The LMS Process

When I first started looking into a learning management system (LMS) I had a couple concerns, the main one being “How would I ensure that my students were doing the actual work and not cheating the system?” Throughout the course I came to look at this question differently. Rather than worrying about something that I didn’t have complete control over, I asked myself what the harm was in the student cheating. Obviously there is the problem that a student is earning a grade that he or she didn’t deserve, but in the end it actually hurts the student more than the system. The student is losing out on the additional learning opportunity that I am giving her or him. The student will then either do poorly on the next quiz in class or will have to work extra hard later to make up for slacking off in that instance. Either way, I can’t worry myself sick about that, instead I need to do my best to ensure that as much learning as possible is completed with less opportunities to cheat, the rest is up to the student.

On this same topic, I also came to wonder, is it so bad to cheat online? Everywhere you go nowadays there is usually Internet access. So if a student is looking up the information for a quiz online, aren’t they also learning the (possibly more) practical way of figuring out information, a skill that they will use for the rest of their life? I asked myself this question after reading this article by Punya Mishra, the Director of the Master's in Educational Technology Program at Michigan State University, All you can cheat, the web and learning. It really puts into perspective which tool is potentially more useful; knowing how to look up quality information on the Internet or knowing the past tense of a verb in Spanish.

The most useful thing I did to prepare for creating an LMS was check out all of the different LMS’s and examples of completed work for each one. Many of the LMS’s have different features, and many people are looking for different key items, so no LMS is one size fits all. The most interesting thing for me was that, when I looked at great examples from other people, I was always impressed with the final outcome, but then when I got into the system myself it maybe was too complicated to figure out or it didn’t quite have what I wanted. It’s important to make a list of all of the must haves, and then all of the wish list items. Compare LMS’s with all of your must haves and then compare wish list items.

For example, one of my must haves was the same class but with different class sections. Thus I could always put up the same information, but then change the due dates and the calendar for each of the four sections that I have. I also wanted a site that I could leave up all of the information year round, but only let the students see which sections I wanted them to see. That way I wasn’t continually redoing what I had already done in the past. With both of these must haves I ended up choosing the Haiku LMS. Since then I have been very pleased with everything that I have been able to accomplish.

However, everything that I learned or figured out about the LMS didn’t come directly from exploring the LMS itself, but also from exploring other user’s work. It was through their work that I was able to expand my own capabilities, so it is very important to check out other people’s work as well.

One of the biggest things that I struggled with was thinking more in terms of face-to-face learning at first, and just transferring that onto my site. I limited myself by what I did in a classroom, rather than embracing all of the amazing tools that I had right at my fingertips on the web and the LMS. I also limited myself at first to what the LMS showed me and walked me through, because I was more comfortable with what I already knew. Through looking at other people’s work, pushing myself to try new things, and being pushed by my teacher to look at my work in different ways I was able to get more out of the LMS, though I still have more work to do. The longer I worked on the LMS the more comfortable I got and the more new things I tried. As I tried new things, I started to think outside the box and I started thinking more of online learning rather than face-to-face learning like at the beginning.

Really the best advice that I can give when creating an LMS is to not be too hard on yourself. Give yourself the chance to explore and become comfortable with it. Just like in the classroom, there is always modifications and improvements that can be made to any lesson. But you have to try it in order to know what to change and change takes time. So give yourself the time to improve and don’t expect a perfect and completely done LMS . . . ever. Just know that you are helping and encouraging a lot of different students by giving them one more tool for success.

To check out my Haiku LMS go here: https://www.myhaikuclass.com/busha/spanish1a/cms_page/view/5693728

To check out other thoughts on my LMS process check out my Developer's Notebook that I used throughout the entire process to brainstorm and receive feedback:

https://docs.google.com/a/msu.edu/document/d/1FxfU4EIQGrjRYxHQJbR0GfB4cePJEn1BSUW7bYJBvpA/edit#

My Technology Lesson Reflection

Please read my reflection on how my Technology Lesson went and how I would change it the next time around.

Thanks!
Srta. Bush

My lesson plan for the actual use of the technology, which was Jing, included the students signing into Jing, testing their microphones, and learning how to use Jing. Once I gave the tutorial of how to use Jing, the students created a short video about anything for 30 seconds to try it out and see how it works. After that they were free to use Jing to record their story when they were ready. To prepare them for reading their stories I created a PowerPoint in Kiosk mode where I recorded my voice in Audacity and hyperlinked each recording to a button of the vocabulary word. Once they practiced the correct pronunciation they would record themselves using Jing and listen to the result. If any of their pronunciation was off then they would return to the PowerPoint for additional support and rerecord in Jing until they were satisfied with the result. The only change from the original draft is that I did have all of the students create a story rather than using a video online.

Unfortunately, the implementation did not go as well as I had hoped. I did this lesson with my 6^th grade Spanish class and every aspect of completing this project took way longer than anticipated. There was a lot of preparation that needed to happen for the actual technology lesson to happen. All week long the students created stories in Spanish with 9 different scenes, then made a storyboard, then created a PowerPoint presentation of their story where each slide represented a different scene. The intention was that the students would complete this part of it within 3 days, but it pushed into 4 and left little time to complete the technology piece before this assignment was due.

I ran into many problems where the technology was concerned. A few students didn’t have emails so I had to sign into Jing for them. My pronunciation PowerPoint worked beautifully, but the technology at school wouldn’t allow me to place it in a shared folder so that all of them had access to it. Therefore not a single student was actually able to practice their pronunciation, which really was the point of the entire lesson. By the end of the hour on Friday only about a fourth of the students had successfully created a Jing video of their story and had been able to upload it to screencast.com, and we started this entire project on Monday.

The learning goals included having the students see how they sound when they speak Spanish and analyzing their pronunciation. However, what I think was actually learned focused more on the preparation lessons of writing the story than on the actual pronunciation since they had nothing to practice from and the actual lesson was so rushed at the end. Next time I would spread out the preparation over a longer period and do it in small pieces so that there was more of a focus on the pronunciation and recording than the story. This would also make it more obvious that the purpose was to supplement the existing curriculum rather than seem like a huge weeklong ordeal.

In order for this lesson to be successful the teacher and the learners need to know how Jing works. Jing needs to be downloaded on the computers that the class will use. The teacher needs to be able to explain how to use Jing and to teach the students how to use it. The learners need to know enough words in Spanish to tell a story and they need access to a microphone. I was lucky enough to have already had Jing installed on the computers because of my Technology class, but otherwise this might be more of a hassle than it’s worth. The advantage is that students are able to wear headphones and record their own voice without other students listening. This dialed down the shyness of speaking Spanish for most students. Also each student worked at their own pace. This was the key to taking into account the important differences among learners, along with each student being able to work at their own level of Spanish since they wrote their own scripts.

I saw elements of behaviorism as the students recorded their videos multiple times. I heard comments like “I sound like a robot” and “I sound so funny.” Many of the students were surprised by the technology and how the recording made them sound so they continued to record until they liked what they heard, which was their ultimate reward. Since my pronunciation PowerPoint didn’t work, I didn’t see the constructivism that I hoped to see with the students mimicking my pronunciation. From these responses you can kind of see the reaction that the students had to the technology. They had fun with it but were still self-conscious about hearing themselves. I definitely think the headphones made a huge difference, since no one else could hear what they sounded like.

This project ended up being more trouble than it was worth, especially with all of the problems that arose. The students didn’t truly complete the essential part of the project, which was working on pronunciation. I think that with more planning and spreading out the pieces this could be a beneficial project, though I think I would focus more on the pronunciation PowerPoint and them practicing with Audacity than using Jing. I think that the concept behind this is still very good, it just needs some tweaking to really hit the main learning target.

Digital Storytelling

Please check out my digital story on teaching Spanish through two different methods.

Enjoy!

Audio Production on Understanding

Please check out the following podcast that I created using Audacity. It gives a great insight into how both teachers and students can create misconceptions and some things you can do to avoid that. Happy listening!

Wicked Problem Project Finale!

The following two videos are part one and part two of an overview of the entire Wicked Problem Project. Please check it out and try it out!


Part 1:



Part 2:


Problem:  "Each day, about 5 million children walk into 274,000 classrooms nationwide and find a substitute. Students today will spend at least one full year with a substitute by the time they graduate from high school -- a figure that's higher in poor schools and destined to increase (http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010107subs2.asp)."

Unfortunately, this is not something that can be changed as every teacher needs a substitute at some time or another. However, the true issue is the fact that you never know what type of substitute you are going to get. They most likely don’t know the students, the material, or anything about classroom management. A Post-Gazette study found the following when it came to substitutes in the classroom:

• "In all but one state, substitutes now need no teaching certification whatsoever to take over a classroom, according to the Post-Gazette's research
• In at least 28 states, principals are allowed to hire anyone with a high school diploma or a GED. Often, the minimum age requirement is 18
  
• A Post-Gazette study of national test scores shows that states with lower academic achievement are twice as likely to allow less-qualified substitutes in the classroom (post-gazette.com)."

These findings are horrifying, but also no surprise to most teachers who have seen the results of a poor substitute before. Therefore there are two choices a teacher can make when leaving sub plans for an unknown sub; one is to chance it and give the substitute new material, hoping they will come through for you, and the second is to leave a ton of work for the students to do so the substitute only has to monitor all of the students while they work on content they already know.

On more than one accounts I have heard the second option described as “losing a day” as the teachers feel like they lost a day of instructional time, while the first option, being a gamble could result in success or the possibility of “losing 2 days” as the teacher has to take the next day to fix all of the misconceptions that the substitute taught the day before. I have witnessed all scenarios first hand and I’m sure that all of you experienced with the daily life of a teacher can recall the very same things.

Solution: If the actual teacher can’t be in the classroom, the next best thing is to have a recording or video of the actual teacher with vidcasts and slidecasts. This keeps the students engaged and the actual teacher would still be able to teach the students and walk them through the process step by step.

A vidcast could be simply a video of the teacher teaching the lesson in the normal way with possibly a whiteboard or a smartboard, while a slidecast could be a voiceover of the teacher explaining the concepts with a powerpoint presentation. In both cases the teacher would have to do little extra work because they were already prepared to teach that very same lesson. In the case of the vidcast they just have to take the original lesson and video tape it or if they already had a powerpoint slide ready they could complete a slidecast. It would only take the normal time to present the lesson as you tape it.

There are many ways in which this could be accomplished including Jing, Audacity, Screencast-o-matic, and Slideshare. For these free online programs the only additional technology needed outside an internet connection is a microphone to record your voice. There is also Movie Maker that comes on a PC and iMovie that comes on a Mac. With these two programs you would also need a video camera if creating a movie of the teacher. All that a substitute would need to show the students was a single computer in the room and a projector, which is almost standard in most classrooms these days.

This works perfectly in the case of absences that you know about in advance, but what about the case when it is a last minute absence? In this case you could use vidcasts from a previous year if you have it, or borrow a vidcast from another teacher. Not only would this be beneficial with a substitute but teachers could also learn new ideas for teaching material through viewing other teachers’ videos. What an amazing bonus! To see another teacher talk about her ideas and how she incorporates videos in her classroom when a substitute is present check out this site.

TPACK:

1. What is the TP knowledge for the solution?

I teach Spanish using the TPRS method, which is Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling. The students learn an action for each word and they make the action as they say the word. As the teacher, I ask a lot of either/or and yes/no questions in order to get the students practicing the words out loud and to increase the number of times that the students hear the words. The more times they hear the words the more likely they are to remember it. After practicing the words I read a story with the words in it and have some of the students act it out. The last step is for the students to read a story on their own and translate it to English. With the videos, I focused on the gestures and the repetition of the Spanish words.

This is a very hands on method of teaching that is hard to teach if you have never experienced it nor learned how to do it. Therefore, even if a substitute is able to speak Spanish they are unable to teach the class using the TPRS method. Taking a video of myself teaching while using this method really supports and continues the TPRS method even while I am out of the classroom. In the videos, I focused on the gestures and the repetition of the Spanish words, so I encourage the students to do the actions with me and to answer the questions. They are getting the full experience of my teaching method, minus me being able to tell if all of the students understand what I’m saying. But that is where the substitute comes in. The substitute should be monitoring the class, pausing the video when additional explanation is needed or more wait-time is needed or replaying part of the video if the students need additional practice.

2. What is the TC knowledge for the solution?

Most often substitutes don’t speak Spanish and therefore don’t know how to pronounce any of the words. By using this technology I am ensuring that the students hear the correct pronunciation for all of the words and that there is no confusion about what the word means. I am giving the students another way to access the vocabulary that they wouldn’t usually be able to have when a substitute is present.

It also demonstrates to the substitute how I teach and what all of the information means. This would help if the substitute did speak Spanish and wanted to continue my method of teaching after the video was over. This would also help any non-Spanish-speaking substitutes so that they know what is going on and what the students should know or have learned based off of the video.

3. What is the PC knowledge for the solution?

By using the TPRS method, I am able to reach all of my students through different learning strategies. The students have the Kinesthetic method of doing a gesture that directly relates to the word and many times doing the gesture helps the student to remember the Spanish word.

Then I have the auditory method where the students are hearing the word but they are hearing the word in context to ensure the most understanding. They hear the word repeated multiple times to give every student the opportunity to really learn the word.

Finally, the students will also get to visually see the words when they read a story. Students have every way to access the content, though most significantly is usually the motivation. The students love making the gestures and acting out the stories. They know that they need to know the words in order to be able to know what to do when they act out the story, so they pay more attention.

Group Leadership Project

To create the 10 min. tutorial on how to use a wiki collaboratively in the classroom, we used many different tools. First we used google presentation to collaboratively create the slides, which was mainly Stacy and my job with input from the other two. Then Debbie used slidecast to add her voice to the slides. Debbie chose Screencast-o-matic to give her voiceover to the slides because she hadn’t had a lot of experience with it and wanted to explore something new. It also meant that she could simply upload the slides and adjust her voice to each slide as she went along. She did do a version on Audacity as well, in the event that Lisa wanted the voice and slides separate. Finally Lisa used iMovie to put the final touches on the presentation with other slides and transitions. Lisa chose iMovie because she had access to it and had the most experience with it. I definitely feel that both made a great choice after seeing the fabulous final product. To share the movie, Lisa uploaded it to YouTube, which took six hours! I had no idea it would take that long!

I think for the development of the final product I mostly learned about compromise and letting little things go. I had a vision of what I wanted the final product to look like, as I’m sure the other group members did as well, and sometimes it was hard for me to be open to some of their ideas when they didn’t match mine. But all my closed-mindedness created was a block in the production. To move things along and come up with a quality finish, I had to trust my group members to come through for me both in their ideas and in the work that they produced. I think the final product shows that we all gave and took for the betterment of the project and came up with a really great finish.

Although I really liked our final product, I would have liked to incorporate a little bit more animation or interaction with the slides if we had had more time. For example, if we had actually done a screen capture of us showing how to leave a comment on a wiki, rather than taking a screencast and circling what we wanted them to notice. I think the slides all looked very professional and were well done, but in the future I would be interested in seeing how I could take the slides to the next level with the animation. It’s actually something I really look forward to getting my hands into this summer.

Check out our amazing presentation below and please feel free to leave any thoughts, ideas or suggestions!

Personal Learning Plan

Throughout the three educational technology classes that I have taken, CEP 810, 811, and 812, I have set many goals for myself, both personally and professionally. It's time now to review those goals and see what I have accomplished and what I still plan to work on. So check out my video at the following link:

Personal Learning Plan