Week 4 (Halfway There for This Journey)

 This week I learned a very valuable lesson: the devil is in the details. I really have to pay close attention to instructions. If I miss the little things or leave out details, how can I successfully create clear and concise lesson objectives for my students?

This week was very intense. Its not easy working in a team environment, there are so many things you have to be concerned with. You have to make sure that you are communicating with everyone and you stay on top of deadlines. Trust is crucial when working with teams. My team is pretty motivated and we are all concerned with delivering a great product. Our motivation?,  we will be utilizing the tools that we create for our own personal toolboxes so we all have vested interest in getting it right.

What I learned this week is the importance using more than one tool to assess student learning.  This will provide you with many opportunities for you to adjust/revise your teaching strategy to help a struggling student. From the video, "An Introduction to Comprehensive Assessment,” not all things will require a classroom assessment or can be truly measured by a classroom assessment. The learning that students receive in the classroom sometimes can only be fully assessed based on their success or failure in the application of the learning after the books are closed or they have signed off from their last online class. Take a moment to swing by the Team Oscar the Grouch Assessment Toolbox webpage when you get a minute. Let me know what you think. Click on it under my link list.

Self /Peer Assessment (A Few Brief Words)

This is pretty difficult to do, but if you can pull this off with respect for the person being assessed, all people involved can benefit from the experience. You have to remember,  "assess the results and not the individual." I am overly hard on myself when it comes to self-evaluation. It’s a fine line that requires the right amount of balance. You don’t want to walk on water and you definitely don’t want to appear as a lifeless lump.

Random Thoughts (Murf Original)

"Collaboration  is cooperation dependent in the same location."

"Collaboration is time dependent in an online environment."

Week 3 Reach Back (Assessment in E-Learning)

Our team has been working on researching assessment tools for our midterm project. We are exploring several different assessment tools. It’s a win-win, because we shared our knowledge, learning a little more about the importance of using more than one tool to effectively and accurately assess learning. 

 

The discussion board this week really expounded on the topics presented by Curtis Bonk, (30 Emerging Technologies for e- Learning) and their possible impacts on online assessments. We focused on the major elements of the Perfect Storm: emerging technology, enormous learner demand, enhanced pedagogy, and erased budgets.We also discussed several of the emerging technologies and their related impacts.

For a newcomer, such as myself,  to e-learning these Perfect Storm elements are critical to understand and be able to cope with to ensure the educational success of my online learners. I will have to be able to weather the storm to keep my future students focused on the destination instead of the journey.

We also had to develop a concept map for our learning objectives. The concept map really helped me to see my learning objectives. I was able to develop my objectives by integrating activities and assessments from an expanded view. It helped me to think critically about the structure, content, and relativity of the objectives to my topics and my over all lesson plan.

Week 3 Initial Post (Assessment in E-Learning)

Last week I alluded to how challenging that I thought that Assessment in E-Learning would be in the coming weeks. Man, was that an understatement. With all the the discussion posting, content mapping, and team projects we have to do over the next couple of weeks, it's going to be like stacking grease marbles with a catcher's mitt on an incline. Whew, say that 3 times while you running from a pack of hungry dogs wearing a meat suit. I'm looking forward to this challenge. I am the official president of Team Oscar the Grouch (Team OtG). We have been collaborating , communicating, and updating. These are a few of the good qualities that every team needs. Oh, when you get a chance, check out my LO Concept map. Hold on tight, I ain't done yet!!

Closing Out Week 2 (Assessment in E-Learning)

There were some great discussion topics related to blogging and their use as an assessment tool this week. I was wrestling with ideas of how to apply this to my leadership development workshop. It's not an online e-course. For the time being, it's a classroom facilitated workshop. I have to really develop a way to get this online and utilize the power of reflective discussion. We have a mix of digital natives and digital immigrants working for the DoD, so that would be a consideration in the design of the e-course  Putting this workshop online could definitely reap the benefits of the technology, it's just a matter of time and money, mostly money. I will continue to prepare for this challenge by learning as much and as fast I can over the next several weeks.

I have to admit, getting this blog together was a little stressful. My classmates have awesome layouts. From what I can see from their examples, you can be as creative as you like.

E-Learning Classes

Closing out the E-Learning for Educators this weekend, woo hoo!! That class really rocked. I'm glad that I will have access to all the discussion posts and reading references for one year, I will need that time to refer back to all that information.

Assessments in E-Learning will present me with equally challenging and exciting tasks. I designed my own personal web page for E-Learning for Educators. For this class, I have created a blog. I will figure out this whole technology thing eventually. Looking forward to the next several weeks with new and former classmates.

Making My Blog Presentable

Maybe I am getting too deep in the weeds with this thing. Burned a little bit of midnight oil working on my blog. I don't want design flaws to be a distraction. More changes to come. At this point, it's usable. I will take any suggestions for improvement.

Week 2 Reachback (Assessment in E-Learning)

     The last couple of days I have been reading, posting, and replying to my classmate’s posts on our discussion board. I have been getting great insights related to blogging and it’s application as an assessment tool. I have really been reading and researching a lot on creating blogs.  I really want to have a user-friendly blog site. This would be great if I could implement it at my job. The biggest hurdle with this is the security concerns with my IT department. I will approach that bridge when I get to it, for right now I will continue going through the resources and ideas being provided by my classmates.

             I have been reviewing my classmate’s blogs. They have great layouts. They have given me the inspiration to continue to develop my site in order for it to be educational for me and a nice information resource for people who view it. I got some great incite from the article regarding reflection strategies. I don't have the capability or administrator privileges to create blogs at my job. (security concerns).  I use the good old pen and paper method. I utilize this in my leadership development workshops. Our reflection exercises are very powerful tools that helps my participants to look back on their experiences, write about them, and share them in small group.

Assessment Results: Teacher-centered or Learner-centered

    
 I thought this was a good assessment of my knowledge of teacher and learner centered assessments. My responses were based on my interpretations of the the differences between the two. I have a better understanding of the differences and I think this will help me to develop relevant methods to assess my future students both online and in the classroom.

Starting My Blogging Journey

Hello Bloggers!! 

This is my first stab at doing this, so I hope I’m getting this right. I am currently enrolled in the University of Wisconsin’s E-Learning Graduate Certificate Program. The are several courses in the curriculum. I am currently taking the Assessments in E-Learning course. This blog will be a chronology of my educational journey through the program. I have never blogged before; this is all new to me. If I break a blogging rule, please let me now. I do not have a desire to get blogged down. (Ha Ha).

Eventually this blog will become a part of my e-Portfolio. You will see many changes. I am open to any and all help, suggestions, and feedback. With that being said, blog on!!

Reaching Back Week 1 (Assessments in E-Learning)

I never would have thought that talking about movies would be such an interesting icebreaker.  please take a look at my contribution, below,  to the discussion. There were so many movies references. I liked this idea because it sparked memories of families and good and bad times. Having the courage at the first meeting to speak freely about personal things breaks down barriers and often put people at ease. The really amazing thing to me was how the icebreaker activities had tie-in to an article by Mr. Michael Buhagiar that was required reading for the first week.  We had great discussions related to assessments.

Ice Breaker Activity: Let's Go to the Movies (Assessments in E-Learning)

       I don't know if many of you are familiar with the Griswold Family, but over the years they have been on several vacations. Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) have been to Wally World, Europe, and Vegas. The film most meaningful to our family is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Synopsis from the DVD, "It's Christmas time and the Griswolds are preparing for a family seasonal celebration, but things never run smoothly for Clark, his wife Ellen and their two kids. Clark's continual bad luck is worsened by his obnoxious family guests, but he manages to keep going knowing that his Christmas bonus is due soon."

       The film most meaningful to our family is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The main point of the film, for me, is nothing's more impotent than family. No matter how eccentric, family is important. Since 1989, this movie has been a family tradition for my wife, son, daughter, and me. We put on our matching pajamas (my wife buys these each year) and gather our snacks. Every Christmas, even though we almost know the lines by heart, there is no conversation, only laughter and enjoyment of the film. It's been harder to keep the tradition since my kids joined the military. But, they have their own copies and at the same time, each year, we sit to watch the movie. It reminds us of the importance of just stopping our hectic schedules and enjoying family. This is something that we talk about and plan for each year. 

Blogging Newbie (My Blog is is Born)

This is part of an assignment in my educational journey discovering the importance of assessments. I am currently attending UWStout online. My course for the next 8 weeks is EDUC 762 - Assessments in E-Learning. This blog will become a part of my e-portfolio.