Michael C. Warren

Looking back at the assignments for EDLD 5368 Instructional Design, I focused much of my attention in this course to the development of an online assignment through the website schoology.com. This course content management system was new both to Lamar educators as well as to us.  One of my biggest concerns that I can see school systems having is that student data is stored on a website that is hosted elsewhere and out of their control.  While our school district has taken the first leap in allow some data to be hosted with an external source, as we have moved our web hosting to eChalk where students have unique logins, and our pdas and student information is also posted through eduphoria’s SchoolObjects product.  Overtime I see that we will move our classrooms to web based scenarios.

One of the difficulties our school will run into is the cost of online course management solutions.  Such solutions as Blackboard can cost in the range of $10,000. While other solutions like Moodle are relatively free, but they are open source and may cause a risk in data.  For a while I worked with Moodle hosted on my personal server with students using to take tests and turn in assignments.  What I found is that it did take a large amount of time to initally get things up and running.  I was surprised that most teachers were not interested in moving to an automated based system in which students could log in and take a test and have it grade it instantly.

From what I have learned from my initial perspective to now is that while technology offers many new opportunities to learning, it is not easily implemented. Is it the lack of knowledge by teachers as to how to implement it, or is it just not wishing to change methods?  In either case it seems an online system that can be initiated over and over again, year after year would be the smart choice.

In using Schoology, I thought the site had some benefits, but lacked in a number of areas that was offered in Moodle. Looking at the service now, I can that it has grown significantly itself since we used it in our course.  It was good to work with students and fellow cohorts in testing out the Schoology service. We each created assignments and had others test them and provided feedback.

EDLD 5368 – Instructional Design

When educators really begin to consider online learning they may have many doubts that it is a reliable form of education. In many instances this is a case of teachers who have not experienced an online learning system.  Over time more and more teachers will at some point be involved in an online learning environment, either as a student or as an instructor.  I feel that once involved in online learning and understanding how to develop an online course they will understand many of the benefits it has to offer.  I believe they will see that once the course is created it is easy to reuse it over and over and make modifications to it as time goes on. In addition multiple teachers can add to the same course, allowing a broader educational experience for the student.  If online learning systems continue to progress, more and more information will be integrated, such as email, TEKS information, lessons from other educators from around the world, and an increased ability for parents, students, and educators to increase communication.

The online course that I developed for the Instructional Design course using the online learning system Schoology will be utilized at the beginning part of my Web Mastering course next year.  Since our school is currently in the process of moving from a large static web site to a content management based system that will also in some ways act as our learning management system, I will be looking at how I can introduce it into that system or keep it with Schoology or even integrate it into a product I use from my own server called Moodle.  In any case I will be integrating online learning in more depth in the 2010-2011 school year.

As part of my action plan I will be rewriting my curriculum for my technology application courses and will be moving much of it to one of these online systems. In the past I have found it is very useful because it can save me time on grading, provide a location for students to turn in work and even keep their work in a location that is hard to lose, unlike a flash drive or even paper.

My plan to Integrate online learning at our school is twofold,  I will start by converting my courses over to an online learning system over the summer.  This will integrate approximately a fourth of the school student population into using an online learning system.  Since my courses cover grades 9-12, it will offer a chance for students to have time to integrate with online learning by the type they graduate.

The second part of my plan is to begin integrating staff development through the online learning system. This will begin to require teachers to have to interact with the online learning system as well.  If our new web site / content management systems offers a built in course management system it will offer an additional incentive for our teachers to begin migrating to an online system in which I will be one of the staff that leads the staff development of the program.

As the course comes to an end, I take into consideration my experience with online learning in while I do not have any questions on the topic, because I feel it is going to be a growing development in our educational and professional environments, I do feel I have gained much more information to support my stance on how this is a growing part of the educations system. Will it take the place of formal education? No, but it will offer an opportunity for a better education for a broader range of the population; from those in our towns who can’t make it to the school, to those around the world that may not have the opportunity to good local education, or to help people expand their knowledge base from just a local environment and into a global learning environment.

My goal has been to “teach technology”, but as I progress in these courses I see that it is becoming where I want to “teach technology in order to advance others”.  Technology has long been a passion of mine, and after years of tech support, and then migrating to the field of education, I only see that this is the path I am to be on at this point in my life.  I plan to integrate what I can into our school district by opening up new forms of learning opportunities whether it be a tool that a teacher uses or a new piece a software that a student has never thought he would ever learn.

When educators really begin to consider online learning they may have many doubts that it is a reliable form of education. In many instances this is a case of teachers who have not experienced an online learning system.  Over time more and more teachers will at some point be involved in an online learning environment, either as a student or as an instructor.  I feel that once involved in online learning and understanding how to develop an online course they will understand many of the benefits it has to offer.  I believe they will see that once the course is created it is easy to reuse it over and over and make modifications to it as time goes on. In addition multiple teachers can add to the same course, allowing a broader educational experience for the student.  If online learning systems continue to progress, more and more information will be integrated, such as email, TEKS information, lessons from other educators from around the world, and an increased ability for parents, students, and educators to increase communication.

The online course that I developed for the Instructional Design course using the online learning system Schoology will be utilized at the beginning part of my Web Mastering course next year.  Since our school is currently in the process of moving from a large static web site to a content management based system that will also in some ways act as our learning management system, I will be looking at how I can introduce it into that system or keep it with Schoology or even integrate it into a product I use from my own server called Moodle.  In any case I will be integrating online learning in more depth in the 2010-2011 school year.

As part of my action plan I will be rewriting my curriculum for my technology application courses and will be moving much of it to one of these online systems. In the past I have found it is very useful because it can save me time on grading, provide a location for students to turn in work and even keep their work in a location that is hard to lose, unlike a flash drive or even paper.

My plan to Integrate online learning at our school is twofold,  I will start by converting my courses over to an online learning system over the summer.  This will integrate approximately a fourth of the school student population into using an online learning system.  Since my courses cover grades 9-12, it will offer a chance for students to have time to integrate with online learning by the type they graduate.

The second part of my plan is to begin integrating staff development through the online learning system. This will begin to require teachers to have to interact with the online learning system as well.  If our new web site / content management systems offers a built in course management system it will offer an additional incentive for our teachers to begin migrating to an online system in which I will be one of the staff that leads the staff development of the program.

As the course comes to an end, I take into consideration my experience with online learning in while I do not have any questions on the topic, because I feel it is going to be a growing development in our educational and professional environments, I do feel I have gained much more information to support my stance on how this is a growing part of the educations system. Will it take the place of formal education? No, but it will offer an opportunity for a better education for a broader range of the population; from those in our towns who can’t make it to the school, to those around the world that may not have the opportunity to good local education, or to help people expand their knowledge base from just a local environment and into a global learning environment.

My goal has been to “teach technology”, but as I progress in these courses I see that it is becoming where I want to “teach technology in order to advance others”.  Technology has long been a passion of mine, and after years of tech support, and then migrating to the field of education, I only see that this is the path I am to be on at this point in my life.  I plan to integrate what I can into our school district by opening up new forms of learning opportunities whether it be a tool that a teacher uses or a new piece a software that a student has never thought he would ever learn.