Creating An Online Community - Student will be able to use all the online tools to foster and develop relationships with each other.
Wordle - 5 pts | Post Wordle with description to discussion forum; view and discuss at least 3 other students' wordles. |
SORT Assessment – 5 pts | Take introductory survey; Read Assessments article and take SORT Assessment; Take SORT Assessment results survey; post reply to three writing prompts and discuss with at least 3 others; Assessment: Survey results automatically posted to instructor's database and Discussion Forum Rubric |
Thy Kingdom Come – 5 pts | Read article and take Thy Kingdom Come quiz; Take Building a Community of Learners survey; post personality on website and discuss with at least 3 others; Assessment: Survey results automatically posted to instructor's database and Discussion Forum Rubric |
Organize Online Collaborative Tools – 10 pts | Skype – post username to discussion forum PBworks – invite classmates and instructor to join your page Adobe Contribute – download and configure during the third week of the course!!! Google Docs – invite classmates and instructor to leave comments on your document |
Step 1
Let us begin with an icebreaker. Students will write a paragraph about themselves and place it into a WORDLE.
Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. http://www.wordle.net/
Follow the link below to see my example.
My Results
Describe your current educational setting. Are you a practitioner or pre-service teacher? What is your current teaching assignment or major field of study? What is your interest in teaching online?
¨I am currently an 8th grade Special Education teacher with one small group and two co-taught classes in Language Arts. My interest in learning to teach on line is because I strongly think it is the future of schools in the twenty-first century.
Next have student read an article on how to be ready to start an online class and how it may help in them in the future. See my results below.
Next have student read an article on how to be ready to start an online class and how it may help in them in the future. See my results below.
¨ Compare and contrast any two of the assessments described in the article, discussing which features you feel would be most relevant to your present or future students.
¨I enjoyed reading about The University of Georgia’s Student Online Readiness Tool (SORT)(2001), which consists of six research based interactive assessments that are designed to help learners assess their readiness for online learning. This I think is very similar to The Wisconsin Virtual School which focused on personal skills and aptitudes for taking online courses. They both have identified six attributes that contribute to student success. What I liked about UGAs was the immediate feedback provided by the six modules. This would be great for adults or younger students thinking about taking online classes. UGA module consists of a brief description, an interactive questionnaire, immediate feedback, and strategies and suggestions for each module. This provides instant feel back to the assessment taker and this is what all students enjoy as we live in a world of instant gratification. Wisconsin Virtual School students take a Browser test to ensure that their computers have all the necessary components and plug-ins required for the course(s). This is the only section missing from UGAs assessment. Anyone of features would be relevant to my present and future students. This I think would help them to decide if they are ready to begin an online class.
Step 2
Step 2
Are you ready for an online class? Take the following to see:
¨ Share the results of your SORT assessment. What are your strengths and weaknesses in terms of being prepared for online learning? Be sure to include any areas in which you feel you may need assistance or advice.
¨It appears that I have good skills for reading complex materials and expressing my ideas in writing. My organizational skills, self-discipline, and willingness to interact with others will help me succeed in an online class.
Step3
Step3
Building an Online Community of Learners
In this module we will begin to build our community of learners by:
- creating in an interactive web ice breaker activity and posting the results to the discussion area
- describing our current educational settings and interest in online learning
- completing an online learning readiness assessment and discussing our individual results in the discussion area
- organizing our online collaborative tools and exploring our Blackboard site
- responding to an article on online learning communities.
