Final Blog Post

Virtual schooling began approximately a decade ago, and is not going away. Districts, administrators, educators, students, and parents need to be informed of this educational opportunity. In this WSU course, I have learned a great deal of information about online education. I feel almost embarrassed to admit that I did not even realize, prior to this course, that there was an online education graduation requirement for students, and I have been teaching high school students in Michigan for 12 years.


This week, I was able to reflect on the scenarios for this blog from three different perspectives; as an educator, as a parent, and as a student. As an educator, it can be intimidating to have virtual schooling as another avenue for students, because of the possibility of districts having declined enrollment in the traditional classroom settings. Hopefully when the competition increases, teachers will rise to the occasion, and the students will reap the benefits. As a mother, I am amazed with the options that my own children will have as they go from elementary school to high school. Virtual schooling has come so far in the past ten years, it's hard to imagine what changes will take place in the next ten years! As a student myself, I love the idea of taking online courses conveniently from my own home. Having a family, a full time job, and trying to complete my Master's degree has been difficult. However, it has been a lot easier this semester not having to drive from Romeo to Detroit twice a week! I am grateful for the online education that I am receiving.


When I think of all of the different types of students within my own classroom and school, I can completely understand how virtual schooling can truly benefit some students in certain situations. Currently, in the district where I teach, students readily complete credit recovery online classes, and the district has been providing this option to students for the past 5 years. My district has also offered a select few students the opportunity to take online classes that are not offered within the district. However, I do not feel as though the district provides a lot of information to the staff, students, or parents about all of the actual virtual educational opportunities that are available to all students. If my district continues on the current path, I can imagine that they will probably continue to introduce the virtual classroom to students, but at a slow rate. Hopefully, over the upcoming years, more people will become informed, and ultimately the students will be provided with the best possible education that they can get!

Week 12 - Part 2: Virtual Schools

Virtual Schools - Part 2


After reading the articles on virtual schools and online classes this week, I was most surprised to read that Michigan was one of the first states in the country to create a graduation requirement for high school students which mandates some form of online learning experience prior to graduation. This information was new to me, and I have been teaching for 12 years. I was also surprised to read the facts about Michigan Virtual High Schools, and how quickly they have gained new courses, new students, and new instructors over the last 10 years. It was unbelievable to read about the growth of these aspects of online learning in the K-12 setting from one year to the next.

Before the readings from this week, I reported that in my school district, students were taking advantage of the virtual classroom from two different avenues. One was the group of students that wished to take advanced classes online that were not available within our district. The other group of students that were benefiting from the online classes were the students that were trying to regain credit in a class that they had previously failed. The readings on virtual schooling addressed both of these groups of students as some of the students that have been reaping the benefits of online classes.

In regards to the "Top Ten Myths About Virtual Schools," before these readings I was under the false impression that "Online students are isolated and therefore will be socially disadvantaged." I always felt that it was important for students to be exposed to others students in a classroom setting for the social interaction. I can now see the advantages of online learning for the students that are shy in the traditional classroom setting. Before this class, I was also under the misunderstanding that "Online courses lack interaction." I have had more interaction with this class and the professor, than I have had with the majority of my classmates and professors in my other Master's classes. It is nice to know that even though a course is online, one-on-one interactions will frequently occur with other students in the class and with the instructors.

I think that online classes and virtual schools have the capability of being very beneficial to all students. It is astonishing to see how much progress has been made over the past 10 years in regards to the virtual schooling of high school students. I can only imagine that this will also begin to have an impact on the younger students as well over the upcoming years!

Week 12 Part 1 - Virtual Schooling

Before this course at WSU, I did not know very much about K-12 online learning. However, over the past 12 weeks, I have come to have a better understanding of some of various possibilities on online education.


In the school district where I teach, students have recently been taking online classes to supplement their high school education. They take these online classes to either earn credit in a class that they have previously failed, or as a way to take a course that is not offered at our school. There seems to be a variety of students that take these types of online classes, and they take them from multiple locations. Some students prefer to participate in their online courses from home, but there are also students that would like to remain in the school setting, and they do their online coursework in the computer labs.

Week 7 - Judging the Quality of Wikis and Non-Vetted Sites

When I think back to my high school years and writing research papers, I remember the huge set of encyclopedias that my parent’s had in their basement and the hours spent in the library trying to find books related to a specific person or concept. Locating professional journals through the card catalog, and then trying to hunt them down in the library was a task in and of itself. When those research papers were completed, one really felt that they truly “researched” and documented a topic.  The idea of researching now, has a whole new look about it. Whether the research is done in the comfort of one’s own home, at school, in the car, or waiting in line at the grocery store, there is continuously information available at one’s fingertips. The internet provides information on almost everything imaginable. Wikipedia and YouTube are just two resources for such information. I understand that both of these sources can contain misleading information, and are not necessarily always reliable sources of information. However, I do believe that the beneficial information that they can provide, outweighs the misleading information, so I do use both Wikipedia and YouTube at times in my own classroom. When trying to locate a quick formula, or how to video, Wikipedia and YouTube are usually the first to come up during an internet search. However, when researching a topic for a paper, I believe that credible, professional resources need to be used. I have educated my students on the pros and cons of the sources like Wikipedia and YouTube. I think that they realize when it is acceptable to use them as a source of information.

Week 7 - Building and Refining your PLN

Feedly

Upon searching for blog posts related to mathematics education, I was able to find quite a few interesting blog sites to follow. I decided to add the following to my Feedly account:

http://math4teaching.com/ : I chose to follow this blog because it contained a lot of great math resources for classroom. These resources included math videos, Geogebra lessons, math games, printable worksheets, and math problems of various levels to be investigated.

http://realteachingmeansreallearning.blogspot.ca/ : This blog incorporates numerous open-ended upper level math projects and lessons that would be great for the math classes that I teach.

http://blog.hoodamath.com/ : The Hooda Math Blog discusses how to use math games to help  students from 1st grade to high school, learn math curriculum related to the Common Core State Standards.

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/ : Dan Meyer’s blog contains a lot of useful information on how to incorporate technology into education. He has been blogging since 2006, and has numerous blogs that relate real-world math examples.

Twitter

When searching through Twitter to find math related educational accounts, I was amazed with how many resources were available. I have not used Twitter at all prior to this class, because I was under the misunderstanding that Twitter was simply used for people to follow celebrities, or brag/whine  about things that they are doing on a minute to minute basis. On Twitter, I quickly found many accounts that support mathematics education, and would be very useful in my classroom. I starting following a lot of new people/organizations, the following is a list of some of the accounts that I thought looked like the best resources for math, education, or technology use in the classroom:

https://twitter.com/GoogleForEdu - Google for Education - Supports technology use in an educational setting.

https://twitter.com/khanacademy - Khan Academy - Contains supplemental resources that include video presentations of math topics.

https://twitter.com/themathforum - Math Forum - This site has numerous math activities to help engage students.

https://twitter.com/mathletics_usa - MathleticsUSA - An organization that discusses math topics and how to engage students.

https://twitter.com/danielle6849 - Danielle Hartman - An educator who wishes to help instructors Integrate technology into the classroom.

Reflection

So far this semester, I really have not had a lot of time to try to use these resources in my own classroom. However, I would like to begin to incorporate some of the wonderful lessons and strategies that I have recently found on Twitter and blog posts into my curriculum. I plan on sharing these resources with my colleagues at our upcoming PLC meeting. In order to help improve my information gathering skills, I would simply like to have the time to devote to explore what is available on the the Twitter and blogger accounts that I have found. I also think that I will need to come up with a way to organize the information that I find.

Week 4 - SAMR Model

I teach Algebra II, Geometry, and Analysis/Trigonometry to high school students in the Math/Science/Technology program. My district has provided the students and teachers with various forms of technology that can be used within our classrooms, and I am continuously looking for the most effective ways to integrate it into my curriculum.

Substitution: I currently use “Kutasoftware” for my math classes. The website provides very useful worksheets that can be printed and used to help students get extra practice working out various math problems. The website breaks its lessons down by math class, and then by specific curriculum topics within the class.

Augmentation: In my classes I have used a testing program called “Examview,” which is a great test generator for various math textbooks. Teachers can create their own tests and the students can take tests on the computer. I also use an online program called “InQsit” for testing my students. The teacher creates the test for the students, provides a link to the test, and then students take the test online. One other resource that I use in my classroom for practice tests is the online assessment program for the actual textbook that is used for the Analysis/Trigonometry class that I teach. Students are all given a username and password for their textbook, and they have access to the practice tests after every lesson and at the end of every chapter. These programs are all great to use in the classroom because the students can get immediate feedback on their assessments.

Modification: In all of my math classes, we are able to incorporate the use of the graphing calculators in order to enhance lessons. Calculators are available to all students within my class, but some students do not have access to this resource when they go home. Therefore, we have started to use online graphing calculators in the classroom, along with an online program called “Geogebra.”  These programs allow students to dig a lot deeper into various math problems.

Redefinition: I would like to begin using shared Google documents for notetaking within my classroom. I think that this could be very beneficial to use with my students as a review before an assessments, or as a unit summary.

Week 2

"People are scared of change.” This was the topic of our priest’s homily today. As I sat in church listening to him speak, I began reflecting on the topic of this week’s readings, videos, blog entry, and my school year. I quickly came to the conclusion that this message is absolutely true in many aspects of our lives.
A few years ago, I was given a new set of graphing calculators to use in my classroom. I was really excited to use  the new technology with my students, so I decided to spend a day exploring the devices with my students. I was quickly surprised with the reaction of my students. The freshmen students were very comfortable trying out the new calculator. They helped out one another, myself included, and explored everything that the new device had to offer.  When I gave the calculators out to my sophomore classes, I was greeted by a little more opposition. Students wanted to know the benefits of using the new technology, and were somewhat more hesitant to try to explore the calculators on their own. By the end of the class period, I was able to convince the majority of the students that the graphing calculators were actually much better than the ones we were previously using in the classroom. The last class that I had to introduce the graphing calculators to was my juniors. I would have never guessed that the students would have reacted in much of the same way as my mother did when we bought her a Kindle Fire for her birthday. The students felt that the new calculators were unnecessary and difficult to use. The majority of the students were almost fearful of the new devices. They did not want to explore on their own, and needed to be guided through the entire lesson. By the end of the hour, many students still felt that they preferred their old graphing calculators. Toward the end of the school year, most students were using the new technology, but there were still some students who refused to let go of the old devices.
Looking back at this graphing calculator experience, I can now say that I may have personally experienced the crossover from the Millennial Generation to the Generation Edge of students. Within one day, I was able to compare one aspect of technology to three different age levels, and see three vastly different ways of thinking.  Marc Prensky categorizes people as “Digital Natives," referring to those born into the digital age of technology, and “Digital  Immigrants,” those who have experienced the digital change over the past years. My freshmen students were acting with many of the characteristics of both the Generation Edgers and Digital Natives. Whereas, the sophomores and juniors definitely displayed characteristics of the Digital Immigrants.
As a mother of three Generation Edge children, I am fascinated watching them use technology on a daily basis. In our home we have been blessed with a plethora of technology. My own children know how to use an iPhone, iTouch, iPad, laptop, Kindle Fire, digital handheld games, and other gaming systems. Much of what they know about these devices has been taught to them by trial and error. They do not require any manuals for learning how to use any of these technologies, nor do they become frightened with the idea of using something new. However, they do become excited and embrace the idea of experiencing the latest and greatest technologies that are available to them without hesitation. Knowing that these generational differences are occurring before our eyes is important. Marc Prensky thinks that the biggest problem facing education is the teachers of older generations. I can only speak from my own personal experiences, but I know that it is important to stay up-to-date with the latest and greatest technologies because ultimately our students need to be engaged in order to learn. This is no different than ever before. However, the methods of engagement are changing. I believe that ultimately teachers want what is best for their students, and they will use whatever means necessary in order to achieve this goal.

Change is scary, but also inevitable. We need to learn from the past, embrace the new, and look forward to the future. If we can help pass this message on to our colleagues and youth, we could all benefit from what is to come and realize that we are not in this alone. Note, I will print this blog first to edit, before it is uploaded.  Some habits are just too hard to break!