Google Apps Reflection

I did not like working with the classroom 2.0 blog platform. It was one I was previous unfamiliar with and I found it difficult to use. Some of the more dominant blog sites I have found are more user friendly.

          There are so many Google Apps available that I definitely do not know all of them exist. The ones I have worked with extensively include Google Docs/Drive, Google Calendar and Gmail. All of these are used my entire school to help us be more productive. Instead of printing a million forms for the teachers in my school to use, we just put the form on Google docs and anyone who needs it can print it off. We also use the shared portion of the calendar to keep our work calendars aligned. I would like to work more with Google forms and Google sites. I have created both forms and sites to use in my classroom this year, so we shall see how that turns out. I am hopeful for successful immersion. I could also use a Google site to communicate with parents about what is going on in the classroom. I use my Gmail to send communication to parents weekly and keeping all of their addresses in a Gmail mailing list is extremely helpful.  

Differences in online vs traditional plans

Activity 3: Project - Finding Similarities and Differences between Online and Traditional Learning

Online Learning	Traditional Learning
Standards Learning activities Assessments Incorporates Blooms and Marzanos Lessons need to be more flexible Incorporate a lot of technology Independent work only No disruption of the lessons	Standards Learning activities Assessments Incorporates Blooms and Marzanos Rigid structure Technology not as predominant Can use group work Plan for specials and brain breaks and assemblies

I did my interview of an online student, not a teacher. So I do not have access to a specific online lesson plan. However, I have gleaned a lot of information about online lesson planning in my research of the differences between online and traditional school.

I think that there are a lot of similarities between online lessons and traditional lessons. There are probably more similarities than differences. I do feel though that there is a lot more “fluffy stuff” in traditional lessons. We need to teach kids procedures and put in brain breaks and account for fire drills and things such as that. But the heart of the lesson plans, the actual instruction is very similar. Many of the Marzano strategies are present in both types of lessons. Homework and practice are a little bit different in online learning, because the learning is occurring at home.

Online Student Interview

I interviewed an 8^th grade student of online education. Her name is Aspen and she attends Connections Academy online. She very much enjoys the online learning environment because of the freedom it gives her in her day to day life and studies. She also likes getting to sleep in every day. Even though she has more flexibility, she still has a daily schedule. The day begins for her at 8 or 9am. She works on classwork on her computer for much of the day and is usually done by 3 or 4 in the afternoon. She does have “homework” in that she has extra projects that she works on each evening. So her time constraint is very similar to a traditional school student. Aspen had never before been to a traditional school, so she has nothing to compare her online experience to. At the beginning of each school year, Connections Academy holds a picnic for all teachers and students to meet and mingle. There are also face to face end of the year parties. They do follow the same school calendar as brick and mortar schools. Other than that, she does not meet with teachers face to face throughout the school year. At the beginning of every school year, students at this online school watch a video tour of the “school” Internet platform. This gives them an overview of how the website works and what to expect during the school year. Because Connections Academy is a public school Aspen still has to take standardized state testing (CSAP/TCAP/PARCC.) She must go to a school building to take these tests, but only once a year. I was very curious about electives for online school students. Aspen said that she doesn’t get all electives, but she does do art. The school sends supplies to her house, she completes the art projects according to the directions online, and then scans and emails her projects to her teachers. The entierity of her workload is independent. Even though there are other students attending Connections Academy, there are never group projects or discussions involving other online students. I was very excited to find out that Internet schools do have field trips though. Students are brought to pre-determined places by their parents. There are not other students or teachers in attendance though. All in all, I was very surprised by a lot of what I heard about her educational experience. It works very well for her and I think that is great.

Researching Online Learning

It is amazing to think that the incredible technologies we posses today did not exist just a few short years ago. These technologies have greatly impacted every industry in the United States including education. Technology has revolutionized the way learn and the way we teach. As educators we need to either embrace this technology or get out of the way as it passes through.  One of the great milestones in technology developed for education is online learning. Online education is constantly changing and improving how it functions. It is important to keep up to date on current events in this field. Other things to take into account when thinking about online learning include the history of online learning in the K-12 environment, how online learning is currently being used K-12 settings, and the advantages versus the disadvantages of K-12 online education as opposed to traditional schools.

            The type of learning we do online today began long before Bill Gates and the Internet came about. In 1840 Isaac Pitman began offering courses through the mail. He went on to later create correspondence colleges. In 1930 the Wisconsin School of the Air began broadcasting educational radio programming, closely followed by the University of Iowa broadcasting educational television programs in 1933. In the 1930s and 1940s the military used video lessons to train soldiers on how to operate specific kinds of equipment. Stanford and Illinois began doing experiments with the concept of K-12 computer based learning in 1965 and 1966.

            After 1966, many strides in technology development were made to allow us to get to the online learning we know today. In the 1970s, telephone networks were popping up in schools. Email came about in the 1980s, as well as audio and computer conferencing to be used in educational settings. The World Wide Web began to make its debut via Timothy Berners-Lee in 1989. By the early 2000’s, technology had advanced so much that many of the previously mentioned technologies, including video conferencing, were no longer being developed and had become superfluous.

            The most basic version of the online learning we know today started in school districts in California in 1993. This was followed by the eSchool in Utah in 1994. In 1997 the Florida Virtual School began along with the Virtual School Global Consortium. Michigan revolutionized the movement of online education by being the first state to require online learning experience in order to graduate from high school.  In 2011 more than a million students were enrolled in K-12 online education. Currently, 31 states have statewide, full time, online schools. It has been predicted that more than 10 million students ranging from pre-k to 12^th grade will attend online classes by the year 2014. This graphic (Nagel, 2009) shows some of the history of online learning:

            Massive Online Open Courses, or MOOCs, are becoming very popular distance learning outlets nowadays. These courses contain traditional materials like videos, readings, and problems to work. They also include interactive forums for discussion and build a greater community among students online. MOOCs are available to many different age groups, not just K-12 students. The New York Times even named 2012 “the year of the MOOC.”

            Khan Academy is an informal online learning environment. This is not an organized school, but it does offer free online learning content. The site was created by a graduate student in 2006 and since then has delivered over 260 million lessons. It began with just instruction in math, but is branching out to other topics as well. These videos are licensed under a creative commons.

There are many different ways online learning is being used in the United States today. Different Internet schools have different purposes based on why they were created in the first place. Some of these reasons include students needing to learn at their own pace, not enough teachers, crowded school buildings, and not having enough differentiated classes available. There are also many different categories of online schools that dictate how the online learning environment is being used. Cavanaugh explains Clark’s seven different categories of online schools (Cavanaugh, 2009.) First of all, there are state-sanctioned schools that operate all across a specific state. Secondly, some colleges have created and sponsored online K-12 schools. One of these schools is the University of California College Prep Online, or UCCP. Next, there are consortium online schools run by a group of schools or even a school district. Then, there are Internet schools operated by a single school or district that are local education agency based. Virtual charter schools have become very popular as in the example of Connections Academy. There are also private virtual schools that run very much the same as traditional private schools. Lastly, there are some for-profit online schools that come through companies as vendors and deliver the courses and materials to students. These are very general categories, and there are a great variety of online schools out there and available to seeking students. The central defining characteristic of all these schools, as well as other types of distance learning, is that the teacher and the student are separated.

Research on theses different types of Internet learning is not quite complete since the concept of virtual school is quite new. This makes many people question how effective the schools are at educating students, and what the effective components of online school actually are. The longer we experiment with these schools, the more data we will have to work with. Much more data has become available in just the past few years.

Fully online programs are not the only way for students to learn virtually. Blended classrooms, flipped classrooms, and flat classrooms are becoming more and more popular in the education world. The core of Blended classrooms are multiple modalities. Blended classrooms take place mostly in an actual classroom, but students and teachers are fully utilizing technology to further the learning going on. This allows for a great amount of differentiation in the instruction each student is receiving. Students generally work at their own pace. This blending of instruction and technology can be taken home with the students for homework as well. This blended learning movement is growing rapidly in schools all over the country. Technology has nowhere to go but forward and technology is the future of our country.

Flipped classrooms take advantage of technology at home and live teacher interaction in the classroom during the day. Teachers create content for students to view online for homework each night. Then the students come into class having already heard the lesson portion of the topic. This allows the teacher to do many different activities during the class period and differentiate for their students. Students also complete what is traditionally known as homework, or practice, during the class when they can get help from the teacher and their peers. It makes much more sense to do instruction this way, with the lesson delivered in a distraction free environment, and with the actual work being done in class.

Flat classrooms are a rather new concept in the education world. Flat classrooms “remove the walls” of a school and thus make it “flat.” This allows the students to collaborate virtually with teachers and students that live all over the world. Students in other countries receive instruction virtually from teachers in the United States and students here learn from teachers all over the world. This initiative is trying to get students to be more globally and technologically minded while learning and creating strong bonds with kids of other cultures. This is also getting students to be more open-minded and be considerate of people other than themselves.

            There are many benefits of online education over traditional school. Because it occurs online there is a higher level of motivation. Combining anything with technology automatically better engages students. Students need to be engaged in what they are learning. We compare it to the metaphor that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Students need to want to learn. There is only so much teachers can do.

It also gives students access to educational opportunities they would not otherwise have. Depending on their program, they might have a wide array of specialized classes available to them. Some districts have technical schools for student to attend to take specialized classes such as auto shop, carpentry, aerospace engineering, graphic design, multimedia, and video production. However, many school districts do not have such a luxury. Online, students can take classes like these as well as foreign languages and more specified classes that may interest them.

Online learning is also great for students who are often sick, or who live rurally nowhere near a school. In many communities with few school age children or harsh weather conditions, online learning is the only option for those students to have a full educational experience.

Because online learning is greatly individualized, it is beneficial for many students. No two students learn the same way or at the same pace. Online learning environments allow for flexibility for students. Children who are gifted have the ability in online learning environments to breeze through work that is easy for them in order to complete higher level thinking activities and projects. These extensions are very difficult for classroom teachers to implement with their talented and gifted students while the teachers have a whole class full of students to accommodate for. This also works the same way with students who have learning disabilities or developmental issues that prevent them from accessing the curriculum at a traditional school. The curriculum can be specified for that specific student and they can receive individual assistance every step of the way.

Another benefit to online school is the life skills that are taught with it. Study skills, self-motivation, and time management are necessary to success in online school. If a child has no desire to learn, they are not going to get their work done. They must be diligent and motivated to work. They also need to manage their time wisely because they do not have a teacher standing over their shoulder saying “keep going” or “you have ten more minutes.” These life skills are needed in the real world, and while children can acquire them at traditional school, an emphasis is placed on those skills in an online environment.

            There are also many disadvantages to virtual education. Even though there are many opportunities available online that are not available in traditional school, there are also many opportunities available in traditional school and not online. Primarily this comes into play in elective classes. Hands on classes are especially difficult. Physical education is hard to maintain on the Internet, as well as art and music. You cannot be in an orchestra over the Internet. Even if you were to “Skype” into an orchestra program it would still not have the same feel. Some online schools allow students to go into public traditional school for classes such as these, but for other children that is not an option, and they are missing out on valuable opportunities.

 Because there is no face-to-face contact in online education, it can be difficult for teachers to “read” their students and determine what their students have learned and still need to learn. It is easy for a teacher to glance around the room and see which of their students are working and which are off task. They can also glance around the room and gauge which children understand and which need further explanation. This is not possible online and students need to learn to advocate for themselves and ask questions when they don’t understand a concept.

Online education also removes a much needed socialization aspect of traditional school. So much of what elementary students learn at school is how to interact with their peers, work in groups, and resolve conflict. If students are learning by themselves online they are not gaining those valuable life skills.

            All in all, online education has an interesting history. This format of learning will become more and more popular as the years pass and as technology continues to become more prevalent in our society. There are many advantages and disadvantages to online learning environments. It is impossible to say that one is better than the other because they are so different. It depends entirely on the specific student and which learning option is a better fit for them. Students and their parents should weigh the pros and cons of each type of learning carefully before making a decision one way or the other. One thing is for sure: technology is education will continue to grow. 

  

Compare and Contrast

This was a difficult compare and contrast table to complete because of all the different kinds of traditional schools and the different kinds of online schools. I put characteristics into categories based on generalizations about each kind of learning environment. There are many exceptions, however.

Traditional Learning Environments	Both Online and Traditional	Online Learning Environments
-Face to face time with students and teachers -Rigid structure -Socialization with peers -Programming greatly affected because of budget cuts   -Has been successful in the past	-Receive similar curriculum -Free public school options -All content areas are covered -Standardized state testing required	-More flexible schedule -Students learn at their own pace -Less distractions than at a school building -Students need to be more self motivated -Programs are rapidly growing -Technology is necessary

Bibliography

Archambault, L., & Crippen, K. (2009). Examining TPACK among k-12 online distance educators in the United States. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 71-88.

Barbour, M. (2010, February 1). The history or k-12 online education [Blog post]. Retrieved from Virtual School Meanderings website: http://virtualschooling.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/the-history-of-k-12-online-education/ 

Cavanaugh, C. (2009). Research and practice in k-12 online learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 

Clark, T. (2013). Virtual schooling MOOC. Retrieved August 13, 2013, from

http://virtualschoolmooc.wikispaces.com/history

Gabriel, T. (2011, April 6). More pupils are learning online, fueling debate on quality. The New York Times, Education, p. A1. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html?pagewanted=all 

Nagel, D. (2009). 10.5 million prek-12 students will attend classes online by 2014. Transforming Education Through Technology. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/28/10.5-million-prek-12-students-will-attend-classes-online-by-2014.aspx 

Online learning: The pros and cons of k-12 computer courses. (2011, June 11). Huffington Post, Education. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/ 04/12/online-learning-pros-and-cons_n_848362.html