EDLD 5368 Instructional Design/Week 5

The benefit of educators designing and implementing online courses includes giving students 24/7 access to their education. The more educators that are capable of designing cohesive, effective and engaging online lessons opens the door for more learning in a 21^st Century environment. As Mark Prensky states, “Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students. This doesn’t mean changing the meaning of what is important, or of good thinking skills. But it does mean going faster, less step-by step, more in parallel, with more random access, among other things” (Prensky 2001) .  As well as learning that is engaging, teachers will need to learn how to develop, monitor and ensure that the online course meets all the expectations and standards set by federal, state, and district. I plan to use my course initially with teachers on my campus.  Before I dive into presenting it to the whole staff, I will first ask a couple of teachers to look through the course and offer suggestions.  Since this is the first course that I have designed online, I hope to verify that I have covered all necessary areas for a thorough and comprehensive introduction into Project Based Learning. I am also planning on presenting the material that I have collected as a class in a professional development that my district is offering in June.  Even though the class will not be online, I am able to use the knowledge that I have acquired through preparing this online course to present a well-thought out and developed lesson.  Now that I am aware of the ease of online course development and have “crossed that bridge”, I hope to put information online.  I can see using it with a topic as basic as how to use the teacher wiki, to a more in-depth lesson as in the one I created for this class, raising awareness about Project Based Learning and Essential Questioning.  I hope to even open this up to model for the teachers how to create an online lesson.  I could also create lessons on our school’s Broadcast room and a “Behind the Scenes” of our “KBZZ, The Buzz” video production.  I hope to share what I have learned with my principal and vice principal and all us brainstorm potential topics for online staff development.

 I thought this is a good illustration of all the aspects of all that online learning encompasses.                           


                                                                          

I would like to know more about what our district offers students regarding online courses.  Even though I do have a daughter in high school, I am neither informed nor knowledgeable about online courses offered.  I also need to delve into the online course management systems to better understand how the grading aspect works.   I am excited about the material presented and learned in this course.  I see online learning as an integral part of education in the 21^st century and hope to become an active participant in developing and designing more online learning opportunities.  In the immediate future, I hope to bring an awareness of online learning to the staff at my school.  I can see optional training sessions for those teachers interested in using online learning to supplement their grade level/subject area curriculum.   

Resources

Picciano, A, & Seaman, J. (2007). K–12 online learning: a survey of u.s. school district administrators. Retrieved on May 5, 2010, from http://www.sloanconsortium.org/sites/default/files/K-12_Online_Learning_1.pdf

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Marc Prensky © 2001 From On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001) Retrieved on 5/1/10 from: http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/