Reflections+on+EDLD+5368


 * Reflections on EDLD 5368- Instructional Technology **

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In order to stay current and accommodate the diverse needs of our students, online learning has become a necessity in modern education. It allows students to take charge of their learning process and access curriculum on demand. All teachers can benefit from allowing students access to curriculum on demand. Students can work on concepts and get additional practice/lessons without being confined by traditional school hours. The New Media Consortium (2011) found that people’s expectations for when and where they learn have changed and education in a digital age demands educational systems that can be mobile and accessible anytime and anywhere. The continued use of Web 2.0 tools, up-to-date infrastructure and a constructivist learning environment set the stage for e-learning to continue to boom in our educational communities. In a constructivist classroom, “learners build personal interpretation of the world based on experiences and interactions” (Dabbagh, 2006, p. 1). This is the perfect setting for online learning where students engage in a virtual classroom and interact and learn in a self paced manner. ======

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I plan on using the course I designed during EDLD 5368 as staff development in conjunction with my Internship work with our technology facilitator. In addition, I plan to implement a virtual curriculum in all of my classes to allow for communication with students and access to lessons and course curriculum outside of school. Working in conjunction with our campus technology facilitator, we plan to offer online technology training and staff development next school year to save time and resources and allow teachers 24/7 access to staff development resources. I was impressed to hear from course colleagues that several of their districts offered online courses already, some using Black Board. In my district, we began offering an online course using Black Board and hope to expand those offerings in the future. ======

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Although Schoology is an impressive and easy to use software, I am still working on making to courses more user friendly. I love that it has a grade book component so that assignments can be graded and scored all within the software. In addition, the ability to create and post online tests allows me to create and maintain my entire course within Schoology (Schoology, 2010). I would like to work on the organization of the course so that the students easily understand the sequencing and what goes next. I’m not clear on if Schoology allows you to organize the curriculum into compartments or “Weeks” as is done in our online curriculum for this course but I would like to explore this option to ease course navigation. ======  **References **

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Dabbagh, N. (2006). //The instructional design knowledge base//. Retrieved on March 18, 2012 from [] ======

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Schoology.com. (2010). //Schoology user manual//. Retrieved on March 18, 2012 from [] ======

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The New Media Consortium. (2011). //The NMC Horizon Report: 2011 K-12 Edition.// Retrieved March 11, 2012, from New Media Consortium: [] ======