Online Learning in K-12 schools

While contemplating this assignment and how I wanted to approach the idea of online learning in my school, in my assignment I kept returning to one thought over and over; "We need to utilize this idea in my district."

It is not uncommon for students to be pulled out of school for a week, two weeks, a month to go with their family to visit "their country." I have at least two to three students go on these trips every school year. Teachers are asked to send work with them to complete and we all know how difficult that is to do. Our classrooms are flexible and fluid and what we send with a student to complete independently may not be what is actually is covered in class.

Online modules can help alleviate this problem by allowing the traveling student access to the classroom instruction despite the distance. I know there will be cases where the student may not have Internet access but more times than not in my experience I have received emails from my students while they were away. If they can email they can participate in online learning.

Online modules would allow the student to set their own pace and fit their learning in around their schedules as well. I can also envision incorporating whichever country they are in to a social studies or science lesson in a way that would allow the traveling student to give a unique perspective to the lesson that would benefit all learners in the class.

Another gap that online learning could help close is students who are on home instruction for medical or behavioral reasons. These students are isolated from their peers and missing the collaboration piece of their education while at home. Online modules could allow for them to interact with their peers and regular teacher while receiving instruction from the home instructor simultaneously. Videos of classroom discussions, labs and activities could easily be shared to allow the student on home instruction to have similar experiences as their peers that are in the classroom.

To be honest, when I first was considering how online learning could be used in elementary school, I had nothing. They are too young, too inexperienced with technology and many parents would not support this style of learning. I then realized I was right, but wrong too. They are young and inexperienced, but at the fourth grade level no one is saying you need to use all the features of an online module like Moodle. Start simple, it does not have to be an elaborate lesson in the beginning. Elementary school is the time for exposure, not mastery, of technological tools and approaches. Introducing the basics of online learning, allowing the students to interact with each other and just exploring this tool would give them general knowledge to build on as they get older and more proficient.

Reflection

Developing a GAME plan has been beneficial to me. In the past, I have always said I would like to xyz for my students or in my classroom but then would become overwhelmed with the scope of the project or simply just let other requirements and stressors take priority over the goal. Having a GAME plan has allowed me to take a larger objective and break it down into smaller, manageable tasks which have moved me closer to actually incorporating new techniques and in the case of my website goal, turn it into a useful tool for my students and parents.

Through my research on technologies to assist my special education students one tool that I have learned about is virtual field trips. NASA offers great programs, where a NASA educator will interact live with the class. Unfortunately through my research I learned that we need a $50,000 piece of equipment, which obviously the district is not in a position to purchase. I have not given up on this project and hope to find grants to apply for to bring this new technology into the school. This would help not only my students, but all students, by giving them a real life, meaningful experience, which will help them learn materials more easily.

As a result of my GAME plan I will not be making any immediate changes to my instructional practices. I will continue to utilize blogs and wikis and possibly increase the use of them throughout the school year. I would like to incorporate a digital storytelling project by the end of the school year as well. As I previously wrote I will be focusing on finding grants for the virtual field trip goal.

Using the GAME plan process with students

One strategy that fits well with the GAME plan process that my co-teacher and I have incorporated into our Reading block is called the Literacy CAFE. Students meet with teachers one-one-one and first discuss what they think they do well as a reader. After that the teacher will listen to them read for a few moments. The teacher and student conference afterwards and pick a goal from the CAFE (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expanding vocabulary).

Once a goal is chosen the teacher will help the student decide on a strategy or action(that have been previously taught) from a menu to help them work towards that goal. One example may be if the student chose accuracy has a goal, a strategy from the menu may be cross checking. The cafe menu is displayed on a class bulletin board and all students have a post it with their name placed in the appropriate section based on the chosen goal.

Then these goals are monitored staff and students through additional conferences and anecdotal notes. Depending on success new goals and actions may be chosen. The final evaluation would be the district DRA assessments to test whether the students reading level has increased.

While this strategy may not directly involve technology it can still help students meet NETS standards because it provides a strong foundation in the GAME process which will be invaluable when integrating technology. That said there are ways to incorporate technology into this process. One idea is to have students blog about their goals and actions as a way of monitoring their own progress. We are also going to incorporate a wiki for students to share interesting vocabulary they find while working on the expanding vocabulary goal.


More information on this strategy is available in "The Cafe Book" by Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. We use this to complement the Daily 5 system which is by the same authors.

Sample menu: http://www.thedailycafe.com/CAFE_Menu_New.pdf

Revising My GAME plan

I have been actively trying to make my website a valuable resource for my students and their families. Through this course wikis have been discussed many time as a useful tool to use with our students. I have recently been thinking about why couldn't a wiki be just as useful with the parents and families. I think it would take a lot of effort to make it work but I would like to set up a wiki where parents can share resources and strategies that they find helpful. During parent teacher conferences I was amazed at how many of my parents spend a lot of time researching their child's learning disabilities and things they can do to support their education. Parents are the experts on their children and why shouldn't they have somewhere where they can learn from each other.


I am still working towards achieving my first goal of finding technology proven to be successful for the diverse needs of my special education students and I will continue to work towards this goal as opposed to creating new ones. Something I would like to look into is finding grants that may be able to bring in some of the new technologies I find into our district. School districts everywhere are facing budget cuts and mine is no exception, there will be no money for new technology that doesn't already exist in the schools.

Evaluating My GAME plan progress

This past week I worked on my second goal primarily of turning my website into a strong resource for the students and parents. I have begun to create a survey and used information that I obtained during parent teaching conferences. A main theme during conferences parents inquired multiple times how they could help build their child's comprehension. (This is the component of the DRA assessment that keeps many students from meeting grade level expectations.) To respond to this request I placed some links to articles and other helpful information. I have already see this to be an effective action because students have come to tell me that they were on my website with their parents.

One thing I learned though is that many parents did not even realize what my website had on it, despite the fact that I gave the address out at Back to School Night and telling/showing the students frequently. One thing I am considering doing in my instructional practices to help alleviate this is to occassionally incorporate my website into homework assignments. One way I can do this would be along the lines of "Use the US Census Data to answer the following questions. The link to the information is on the my website." This way the parents and students would be visiting the site regulary and seeing the additions and changes I make.

I have not really had any new questions in regards to my website development at this point. I also do not see the need to alter my GAME plan until I get the surveys out and gather the feedback from the students and their families.


Here is the address of my school website if you are curious. Suggestions and comments welcome! http://www.nplainfield.org/14912092201835780/site/default.asp?

Monitor GAME Plan Progress

So far I have been able to locate a good amount of data on my students abilities. I have been reading their IEPs and the evaluations that were done during the classification process, Learnia test results, NJASK scores and classroom tests. It is a tedious and time consuming process to analyze the data so that all the information creates a meaningful picture. Overall I have learned that my students are stronger in the concrete skills and single step skills and need assistance with higher level thinking, multi step problems. Writing in any shape or form is a major struggle for my students. I do not see a need at this time to modify my action plan. My next step is to perform research to locate technology that can help students with these deeper thinking skills.

Carrying Out My GAME Plan

The first thing I would need to carry out my GAME plan for 2c is multiple sources of data on my classified students. I would need to analyze to see where their strengths lie and where the deficinies are. While doing this I will need to research by obtaining articles, talking with the computer facilitator, case managers and other "experts" to figure what is available for me to use to address those strengths and weakness that I find. If trainings are available that would be an additional resource to utilize. So far I have gather multiple sources of data on my students and began to form a picture of them. I have also reached out to my case manager about speech to text software that may be useful for one of my students who has severe gaps in her reading and writing.

For my 3b goal there are little resources that I physically need to acquire. The most important resource would be self-generated, the parent survey. The only other information I would use for this is websites of my colleagues and other teachers out of district. I have visited a few colleague's websites, but honestly, I have done little else towards this goal at this time. It is an overwhelming time of year here in NJ... we have conferences, report cards and special ed reports all occuring simultaneously and I have not had time to create a survey.