOQnc/edit?usp=sharing

Also, please note that Google Docs is just a temporary place for these documents.  As soon as my district releases the editing to our Moodle site, I will update my course on the website.  It is still under maintenance as of today (July 3).

Week 6 Thoughts

So, this week was really hectic for me.  I felt like I was really far behind with the construction of my website, and then the district decided to move our Moodle site to a new server.  When I went to log into my course on Thursday, I found that it was under maintenance.  So, I then created a word document to look like my Moodle course and set up the links through it.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5dsHcqLjk9SV3h4cTFrbkxOQnc/edit?usp=sharing

This is the link to the Course Template, which is temporarily a word document.  You should be able to get to all of the website resources and documents that are linked through here.  The only thing I could not get done was the introduction video.  My plan was to use Screenomatic, but something was not working right for me.  I recorded the video but I had problems posting to You Tube.  I will try again this week and hopefully have that available for y'all to view soon.  I am really happy with my course.  I think it all turned out really well.  Of course, with a lot more time I know that I could make it better - and I plan on working on it a lot before the school year begins.

Please review it and let me know what you think! :)

Week 5 Thoughts

The webinars this week were very informative.  I enjoyed Monday's webinar on the synchronous learning environment.  I am in the M.Ed. program that Virgil heads.  I actually just finished the 3-week Calculus summer course with he as my instructor.  I liked being able to put a face with the voice.  Although my course that I am creating is not synchronous, I did enjoy learning how strategies that these instructors use in their synchronous courses that they teach.  I agree that it is important to use different activities and strategies to keep students engaged.  I have to say that all of my instructors so far have done a great job of keeping their courses interesting and engaging.

Thursday's webinar was also very informative.  She did a great job explaining MOOCs and how we could use them to teach our students.  It really went a long way to help me understand what type of class I was in and I better understood the importance of blogging and tweeting in this course.

This week I worked a lot on setting up my modules in my course and labeling the parts of each module.  I am really interested in seeing what many of my peers have done with their courses.  I am hoping to get some good ideas for my own course.  I feel like I am really far behind because I have not begun to create my assignments for my class.  I am going to work really hard on completing my course this week as I do want to use it in this upcoming school year.  I have read some of the other students blogs and it is getting me excited about Monday's webinar.  One such idea is Gary's use of videos to explain how to use the site and to go over the course syllabus and expectations.  I am curious to see what my peers are using as their technology tools for teaching.

I have finally gotten the login information for my course so that y'all will be able to view what I have so far - which does not seem like much :(

www.lksdonline.org
login id:  oltak674
password:  bportie

once you are logged in - click Brandi Portie's section in the column on the right...this will bring you straight to my course.

Week 4 Thoughts

As I am taking both EDET 628 and 674 (both being taught by Lee) this summer, I keep getting my schedules confused.  I even have the calendars for both classes scheduled!  But there is so much going on during my summer vacation that I am lucky to keep up with anything - a tree fell on my carport at the house I been trying to sell and my daughter is having eye surgery soon so been going to dr. appointments for that.  I am leading into the fact that I missed Mondays webinar and now I cannot find the recording link that Lee sent.  I really wanted to see that one too because my course is a blended-asynchronous course.

I did however make the Thursday webinar and I really enjoyed it.  Matthew was a great presenter and I was excited about all of the information that he gave.  I especially enjoyed the example that he showed us toward the end of the session.  I recognized a few of the schools that participated in the course and enjoyed going through all of their video news.  I tried to see how this could help me with my math classes and have yet to come up with something similar.

I started to create my course through my districts Moodle site.  I emailed one of my district technology specialists to set up a guest account so that y'all will be able to view my course.  I hope to have that at the beginning of this upcoming week and will blog and tweet that information to everyone.  At the moment, I am setting up my modules and links for information that I already have available.  During this upcoming week, I will begin working on creating more assignments and materials for each module.  I cannot begin to express how exciting it is to take my ideas and actually being creating something my students will be able to use.  Please reply with all your thoughts and ideas on how to make my course better!

Week 3 Thoughts

 I want to start off by saying that I am really bummed I missed Thursdays webinar.  It was unfortunate that I could not make it and I was sad to learn that it was mistakenly not recorded.  However, I believe I learned a lot from the other events of this week.  I really enjoyed the process of creating my course structure and outline this week.  I learned a lot through the readings posted on #OLTAK and the attachments from Mondays webinar.  I understand the importance of the expectations of me as an instructor and I hope that I am able to help my students learn in an online environment.  I really think this could be a great experience for my students and something different that will engage them in meaningful learning.

There were a few of things that I took notes on and absorbed prior to creating my course structure.  I took to heart the expectations of the facilitator in the document titled "Participating in Online Community."  I saved a few documents, including the Blended Learning Syllabus and Module Template, from the Blended Learning Toolkit.  My most informative piece of reading was the Analysis of Organizational Approaches to Online Course Structures, where I most enjoyed the ten components of an online course.  It was very basic components that I often see in my own online courses through UAS.  However, the one document that most helped with the creation of my course structure and outline was The Defining Dimensions of Blended Learning Models chart in the iNACOL K-12 Course Design Structures.  I went through each component and decided on what my expectations for the course would be.  This was so helpful!

So attached is my course structure and outline.  Please scan it and let me know what you think.  I accept all constructive criticisms as I want my course to be a great learning experience for my students.  Thanks!


Course Structure/Outline

Week 2 Thoughts

Unit DescriptionUnit TemplateI was really upset when I heard that this week's webinar presenter could not make it.  A few years back, I took a moodle class through UAA.  Our district runs a moodle site and gives teachers access to the site to create courses of our own.  I really liked the moodle set up and enjoyed creating a class.  My class was not much of a class, but more of a place where students could go to keep up with assignments and exam dates, and ask questions or set up after-school appointments with me.  I did this for a year.  It worked well for most of the year and participation dwindled as the end of the school year approached.  I believe the next school year started off slow for me, as I was on maternity leave until November and I just never started up the moodle site again.  In conclusion, it has been a while since I have used moodle and was hoping this week's webinar would be a great refresher for me.

However, I did enjoy the reading and videos on UbD.  It is one of those concepts that you read about and say, "Duh!  Of course it works.  That just makes so much sense."  With the amount of standards that we have to cover in our curriculum and the short amount of time with which we have to accomplish this task, it just seems smart to determine what you want your students to know and to be sure to build your instruction and activities around that understanding.  Throughout the year, it seems there is always something that pops-up that takes my students away from the classroom - MAPS and Aimsweb testing that happens 4 times a year, LEP testing, someone from the district wants to meet with the sophomores and juniors this week, our school is hosting an NYO tournament this week and we need the team to help prepare and set up.  It takes away from the little time that we do have to cover all that we need to cover.  UbD allows you to cover those important concepts that your students cannot succeed without.  Once you have your essential questions established, then you can build in those meaningful activities that are going to engage your students and give them something to think about and discuss.

Finally, understanding understanding was an eye opener for me.  I enjoyed the puppet show which did a great job of summarizing what Chapter 2 discussed.  I can always tell when my students understand what I have taught by the way they tackle extended assignments that I give them.  There are the group of students that start tackling the problem and then there are the students that read through the problem and automatically say - this is too hard.  My students have also never understood the concept of studying, and they are not really good at recalling information.  Therefore, I can always tell the students that understand from the ones that don't because they can still work problems about a specific concept a month down the road.  They understood the concept, therefore they remember how to solve the problems.  Unfortunately, I find that this does not happen often enough, which makes me think I should really work on creating some great meaningful activities for my students this upcoming year - I am hoping I will be able to do this using more technology.


Unit Description

Unit Template

Week 1 Thoughts

I have learned a lot in one week.  Most amazingly, I have a Twitter account and a blog - two things I never thought I would create.  It was a fun learning experience. One that I do not think is quite over :)  The FERPA webinar was also a great learning experience.  One of the discussions that still sticks out in my mind is their definition of parent.  Much like Barbara, I also teach in a small Alaskan village where the definition of family is lax.  Many of my students were adopted as babies by aunts and uncles, grandmas and grandpas.  However, they consider their birth parents just as much a parent.  Sometimes, during parent-teacher conferences, I do not know which parent will show up to discuss their students' progress.  I also have older brothers and sisters who come as a guardian representative, and I always wondered if it was legal for me to share the student information with them.  The definition seems to imply yes.  However, I am worried about one sister who was a SPED student herself when she was in high school and never received a diploma.  I honestly do not think that she is legally capable of being a guardian - her mental state would be questionable.  Do any of you have an opinion on this?

I have been thinking of what type of online class I want to create.  As a secondary teacher of a core subject in my school, I am required to teach an RTI (Response To Intervention) session biweekly to my students.  Depending on the group of students that I have been assigned, I review math concepts that the particular group is having difficulty mastering.  I would like to create an online course that would supplement this RTI teaching session.  There would be a total of 45-50 students assigned to the class, however on a biweekly basis the group consists of 10-15 students.  I am thinking I will create the course as an ongoing study and discussion class.  All students would be able to access the class at any given period to review concepts they are struggling with; however, the group that is meeting during the current biweekly session would be required to access the class, review the materials/strategies introduced on the site, and write a discussion about their learning experience during the session.  If anyone has any ideas about how I could tweek this idea, please feel free to post your comments.  I would love to hear them - especially if you think this would not work at all.  I am really excited about creating this class, but I want to make sure it will be something that will benefit my students' learning.

Introduction

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a teacher.  As I got closer to graduation, I changed my mind and entered my first year of college majoring in Chemical Engineering.  After a year of that, I decided engineering was not for me and transferred to Accounting.  I graduated with a BS in Accounting in 2000.  After five years, I decided I should have been a teacher all along.  I went through the MAT program at my hometown university and in May 2007 graduated with a teaching degree.

I taught high school Algebra I for two years at a local high school before moving to Alaska.  My older sister had already been teaching in Alaska for 5 years and had settled in the small rural Yup'ik village of Newtok.  In August 2007, I began my teaching career in Newtok, Alaska through the Lower Kuskokwim School District.  I teach secondary mathematics, grades 7-12.  I love my job!  I love the community and the environment.

I am currently enrolled in the M.Ed. program through UAS for an endorsement in Elementary Mathematics, grades K-8.  I do not think I will ever teach in the primary grades, but being a middle school teacher, I wanted to learn more about the basics of teaching math.  I want to learn as many strategies to teaching multiplication, division, fractions, estimation, etc.  so that I can be more beneficial to my students - many of them whom struggle with these basic concepts even throughout their middle school and beginning high school grades.