Monday, July 27, 2009
Final week, now some sleep!
I didn't save my blog again and I just lost it again! Anyway I think what I said was that we have finished our project! I sent out the final evaluations. We made some revisions after getting some good feedback. One revision we made was to make the "extra sites" in bigger print. They were difficult to see and hard to click on for little fingers. I am still frustrated that my power point is so ssslllooowwwwwwwwwww loading. My husband is determined to make it better but at this point I don't want him screwing it up so I'm leaving it for now. I am excited to finish my class web page. I have left it until the end because when I start working on it, I put everything else off. I am planning on using it a lot this year and getting rid of all the paper. Such a waste! So off I go...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
GUESS WHAT?
GUESS WHAT? You are NEVER going to believe this, but I just made my very own survey on Google Docs to use for my research project in 6100. I made it, COMPLETELY BY MYSELF, and sent it to my participants. They fill it out and submit it and the BEST part is that when I bring it up, it automatically graphs the results for me. THIS IS AWESOME! And, oh ya, did I tell you I did it by MYSELF! Ya wanna see it? Cuz I know you have all the time in the world to share in my excitement! Really, I deserve an A+ for this!!!!!!!!!!!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHZoNkhGQWJ3clJveUR2Rm96MkU4Tmc6MA..
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHZoNkhGQWJ3clJveUR2Rm96MkU4Tmc6MA..
Monday, July 20, 2009
Lesson 6 Kristine Bennett
I was so excited when I opened lesson 6 and saw that there was no reading assignment that I totally forgot to post my blog! I was so overcome with excitement that I ripped off that cellophane wrapper from that cute little yellow book called Preparing Instructional Objectives and read the entire thing! Can you believe it? Probably not and your probably right, but I WILL read it this week. Especially with all the time I have on my hands now that I have actually finished putting voice and music on my powerpoint project for our Lesson Plan! Yep! That's right, believe it or not, I finally finished revising it at 2:00 am and spent the entire afternoon at Mary's adding voice to every single frame. I actually think I could do it on my own if I really had to! (Good thing I don't really have to) I just mean we're lucky to have Mary on our team. For my part on our team, besides finishing my big project, I passed out evaluations to several past and future students in my neighborhood. They will be trying out some of the lessons and evaluating them along with their parents. I'm excited to get the evaluations back and do some final tweeking. (That would be tweeKing, not tweeting!) ha ha. The best excitement of all though is that I don't have any projects do tomorrow! And like I always say...why would I do it today, if it's not due tomorrow! Oh crap, now my husband thinks he gets "me" time. Signing off, a day late... and always more than a dollar short!
Thanks again for the feedback and as always, your patience!
Thanks again for the feedback and as always, your patience!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Lesson 5
O.K. I just wrote this and lost it, now I'm really ticked. It's 11:24 pm and I still need to write my Evaluation for my Quantitative Research Project in Methods. So this may be brief.
On Monday, Doc Waters was a bit irritated by the fact that none of us had read our assignment for this week. I went home and immediately read it. Unfortunately, I didn't immediately write it, so here goes.
On Monday we talked about Learning Theory and Instructional Theory. When I think of Learning Theory, I think of behavior or reward and punishment. Like when your cat pees on the carpet, so you spray him in the face with water. Instructional Theory is the teaching strategy you use. Choosing the principles from the theories presented will help us plan and implement instructional strategies that meet our desired outcomes.
In my portion of our online lesson, this week, I have added a post test for the students to take after viewing my power point on continents and oceans. I also added the fifth and less known ocean, the Southern Ocean and described for the students the controversy surrounding it. This ocean is not included in most texts or tests but is widely recognized by the IHOC.
Chapter 14 reading lead us into our role as a designer. As we have divided up the tasks for our project, we have tried to make sure everyone is doing their share without overwhelming any of us. In our case, we have Mary, who is very computer literate. She has put a lot of effort into our lesson and helped us add audio and music to our presentations. On the other hand, we have me, who is very computer ILLiterate. For me, just producing a power point and adding links to my web was an experience in itself. I think that part of web design as a team is sharing the responsibilities by allowing each member of the team to provide their own knowledge and talents and then work together to "put it all together".
Chapter 15 discusses implementing our project. We are well underway, although I didn't get as much done this weekend as I had planned. Part of my problem is that I get so sidetracked when I find to ideas. I want to add it all. Then I get overwhelmed. I need to focus on weeding out. One of the problems I am continuing to have is that when I try to open my videos and websites on Firefox, I have no sound. I can open it on Safari. So I guess one of the issues we need to make sure is implemented is that Safari is used as the internet access.
In reading Kirkpatrick's model, he explained the four levels of evaluation.
1. Student reaction - did they like it?
2. Student learning - did they learn what was expected?
3. Student behavior - can they and will they use the skills they learned?
4. Student results - evaluation
Since I am the one in charge of evaluating the students who practice on our program, it will be up to me to follow these levels. I think the most important thing is for them to be able to actually learn the skills of map making and reading and be able to retain what they have learned. In addition, it will be helpful, further on, to know the names of the continents and oceans and learn about our 5th ocean. I am excited to try this program out. It's 11:59 and I am signing off. On to another assignment.
On Monday, Doc Waters was a bit irritated by the fact that none of us had read our assignment for this week. I went home and immediately read it. Unfortunately, I didn't immediately write it, so here goes.
On Monday we talked about Learning Theory and Instructional Theory. When I think of Learning Theory, I think of behavior or reward and punishment. Like when your cat pees on the carpet, so you spray him in the face with water. Instructional Theory is the teaching strategy you use. Choosing the principles from the theories presented will help us plan and implement instructional strategies that meet our desired outcomes.
In my portion of our online lesson, this week, I have added a post test for the students to take after viewing my power point on continents and oceans. I also added the fifth and less known ocean, the Southern Ocean and described for the students the controversy surrounding it. This ocean is not included in most texts or tests but is widely recognized by the IHOC.
Chapter 14 reading lead us into our role as a designer. As we have divided up the tasks for our project, we have tried to make sure everyone is doing their share without overwhelming any of us. In our case, we have Mary, who is very computer literate. She has put a lot of effort into our lesson and helped us add audio and music to our presentations. On the other hand, we have me, who is very computer ILLiterate. For me, just producing a power point and adding links to my web was an experience in itself. I think that part of web design as a team is sharing the responsibilities by allowing each member of the team to provide their own knowledge and talents and then work together to "put it all together".
Chapter 15 discusses implementing our project. We are well underway, although I didn't get as much done this weekend as I had planned. Part of my problem is that I get so sidetracked when I find to ideas. I want to add it all. Then I get overwhelmed. I need to focus on weeding out. One of the problems I am continuing to have is that when I try to open my videos and websites on Firefox, I have no sound. I can open it on Safari. So I guess one of the issues we need to make sure is implemented is that Safari is used as the internet access.
In reading Kirkpatrick's model, he explained the four levels of evaluation.
1. Student reaction - did they like it?
2. Student learning - did they learn what was expected?
3. Student behavior - can they and will they use the skills they learned?
4. Student results - evaluation
Since I am the one in charge of evaluating the students who practice on our program, it will be up to me to follow these levels. I think the most important thing is for them to be able to actually learn the skills of map making and reading and be able to retain what they have learned. In addition, it will be helpful, further on, to know the names of the continents and oceans and learn about our 5th ocean. I am excited to try this program out. It's 11:59 and I am signing off. On to another assignment.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Lesson 4: Implementation Phase
Lesson 4 Implementation Phase
The question I focused on in the Chapter 10 reading was determining whether our project is teaching what it is suppose to. Evaluation will be used in our project to show if we were successful in teaching the objectives and if the project was learner friendly. When designing my part of the project, I wanted to make sure that I was sticking to the objective and not just adding fluff. Our practice evaluation will give us an idea of what we need to tweek. For our age group, 1st-2nd graders, we will implement standards-based assessment. Students will be asked to perform authentic tasks such as drawing their own maps and constructing their own model of a community. They will self-test on an online program by locating directions on a map and labeling continents and oceans on a map. The program will correct according to numbers of attempts and print off a score for the student.
In response to chapter 11, evaluation instruments, and considering the grade I teach, 2nd, the two evaluations that I prefer are Portfolio Assessments and Anecdotal Records. I have always used portfolios with my students. Some of the benefits include, being able to show progression throughout the year and have artifacts on hand for parents. There is nothing better than seeing the look on a child’s face when they compare their beginning of the year work to their end of the year work. In addition, I love using Anecdotal Records. I have a file for each subject with layered index cards, one for each student. It is so easy to walk around the room and jot down notes on these cards. I can then specifically praise a student for something I saw them do without trying to remember which student did what. Notes are also great for referring to when you need to reteach a subject or small group just a few students that don’t seem to be getting it. I actually learned about Anecdotal Record keeping at UVSC preschool while doing an internship there. I have used it ever since. However, for the purpose of our online project, our evaluations will mainly be comprised of testing skills and behavior by having the students draw and create maps and self-test using on line programs.
Chapter 12 taught me about conducting formative and summative evaluations. Since I will be the primary evaluator of our project this is an important aspect for me. I will use formative evaluation in making sure our practice students understand the instruction and can enter data correctly on the computer. I will be able to note if they understand the exercises according to their questions. I will also be able to note how long each activity takes, or if it is too difficult or too simple. Through these evaluations I will be able to tell if our material was well designed and accurate for the objective. Using the summative evaluation, I will be able to note if the learning objectives were met. I will be able to measure the effectiveness of the lessons by evaluating the student’s final projects and scores on online testing. I will also be able to record my observations of the learners’ behavior. I will then be able to take these results back to my team so that we can make any changes or improvements necessary to make our program run smoothly.
From reading the ADDIE Evaluation Phase I was able to comprehend the importance of implementing all the steps in the ADDIE project outline. The evaluation phase will help us, as a team, provide a review for our project. We want to make sure that our project is user friendly and that the objectives have been met. I especially liked the question geared toward quality and timeliness, "What can we do in the time that we have?" I hope that, as a team, we will be able to get the project done and get the project right. The needs analysis phase is important to make sure the content is in correct order and the activities and exercises are complete. We need to be able to assess what the students have learned and make sure the course is user friendly. Through the instructional design phase we created a task analysis map and aligned our objectives with our teaching instruction. We each took the responsibility of creating one of four courses that follow the main objective. From there we decided which elements each of us would use, storyboard, websites, video, power points and internet activities. From these objectives we formed our training evaluation. It will include student response, learning, and results.
I have to admit I have felt rushed in preparing some of my material. I have not had access to my own computer for over a week. I am hoping it will be back on Monday. I have prepared my power point and online activities, but I am waiting for my MAC to put voice and music to my powerpoint and create my reading video.
SNAP! I''M 20 MIN. LATE. PLEASE SAY YOU'LL ACCEPT THIS!
The question I focused on in the Chapter 10 reading was determining whether our project is teaching what it is suppose to. Evaluation will be used in our project to show if we were successful in teaching the objectives and if the project was learner friendly. When designing my part of the project, I wanted to make sure that I was sticking to the objective and not just adding fluff. Our practice evaluation will give us an idea of what we need to tweek. For our age group, 1st-2nd graders, we will implement standards-based assessment. Students will be asked to perform authentic tasks such as drawing their own maps and constructing their own model of a community. They will self-test on an online program by locating directions on a map and labeling continents and oceans on a map. The program will correct according to numbers of attempts and print off a score for the student.
In response to chapter 11, evaluation instruments, and considering the grade I teach, 2nd, the two evaluations that I prefer are Portfolio Assessments and Anecdotal Records. I have always used portfolios with my students. Some of the benefits include, being able to show progression throughout the year and have artifacts on hand for parents. There is nothing better than seeing the look on a child’s face when they compare their beginning of the year work to their end of the year work. In addition, I love using Anecdotal Records. I have a file for each subject with layered index cards, one for each student. It is so easy to walk around the room and jot down notes on these cards. I can then specifically praise a student for something I saw them do without trying to remember which student did what. Notes are also great for referring to when you need to reteach a subject or small group just a few students that don’t seem to be getting it. I actually learned about Anecdotal Record keeping at UVSC preschool while doing an internship there. I have used it ever since. However, for the purpose of our online project, our evaluations will mainly be comprised of testing skills and behavior by having the students draw and create maps and self-test using on line programs.
Chapter 12 taught me about conducting formative and summative evaluations. Since I will be the primary evaluator of our project this is an important aspect for me. I will use formative evaluation in making sure our practice students understand the instruction and can enter data correctly on the computer. I will be able to note if they understand the exercises according to their questions. I will also be able to note how long each activity takes, or if it is too difficult or too simple. Through these evaluations I will be able to tell if our material was well designed and accurate for the objective. Using the summative evaluation, I will be able to note if the learning objectives were met. I will be able to measure the effectiveness of the lessons by evaluating the student’s final projects and scores on online testing. I will also be able to record my observations of the learners’ behavior. I will then be able to take these results back to my team so that we can make any changes or improvements necessary to make our program run smoothly.
From reading the ADDIE Evaluation Phase I was able to comprehend the importance of implementing all the steps in the ADDIE project outline. The evaluation phase will help us, as a team, provide a review for our project. We want to make sure that our project is user friendly and that the objectives have been met. I especially liked the question geared toward quality and timeliness, "What can we do in the time that we have?" I hope that, as a team, we will be able to get the project done and get the project right. The needs analysis phase is important to make sure the content is in correct order and the activities and exercises are complete. We need to be able to assess what the students have learned and make sure the course is user friendly. Through the instructional design phase we created a task analysis map and aligned our objectives with our teaching instruction. We each took the responsibility of creating one of four courses that follow the main objective. From there we decided which elements each of us would use, storyboard, websites, video, power points and internet activities. From these objectives we formed our training evaluation. It will include student response, learning, and results.
I have to admit I have felt rushed in preparing some of my material. I have not had access to my own computer for over a week. I am hoping it will be back on Monday. I have prepared my power point and online activities, but I am waiting for my MAC to put voice and music to my powerpoint and create my reading video.
SNAP! I''M 20 MIN. LATE. PLEASE SAY YOU'LL ACCEPT THIS!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Lesson 3: Development Phase
Reading this week's assignments finally made everything start to click! I think I finally realize what we are doing and the purpose behind it. O.K. I admit I'm a little slow. I was having a hard time connecting what we were reading to what we were doing. I underlined a sentence in the article "Experts Edge" to describe how I was feeling, and I quote, "In many contemporary training programs, all information is provided before practice starts and is presented in a manner that unnecessarily increases extraneous cognitive load." No offense intended, but I was feeling the extraneous cognitive load.
As I read chapter 9 on developing instructional materials, everything started to make sense. Maybe it was the part about "staying focused". Ya, I admit I have a problem with that. That's why they give me all the ADHD kids in my class. Anyway, I was able to see how we need to understand the development phase in order to proceed with our class assignment of developing our online instruction. I learned the importance of making the instruction concrete and controlling the step size.
The section on self-paced learning reminded me of an article I read recently on home-schooling. I am not a proponent of home-schooling, however, if someone is set on home-schooling their children, self-paced learning seems to me to be the best option. As an educator, I would feel better about children be schooled at home by this method rather than being taught strictly by their, possibly competent, parents.
When I was searching for the best program to complete my Master's Degree I first looked at online programs. I looked into the University of Phoenix. One of the strengths was being able to do it on my own schedule. However, one of the weaknesses was doing it on my own schedule ...and the lack of "self discipline combined with procrastination." Another limitation was cost. It was extremely expensive. In the end, I was grateful for the e-mail I received from UVU promoting this Masters program. It seem to fit the bill for me.
Back to the reading... I did not feel the ADDIE article on successful training development or prototypes applied as much as the Course Development Process, Tabletop Review and Pilot Testing. Course Development requires us to make sure the material meets the learning objectives and if the material will work. One question I had is if you want us to assign specific tasks within our teams such as writer, editor, graphic designer? (You probably already told us this, but I was probably trying to figure out how to use my computer. ) The goal of the tabletop review is to make sure the content is accurate and complete. It is important for us to go through our project to check for accuracy and completeness. (Was that redundant?) My question for the Pilot Testing is whether we should test it or have a child of appropriate age test it. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to have a child test it to make sure it is child-friendly?
I have not added to our project online this week because my computer is in Memphis hopefully receiving some "logic." However, I have been adding to my part of the lesson plans and gathering ideas and websites for our group. We seem to be on schedule. Our main problem may be having too much and having to scale down before our "table top review."
Now the question is...have I put you on cognitive overload?
Thanks for all you do and being so patient with us.
As I read chapter 9 on developing instructional materials, everything started to make sense. Maybe it was the part about "staying focused". Ya, I admit I have a problem with that. That's why they give me all the ADHD kids in my class. Anyway, I was able to see how we need to understand the development phase in order to proceed with our class assignment of developing our online instruction. I learned the importance of making the instruction concrete and controlling the step size.
The section on self-paced learning reminded me of an article I read recently on home-schooling. I am not a proponent of home-schooling, however, if someone is set on home-schooling their children, self-paced learning seems to me to be the best option. As an educator, I would feel better about children be schooled at home by this method rather than being taught strictly by their, possibly competent, parents.
When I was searching for the best program to complete my Master's Degree I first looked at online programs. I looked into the University of Phoenix. One of the strengths was being able to do it on my own schedule. However, one of the weaknesses was doing it on my own schedule ...and the lack of "self discipline combined with procrastination." Another limitation was cost. It was extremely expensive. In the end, I was grateful for the e-mail I received from UVU promoting this Masters program. It seem to fit the bill for me.
Back to the reading... I did not feel the ADDIE article on successful training development or prototypes applied as much as the Course Development Process, Tabletop Review and Pilot Testing. Course Development requires us to make sure the material meets the learning objectives and if the material will work. One question I had is if you want us to assign specific tasks within our teams such as writer, editor, graphic designer? (You probably already told us this, but I was probably trying to figure out how to use my computer. ) The goal of the tabletop review is to make sure the content is accurate and complete. It is important for us to go through our project to check for accuracy and completeness. (Was that redundant?) My question for the Pilot Testing is whether we should test it or have a child of appropriate age test it. Wouldn't it be more beneficial to have a child test it to make sure it is child-friendly?
I have not added to our project online this week because my computer is in Memphis hopefully receiving some "logic." However, I have been adding to my part of the lesson plans and gathering ideas and websites for our group. We seem to be on schedule. Our main problem may be having too much and having to scale down before our "table top review."
Now the question is...have I put you on cognitive overload?
Thanks for all you do and being so patient with us.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Thanks for the 2nd chance to try this blog writing again. When I got home today, my computer wouldn't start up or shut down, it wouldn't even recharge with the plug. You know, my computer is the one with the big crack. Anyway, I'll have to take it in. So, I am using my daughter's pc which I have no idea how to use, so bear with me.
As far as my reflection for last week, I am trying it over. My readings included Chapters 5-8, ADDIE Design Phase, John Keller's ARCS, Blooom's Taxonomy, but not Maslow's Heirarchy as I could not get that to load.
In Chapter 5 I focused on the need for objectives. I realized that stated objectives are necessary for both the teacher and the student. For the teacher, objectives guide the instruction and for the leaner, objectives help them plan and prepare and let them know what the expectation is.
Chapter 6 highlights for me were the benefits of using sequencing. Sequencing provides the opportunity to organize the conent to a scheme and provide a method for presenting the content.
Chapter 7 probably had the most meaning for me. It involved strategies. I always seem to be looking for better strategies to make my teaching more meaningful. I appreciated the steps that were lined out on how to design your instructional strategies by reviewing each objective to determine in which cell it fits best, to generate a strategy, and finally to develop the instruction based on that strategy.
In Chapter 8, I chose to focus on using pictures with my instruction. Pictures can provide concrete references and are used to interpret text, especially in the primary grades.
I felt that Bloom's Taxonomy was a lot of reading and a lot of review. It could have been wrapped up on one page "in a nutshell": the three domains, cognitive, affective & psychomotor and the concept of developing competence by stages.
The reading I got the most out of was John Keller's ARCS. According to Keller, there are four steps in the instructional design process. Attention, using surprise and stimulating curiosity. Relevance, increasing motivation by meeting needs, modeling, and choice. Confidence, by allowing the learners to succeed. Satisfaction, based on motivation not by over-rewarding or negative consequences.
As far as our practical learning as a team, I feel we are right on track or maybe even ahead of the game. Lucky for me, we have very computer savvy and talented people on our team (ie: Mary). We have decided on a content area, maps, that is covered in both the 1st and 2nd grade content. This way we will all be able to reep the benefits of this project in our teaching this year. We have mapped out our Map curriculum (ha, ha, get it..."mapped out"). We have chosen four objectives to work with. Each of us has added our content to our task analysis chart. We pretty much all have our basic lesson plans. We have found a video to go with our theme and posted it. We have started our story board. We have all of our pictures in order but we are still working on the text and music. Mary helped me (well truthfully, she pretty much did it, but it was my idea!) to have a song with music and text for the students to learn. We are choosing between several webquests. As we come across websites that we think are relevant, we add the link to our site so we can all view them and then choose the ones we want to use. The funniest part about our site is the way Mary and Angela keep going in and changing each others templates. I guess whichever one is there when we present, will be the one that stays, or they can change it later for their own use.
On a personal note, I have created a class website. So far I have a welcome page with my contact information, a News! page, a supply list and my daily schedule posted. I still need to add a Resource page among some other pages I would like to add.
So, I think that about covers it. I was a little overwhelmed today with storyboard, but luckily Mary has it all under control. Afterall, I only just created my very first powerpoint yesterday! Yea! See, I am learning.
Thanks again for all your help and especially your PATIENCE!
As far as my reflection for last week, I am trying it over. My readings included Chapters 5-8, ADDIE Design Phase, John Keller's ARCS, Blooom's Taxonomy, but not Maslow's Heirarchy as I could not get that to load.
In Chapter 5 I focused on the need for objectives. I realized that stated objectives are necessary for both the teacher and the student. For the teacher, objectives guide the instruction and for the leaner, objectives help them plan and prepare and let them know what the expectation is.
Chapter 6 highlights for me were the benefits of using sequencing. Sequencing provides the opportunity to organize the conent to a scheme and provide a method for presenting the content.
Chapter 7 probably had the most meaning for me. It involved strategies. I always seem to be looking for better strategies to make my teaching more meaningful. I appreciated the steps that were lined out on how to design your instructional strategies by reviewing each objective to determine in which cell it fits best, to generate a strategy, and finally to develop the instruction based on that strategy.
In Chapter 8, I chose to focus on using pictures with my instruction. Pictures can provide concrete references and are used to interpret text, especially in the primary grades.
I felt that Bloom's Taxonomy was a lot of reading and a lot of review. It could have been wrapped up on one page "in a nutshell": the three domains, cognitive, affective & psychomotor and the concept of developing competence by stages.
The reading I got the most out of was John Keller's ARCS. According to Keller, there are four steps in the instructional design process. Attention, using surprise and stimulating curiosity. Relevance, increasing motivation by meeting needs, modeling, and choice. Confidence, by allowing the learners to succeed. Satisfaction, based on motivation not by over-rewarding or negative consequences.
As far as our practical learning as a team, I feel we are right on track or maybe even ahead of the game. Lucky for me, we have very computer savvy and talented people on our team (ie: Mary). We have decided on a content area, maps, that is covered in both the 1st and 2nd grade content. This way we will all be able to reep the benefits of this project in our teaching this year. We have mapped out our Map curriculum (ha, ha, get it..."mapped out"). We have chosen four objectives to work with. Each of us has added our content to our task analysis chart. We pretty much all have our basic lesson plans. We have found a video to go with our theme and posted it. We have started our story board. We have all of our pictures in order but we are still working on the text and music. Mary helped me (well truthfully, she pretty much did it, but it was my idea!) to have a song with music and text for the students to learn. We are choosing between several webquests. As we come across websites that we think are relevant, we add the link to our site so we can all view them and then choose the ones we want to use. The funniest part about our site is the way Mary and Angela keep going in and changing each others templates. I guess whichever one is there when we present, will be the one that stays, or they can change it later for their own use.
On a personal note, I have created a class website. So far I have a welcome page with my contact information, a News! page, a supply list and my daily schedule posted. I still need to add a Resource page among some other pages I would like to add.
So, I think that about covers it. I was a little overwhelmed today with storyboard, but luckily Mary has it all under control. Afterall, I only just created my very first powerpoint yesterday! Yea! See, I am learning.
Thanks again for all your help and especially your PATIENCE!
Monday, June 8, 2009
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