Last thoughts

Reviewing your previous blog posts, what, if anything, has changed in your attitude toward online schools and online schooling over the past 15 weeks? 

I think that some of my views have changed while others - though I am more educated on the topics - have not.  To begin with, I still don't think that full time online schools are a good idea.  I am not convinced that it is good for a student to be at home all day working on the computer.  Obviously, if there are extenuating circumstances for that kid then it is a great option, but maybe not for "regular" kids.  Many of the classes offered are great, but I don't think that all of them are.  When I looked at the Colorado school's site, I was not impressed.  I don't think that it is offering any kind of superior education.  Parents who want their kids in full time online schools they need to do a lot of research to make sure the school is good.


I definitely in favor of online courses for students in f2f schools.  For courses the school may not offer, or credit recovery (though I'm not sure about all of them after reading Heather's report) or AP courses the online courses are great options.  Obviously once again, there is a wide range in quality of courses and the school needs to do its research.


I never thought I would say this, but I love the online science labs! I didn't think I would ever support an online lab science course but after my research my view is completely changed.


Overall, I think that my view of online courses are still mixed, but at least I know why!

After the project....

I had a hard time finding research I wanted to use.  To begin with, most of what I found on virtual labs was on college courses.  There was quite a lot of research on that - but that clearly wasn't useful to me.  Then once I found articles, I had a hard time founding ones focused on Biology and K-12 (I found some with examples of Biology).  All in all, I didn't find much with any kind of real analysis of what the virtual lab does.  Our interview was tons of help, giving us insight to how a virtual lab is designed and all the things you can do with it.  However, I couldn't find any literature on how exactly the virtual labs benefited the students besides being "engaging" or "inquiry based."  The detail is not out there yet.  I also wish I could have seen comparisons of different virtual labs.  I spent a lot of time with the labs designed by Brian Woodfield (who we interviewed) and looked around at some other labs.  I don't think without using them I could really compare them.  What makes one better than the other? I'm not as concerned about whether it is a good idea or not - for what it serves I think it is a good idea.  I want to know what makes one better than another.

On the whole, I found the topic interesting - I would consider using pieces of it in my own classroom! There are definitely more things that I wish were available in my research.

Week 11...

There are so many variables! Right now, it seems to be just impossible to really make strong comparisons between face to face or even between different online courses.  What a lot of people have been posting is that instead of always comparing, we should be looking for best practices.  I think it is easy to forget that we often do the same in studying just face to face classes.  A classroom (online or otherwise) is such a dynamic environment that it is impossible to control the variables.  Besides the fact, that unlike lab experiments we don't always want to control all the variables because that isn't in the best interest of the students.  So we study best practices.  As educators we need to embrace this and continue to improve our own practices.

Week 10 thoughts...

What did you learn this week that struck you as particularly important in learning about virtual schools? Has your thinking changed as a result of what you learned this week? 

This week I thought more about how online schools and classes are great for certain students and maybe not for others.  We can't compare f2f classes with online courses because they are geared for particular students.  Maybe in the future online courses will be more common for "everyone" but now they are for kids who are advanced, or need extra help (or a second round at a course).  So we can't compare them and that's ok.  We need to look at what makes courses good for particular students and run with that.  I get that we don't have the data to compare so we think about why that is (such as the student audience is different).  I now think more about the real differences between the two methods and ways to emphasize them, not downplay them.

Post curriculum writing...

Now that you have seen what other people did in creating their units, is there anything that you might do differently if you were to redesign your own unit? 

Overall I'm pretty happy with my final project.  I have to fight my natural teacher instincts to plan every minute - I think I added to many content lessons because I had a lot of the materials.  The teacher in me can't let go because I need to have everything planned each day, every minute.  With that, I wish I would have spent more time exploring some of the web 2.0 tools.  I tried using some (ie Voicethread) but I think the knowledge of other tools might be more useful for the future.  I did like using Canvas and I would definitely use it again - easy to navigate and it looks good. 

Perhaps I could have used more "virtual visits."  One group used a museumbox, another uised the Met, and I think this a great use of online tools that we can't use in the classroom.  Maybe I could have incorporated a virtual visit to the Natural History Museum.  Living in NYC makes me forget that not all classes have access to all these resources on just the subway.  Online courses are great way to cross distances for students who are not near such spectacular resources.

Project time!

What are you most concerned about as you embark on creating a curriculum unit? 

 I am definitely most concerned about using all the Web 2.0 tools - I am a little overwhelmed by all the suggestions people are posting on the discussion forum! I'm not that concerned about the content.  Though I'll need to convert a lot of it into new formats I feel very comfortable with my teaching and my subject.  That's why when Donna posted saying she had lots of Web 2.0 skills and wanted to share I jumped on board! 


I'm also a little worried about the coordination.  I am super busy with my job right now (I'm directing the school musical that goes up in two weeks) and though I can find time on my own to work I think it could be hard to coordinate that work time.  It makes me think more about how students can do partner work in an asynchronous course.

Week 6

Did you change anything in the Google spreadsheet? If so, what? Has your view of the schools you chose to research changed from the first week you looked at them? If so, how? 

I didn't change anything in the Google spreadsheet, but I wish there was a column even further to the left for Virtual Virgina.  After reading about all the ways that students can interact with each other and how important that interact with each other I realize how little Virtual Virginia does.  It makes me believe even less that VV is providing a quality course to its students.  As far as Insight goes, it is still hard to tell.  I see that it uses chat rooms as a mode of student-student interaction but is that enough? The problem is that Insight's website provides very little.  So I hope that Insight uses other modes of communication but they don't want to share much about it! I do know that every student is issued a headphone/speaker for their computer so hopefully there is some checking in/interacting going on that way? So, I didn't change anything but in some ways I wish there was a column for almost no interaction and one for "not enough information."