Teachers helping teachers

Together we are awesome.

Outstanding teachers and students

I had the pleasure of attending the National Honor Society induction ceremony a couple days ago, and while there were many things that struck me as very special during that event, there was one thing I just have to share here. Every year the NHS students select a faculty member to give a speech at the ceremony. This year Mr. Jason Heeren, high school band director, was invited to give the speech, and he did an excellent job giving these outstanding students both advice for and insight into each of their futures.

What struck me, though, is this. The students voted to select the teacher to give the speech, and in that voting process 19 different teachers received votes. Nineteen! To know that so many of the SLCSD teachers are respected so much by their students just makes my heart sing. What wonderful students! What wonderful teachers!

God Bless the Teachers

As I think about this talented group of teachers who are retiring from SLCSD this year, I think of all the teachers I've had over the course of my life. I think of all the teachers in my extended family, both those who are still teaching and those who have also retired. What a special group of people teachers are. Underpaid, undervalued, often blamed for things beyond their control, they continue on, fearlessly knowing that what they are doing is important for individual students surely, but also for the future of our world. I am who I am today because of my teachers and so are you. Thank a teacher today!

Link to other blogs

I'm going to come back to Blogger to start doing my blogging here again. On the other hand, I don't want to completely lose access to my blogs for the past couple years, so here's the link.

Blogs from the last couple years

Blog entries from before that you will see here are from a very long time ago, but I thought they were still timely, so I left them alone. It's interesting how we evolve over time but still remain who are. I'm as committed to technology for education as I was five years ago. No wonder I'm becoming very impatient at the slow pace of change.

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Bear Butte

Here's a beautiful, sacred place close to where I grew up.

Bear Butte

Scott McLoed

Interesting web site. Scott McLoed's blog: Dangerously Irrelevant.

How life has changed!

I forgot I'd started this blog. Life back then: Working on my masters degree in educational technology, employed as a halftime high school teacher/halftime technology coordinator. Life now: One day of class left in my school principal certification program, working fulltime as a district technology director!

Truly assessing the capabilities of an online learner

I’ve often wondered how an online teacher keeps track of her students and their various contributions during the span of time a semester course runs. As a student I assume my instructors know me and are well aware of what contributions I’ve made not only in my current class, but also in previous classes I’ve taken from them. After all, that’s the way it would be in an on ground degree program. Right?

My daughter, for example, is only one semester behind me in her quest for a master’s degree. However, she is on a campus working on her degree in person: taking classes, teaching classes, researching, and interacting daily with her professors. Is there any doubt the teachers know who she is and what her talents are? None! Is my expectation that my capabilities be just as clear in my online professor’s minds realistic? I’m not sure.

Ko and Rossen give what seems to me to be great advice when they recommend that folders be kept for each student’s work and your own notes about his/her contributions. That would be one way to attempt to put the whole person together into one package despite the fact you’ve never met them face to face.

Unfortunately, I don’t even know where to begin to find articles dealing with the psychology of getting to really know a person you never interact with face-to-face, but being an old student of both communication and psychology, I certainly find the ability to truly assess a student’s capabilities when you’ve only interacted online perplexing. This gives me great pause for thought, especially when I think about the job recommendations I will want in a few months!

Importance of tech skills for online learning

Ko and Rossen’s discussion of what it takes to prepare students to take courses online made me think of what expectations there are for us in the EdTech program. Should we, as technology students, be held accountable for more technology skills than students who are taking, for example, an online psychology course? I think of how many hours it takes me to do assignments, and I’m someone who’s pretty well versed in the technology I’ve been expected to use, as opposed to classmates I’ve had who really have very little technology expertise. I can’t imagine the difficulties of grasping subject matter while also having to learn new technologies. And yet, the field is educational technology. Doesn’t that presuppose a certain level of technology expertise?

According to Maggie McVay Lynch at http://technologysource.org/article/effective_student_preparation_for_online_learning/, “the domain of online learning was new to students; many lacked fundamental computer skills and were newcomers to the Internet. This lack of experience impinged on their ability to adapt to the new learning environment.” Therefore, many students dropped out of online courses. Surely tech skills play a very important part in online learning. Going further, surely more advanced tech skills should be expected of EdTech students.