On Line Teaching

Week 1: Introduction

I have completed all the assignments during this week. I have downloaded the text book from MCC Library and I kept it as email attachment so I could have access to it regardless of location and the time of use. I have created the Diigo account and joined “MCCPOT”. In addition I have created a blog using edublogs.org and posted my first blog “introduction”.

I have to mention that I hesitated to put too much information about myself or express my opinion where It was not clear who is going to read it….( I have improved a little, but I still have to work on my blogging to be more effective.)

I did read some other posted Blogs , but I did not write any comment nor did I respond to anyone who commented on my post. I also looked the
posted links in Diigo as I received them through my email, but not actively used Diigo to share links with others — I was more a consumer than contributor

And last I attended the first Friday flex on use of Blog as class room with Jim Sullivan.

Week 2: Teaching and Learning Online

During this week I have completed most of the assignments and tried to learn all the different function and applications mentioned in Diigo, in reading assignment, in video,….. As I looked through my notes it was really overwhelming to face so many applications mostly unknown to me. But I decided to learn as much as I can and get to rest later. In addition, at one point I decided to learn everything I can from blackboard,….. I still know that I have a lot to learn. I watched the “Teaching and learning in a network” video – I took notes on the applications that I wanted to check out. I also looked at the other mentioned blogs. I taught each was a class of its own. (Thinking “One day I will get there”). Somehow I have forgotten to read the whole post “RSS the opera way” , and creating the google reader. I have to work on Google Reader during break .

Again, I just looked at other post without comment (I should improve my ability to comment..)

Week 3: Pedagogy and Course Design

I did work through almost all assignments carfully, but I skimmed through the  “Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever”, and I thought “ good/effective communication, practice of active learning tech., prompt feedback, communicating high expectations, and respecting divers ways of learning should be practiced at all time in any online or f2f classroom. During this week, I also looked at cocomments, google doc …

Again I was over whelmed by so much information circling around and not being able to go through all in depth. (I was on a wrong direction  wanting to test and learn everything that was posted…

Week 4: Materials for Online (joined weeks 4 & 5)

During this week I read the whole chapter 3, printed the article and explored introduction to HTML, and sign to Prezi and went through its basic tutorial. I also read several articles on “Rethinking my Lecture”, “Do not Lecture me”… on line. I combined Week 4 and 5 post on my blog.

Week 5: The Online Syllabus (Joined weeks 4 & 5)

I have watched the video “ Interactive syllabus” several times since it was one of blackboard application and I need to do some changes to my syllabus (f2f). I have completed the Ko & Rossen reading. I have also attended the “Creating meaningful Discussion in an Asynchronous environment flex hours at MCC. Now that I am reading the syllabus – I realized I did not fully answer the questions fully in my posts.

Week 6: Creating Presentations

I attended the Ging workshop during flex week, but I could not download it on my computer, therefore, I have decided to modify one of my Power Point and add audio to it. I had a difficult time to load the audio into presentation using slidecast. I had several instructions using the links in Diigo. However, after following several recommendations, I have learned how to do it but had no time to complete it. I learned through my challenge. I did complete the assigned reading and read several posted Blogs to learn from their issues. I have also attended the Flex workshop: “Creating an Asynchronous Discussion”

Week 7: The Online Classroom (Joined with week

I completed the required assignment, joined facebook MCCPOT group and followed their conversation without any post again, signed to Twitter, watched Lisa’s video “Twitter in 2 min”, joined Google+ , but did not activity participate in sharing again (need to work on leaing comments, sharing….). In addition, I watched the Pilar’s video on “Creating the Community”, joined collaborate blackboard Eluminate on building the classroom community.

I did follow the several posted blogs (read some very carefully and followed their posted links), but did not comment on any.

Week 8: Creating Community (Joined with week 7)

Joined the google+ meeting set up by Lisa, and completed reading assignments. I have watched pilar’s video, and most of the collaborate Blackboard  Eluminate set up by Lisa or Tod every Thursday. I have completed my readings, explore the eluminate and other discussion application on blackboard, but did not leave any form of comments (audio, …) for any post. I also attended the workshop for Twitter.

Week 9: Student Activities

I did complete my reading, checked Merlot, watched the second life went through the MIT courseware for chemistry (watched some of their lecture), bookmarked some of the linked in diigo…..but did not post any discussion about what I have done this week. (I have just noticed it now that I have forgotten to post during that week)

Week 10: Open Platforms for Teaching and Learning

I have completed the assigned readings, watched Lisa’s slidecast on Blogging, watched the first Friday eluminate on blogging again, watched Pilar’s instruction of Googlesite sign up.. and signed to Googlesite and created a very simple class room website (I need to put more
time on it to make it useful), I signed in to the google+ hangout meeting Lisa set up.

Week 11: Class Resources and Intellectual Property (post 1) and (Post 2 )

I have completed all the assignment during this week. Again I read others post but no comment given

Week 12: Resources Online / Mid-year Self-Assessment Check

I have completed all assignments this week.  Again I read others post but no comment given.

This week I have decided to concentrate on Open Educational Resources and explore the free lectures, on line books, you tube videos, animations, and other learning objects that I could use to enhance both my advance and introductory course content.  Therefore, I started with Project Gutenburg and open textbook . While going through these sites I also checked the copy right, fair use and other regulations regarding the use of site for educational purpose. It was very helpful to know what (cc) copy right, attribution, noncommercial, no derivative words & ….. signs mean. Keeping in mind the OER have been originally created to help students all over the world to have an easy and not too expensive access to a fair education The free ebook Gutenberg project seems to be a good general book resource for online class rooms. I had a hard time to find a  similar on line chemistry text book (to the text book I am using now, same level). Gutenburg site has a very clear instruction on how to down load the book… to the device you are using,  http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:MobileReader_Devices_How-To.

The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER), has been created to provide a shared source of knowledge including open e-text books to reduce the cost of education for the community college students. The open Text books have been organized according to the topics. When I searched for Chemistry text books – I was lead to so many other links according to subjects, http://www.collegeopentextbooks.org/opentextbookcontent/open-textbooks-by-subject/chemistry.html. 1)I have found many resources for high
school chemistry – this gives the schools ability to reduce the cost of their textbook, http://oerconsortium.org/discipline-specific/.
2) Some of these resources allowed the users to modify and select the sections to be useful for their use; for example
the chem ebook from UCDAVICE,   http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/   allowed the users to print in PDF, had “Talk Page”
sticker on the cover (assuming it has reading to the students function ), had many images and diagrams to be used, had chem tutor section, and student’s  work space (at some cost). I have to mention that the topic was more at the high school introductory chem level. 3)Another
ebook connection  Visionlearning:  http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=54# , had huge selection of books that were linked other sites for purchasing the book  (Amazon.com…..). I also find the tutor at http://www.chemtutor.com/index.html  on the list
of open ebook resources.  Another link on Open ebook resource took me to Flat word knowledge at http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/catalog/editions/p417188
that gave information on a book written by D. Bell “ introductory to Chem – it had audio sign, could have been customized to the users application, -it had a copy right that includes share alike, noncommercial, and attribution fair use license.

I teach on site and every semester, I have students who have a very difficult time purchasing the text book. Finally, I have used the “Open Book
Internet Archive” to search my text books in order to provide and Open ebook resource for my students – I had no luck-all the links did lead me to a site to purchase or borrow a hard copy. I plan to provide links to all the other available resources such as MIT courseware, chemcollections ….to my students-I need to organize them first (I need time).

At the end I have to mention that I do not have a good feeling about providing too many resources to each topic to my students. I think providing few good additional resources to the text book would be an effective focused learning resource.

This week I also checked the MCC Accessibility Training Resources posted on Miracosta site. There is a check list of all the what to do with additional links how to do it. Thank you for posting the link Accessibility/Universal Design On tutorial and resources section of MCCPOT.org

Watching the “Lawrence Lessig, How creativity is being strangled by the law “ interesting and entertaining
Video made me to think twice about what should be considered Plagiarism as the student’s work is concerned. In addition reading Chapter 8 made me to think how much of the online or publisher provided material I am allowed to use in my classroom considering the copy right laws.

1-   Writing essay and paper on chemistry concepts or chemicals are not part of learning outcome in my chemistry
class, but I do ask students to write at least one or two full lab report as they report part of an experimental research project. I often see students copy a portion of their introduction, procedure, or even how to present their data from other resources. This semester as part of my goal for this course – I have set up turn-in assignment for my students to turn in their Full lab report. I have seen students who have used an existing data table or calculation format and replaced all the numbers with their own data. Should I penalize the
students for the originality? I try to convince myself, that they just used the format existed on an online report and modified it to their need.  They have not created something new, but they made it easier and faster for themselves to complete their assignments.  I am still debating about this.

2-   I often use the power points provided with the text book and modify them to my needs and post them on the blackboard for the students use. Am I authorized to do so when the publisher provides the copies or give me an online access to their website to down load the material for my class use? As it is mentioned in “Ko and Rossen “ I taught the fair use of these materials are automatic”. Let examine the four determining factors of Copy Right Laws for Fair Use: What is the Character of use?   I have not use the material for commercial use, and I have not distribute them on DVD or …. I have used them to improve my student’s understanding of chemistry concepts. What is the nature of the work to be used?  Yes, it has a copy right and it has stated that “this work is protected by copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their course…..” I have never paid any attention to this until now. How much of the work will you use?  I normally keep most of the content and modify each slide by rearranging the content, adding more text, changing some images to make the concepts more clear and less crowed. During my break, I may start adding audio to them. What effect do they have on the market for the original work? I do not think it would have any effect since I posted on my class blackboard site that needed a Password to access the material.

3-   My next project is checking the OER for chemistry concepts animation, lecture resouces… . If I use any material, lecture,… form Online Educational Resources such as MIT free lecture/course material or Chemistry Collective material I must remember to make attribution to the organization or the person who provided the OER material.

There is a lot to learn.

Web Content Accessibility:  The only few accessibility factors I have focused on  posting  material for my students on blackboard were “ 1)audio & visual factors, 2) color and text format, 3) availability of programs to down loading the documents. However, now I realize there are more into it than I can think of.  I am sure if I need to create a.classroom site that is easy to navigate as well as being accessible to all form of human and technology disabilities I must make myself familiar to all the concepts discussed at   http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php. I have reviewed some of the guidelines one by one, but I need more time to go through each provided link and get more insight how each function works.

At the end I noticed the following summary on how to validate the accessibility – It makes so much sense

Validate accessibility with automatic tools and human review. Automated methods are generally rapid and convenient but cannot identify all accessibility issues. Human review can help ensure clarity of language and ease of navigation.

Following are some important validation methods, discussed in more detail at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT-TECHS/

1. Use an automated accessibility tool and browser validation tool. Please note that  software tools do not address all accessibility issues, such as the meaningfulness of link text, the applicability of a text equivalent, etc.
2. Validate syntax (e.g., HTML, XML, etc.).
3. Validate style sheets (e.g., CSS).
4. Use a text-only browser or emulator.
5. Use multiple graphic browsers, with:
• sounds and graphics loaded,
• graphics not loaded,
• sounds not loaded,
• no mouse,
• frames, scripts, style sheets, and applets not loaded
6. Use several browsers, old and new.
7. Use a self-voicing browser, a screen reader, magnification software, a small display, etc.
8. Use spell and grammar checkers. A person reading a page with a speech synthesizer  may not be able to decipher the synthesizer’s best guess for a word with a spelling error. Eliminating grammar problems increases comprehension.
9. Review the document for clarity and simplicity. Readability statistics, such as those generated by some word processors may be useful indicators of clarity and simplicity. Better still, ask an experienced (human) editor to review written content for clarity. Editors can also improve the usability of  documents by ntifying potentially sensitive cultural issues that might  arise due to language or icon usage.
10. Invite people with disabilities to review documents. Expert and novice users with
    disabilities will provide valuable feedback about accessibility or
    usability problems and their severity.

Listing these from http://www.w3.org  does not mean that I am cable of going through all the above check points – It only means that just using the technology to validate our document accessibility to students is not enough, inviting the people with disability to review the functionality of the documents is A Must.

I have been working hard to catch up. This week’s assignment “creating a class” web sit has been one of my goal to achiev in this class. I did sign in to google sits and decided to use a template (classroom) to work on. It took me a long time to lean how to get ride of all the existing post and links and through that I learned how to creat one. I know that I have a long way and lost of practices, trails and error to go through in order to learn all the functions, but I will work at them one at time. I love to create a website that maintains an  effective learning environment with an easy way to navigate through information. However, at the end I realized that I either do not know how to up load documents from my computer — or any upload should be stored in Google Docs before its is uploaded or linked on the sit. OR  I may have to link everything on the website to documents already exist in my blackboard site. Any comments! –

Here is a link to my website https://sites.google.com/site/beladichemistry/

It is not a public site -

The Lisa’s video on Blogging and Pillar’s video on her website creation were very effective tools in learning to how use tech in improving online teaching. It would be very benifitial to have a Frist Friday Flex on how to create and maintain a simple class website.

I am almost 2 weeks behind – did not have time to do anything more than keeping up with my reading and stepping in /listening to thursday workshops. I did try to watch the videos and follow up some conversations and recomendations on facebook.

In addition, I tried Lisa’s recommendations on how to work through my difficulties making my slidecast. I used the itune to convert my audacity recording to MP3 and did not work.  I have converted my recordingusing Lame convertor for audacity (lisa’s recommendation)  and ready to load it on my slidshare/slidecast.

This morning I have decided to stay focus on loading audio on my power points instead of being worried that I am behind (have not learned how to use twitter, have not posted anything on facebook, diigo…. or commented on anybody’s post.)

I will catch up– there are so much to learn however they are  moving so fast

Last Tuesday I spend hours modifying my PPT to be suitable
for adding audible explanation for each slid. I did down load Audacity, signed
to Slidshare –downloaded my ppt ready to edit and put voice on it realizing the
editing function does not give me any choice for vice/audio addition. In
addition, I also realized I have to down load MP3 convertor to convert my voice
recording from Audacity to MP3. After hours of trying I gave up – but refusing
to ask for help until now (a week later).
My reason for refusing to ask for help was/is; I may need to sign in to
a course and to improve my tech knowledge first.

On the top of all of these I tried to keep up with the links
posted on the Diigo, or go to computer lab and complete the assignment – but neither
worked.

Here is my Power Point presentation and my recoding (which is not allowed to be loaded because of security reason!!).
Obviously I need help.

As the result of my assigned reading “Ko and Rossen”, checking the videos and websites “PREZI, Basic HTML.., and my experience in the class room ”f2f”,  I have realized I need to have some modifications to method of teaching and as the result syllabus.

The information on HTML was very useful and most of the time I know I can find this information on line but I wait until someone send me the link.

Use of  PREZI seemed very interesting. I signed in and went through the first and second step tutorial thinking this could be a good idea to change all my PPT to PREZI. However, I noticed having the whole picture for on one slide and zooming to each function one at the time is really confusing for the students. I try to make the power points so simple and visual in order to simplify thinks for students. I do not use the power points in my classroom– they are just posted on the blackboard for students to use them at their own convenience if they need more clarification of topic.  I still may spend my semester break to convert my PPT to PREZI. The other point it will cost money while I could use the PPT with no additional expense.

Replacing my teaching method from just lecturing during class to very little lecture and more peer group learning may be the solution to replacing jamming the students’ brain with lost of information with deep understanding of the topic while hearing/convincing the concept from each other. I have started something like this by lecturing in the class followed by using some lab time doing group work – problem solving. However, there are some students who would rather to work alone (working the old style) rather than sharing their understanding or lack of understanding of the topic with other students. It is possible that I am not approaching this method correctly and effectively. I have read the articles “ Do Not Lecture Us, the problems with lecture…”, and I have decided to search the study done by Redish at UM to have a better idea how to use the peer group learning more effectively in my classroom.

In addition, I watched Lisa’s video on an interactive syllabus – Moodle makes it very easy to present the students with an interactive syllabus/calender. I am using blackboard where I have all the objectives, lecture notes, practices, ppt, and links to useful sites organized in folders by chapter, and provided the students with a regular syllabus in a calender form (in Microsoft) having all the information needed day by day. I know I need to make my syllabus more interactive –probably adding link to chapter folder ….

And last but not least Chapter 5 have given me a clear view of the three major component of an effective online syllabus, Contract, Map, and schedule. Now I know that on site syllabus could not be an effective syllabus for on line teaching. I need to work on this part.

From the nature of my course and teaching only on site, my class is more revolving around lecture followed by some group problem solving and Lab work/experiment.

While my class is face to face, I post Chapter objectives, lecture notes, power points, some extra hand out, and some practice/review problems on blackboard. This semester, I cut the chapter power point to many smaller size PPTs, added more color, and included some diagrams and picture examples to make the power points more useful to students.

The assigned reading gave me the idea of creating a discussion forum to be used as office hour or group problem solving, creating tests/exams using the Text companion, and posting some MIT videos and simulations to make my instruction more effective. I think my first step will be to become expert in using blackboard (or moodle) before I step out side creating a class blog, ….

I should say that I really enjoy the class and the challenge that
comes with it. At the same time I have to mention that I am overwhelmed with the
level of work or what I expect of myself to learn from each assignment or post.

During this week I realized that

1- I am still hesitating to be open in using the
social media (as others using it with so much ease) to express my opinion, to
ask a question, to post my picture……. I did complete all the assignments read
so many blogs, listened to Tod’s lesson on blogging, but not responding to any.
I have to work on this part.

2-    I need a lot to learn.  Each of the mentioned blog sits in the
assignment was a classroom by itself—I just want to learn more about blogging
(setting), application of Diigo, goodle +, discussion group…… I have even
signed in for Twitter but no luck in using it.

3-    I could use the u-tube on how to ….to learn most
of the thing I need to learn. I checked few of Lisa’s post on u-tube and followed
the MCCPOT facebook conversations.  In addition, I have decided to put a utube link on how to do conversion on blackboard for my students.

It may seem so overwhelming now, but I know that I will improve my knowledge on application of online tools in my instruction by the end of this class.