Week 1- Succeeding in Online Learnng

As always, technology reared it's ugly head and showed us all just why so few of us are truly adept at using and implementing new technologies, not only in our professions but also in our daily lives. The scary part is that by all accounts, I felt our first meeting went relatively smoothly with regards to how rocky it could have gone. It is easy for me to say such as I had nearly no problems what-so-ever, thank God, as I'm usually the guy struggling as others are whizzing through things. With this being said, it is for these struggles in accordance with the prospects for a more efficient and effective personal and professional lifestyle that I feel a class like the one we are currently involved in will benefit us all.

The outreach of this class doesn't stop with us, however, and that is truly the benefit and blessing of such a tremendous opportunity. I can't speak for everyone involved in this program, only myself, yet I know I personally spent much of our introductory class with visions of how this technology can be implemented into my own classroom. I can only hope that I will be able to implement it as effectively as the experience I had on Tuesday night because I see the possibilities as endless.

For those of you who have not seen my bio, I am a technology teacher at UGHS where I teach Architecture and Engineering. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this field, let me be the first to tell you that the technology in this field is changing everyday and has made tremendous advancements. These changes have brought about an ability to complete more work in a shorter time frame with more advanced and in-depth drawings being completed by our students. This all means that my demands for grading, in addition to paper usage, has increased substantially. In an attempt to keep pace with the times I have attempted to go digital in my teaching methods by implementing digital dropboxes and providing information through shared folders. Just as an example, my tutorial sheets for my students generally are upwards of 100+ pages and the students can get a tutorial done in a week or less where a tutorial like this would have taken the students weeks on a drafting board. Therefore, we are not only using more paper to present more information, but the students are producing more completed works which ultimately means more paper yet. The process of digitizing most of my assignments has greatly reduced the amount of paper we burn through, however, it's installation has created additional problems which I feel this program will help me alleviate.

Our school technology program is relatively archaic, I must say the new IT coordinator is attempting to upgrade, so we do not have the ability as of now to present interactive materials to our students. This all means that when I present a word processed assignment online to our students they can not go in and complete the assignment on their computers, save it and re-insert that document into my dropbox. Unfortunately this all means that the student must print off the document, complete it and hand it in. This system helps in allowing the students to always have access to my documents but it also means that my attempts to cut back on paper usage has failed for this particular assignment format. In addition to the assignments I have provided, I would really like to be able to create tests and allow our students to complete these tests electronically and submit them to me. In our current system this becomes difficult to do for not only me, but also the students, making things more difficult when in fact we are striving to make the process easier. What I would like to do through this program is gain the ability and knowledge necessary to create a webpage for my students where they can go and see what we did for the day should they be absent, get the assignment and complete it electronically and then submit them to me. In addition to providing the students with the assignments, I feel it would be extremely beneficial to my students to have the ability to have quick links to information much like what we have in this class with the rubrics and assignments. One program in which I have found that I would truly like to develop my model after is the Glenbrook South High School Physics Department in Glenbrook Illinois. I have attached a link to their website should you like to see what it is that I'm speaking of http://gbs.glenbrook.k12.il.us/Academics/gbssci/phys/phys.html.

As I stated earlier, the affects of my participation in this class do not end with me. By providing a more efficient and effective curriculum presentation to my students, their abilities to learn and grow will be drastically improved as well. In addition to the affects this program will have my students, this program will also affect my co-workers as well. My principal overheard me speaking with our IT guy yesterday and informing him of my visions and how this class can take me there, the principal was so excited about where I was going with this that he has asked that upon my completion, I model the process to rest of our staff to implement in their classes. It is for these reasons that I say the affects of my involvement in this program will affect the lives of many.

In conclusion I would like to leave you all with a quote I have found, which I feel pertains directly to heart of this programs mission, from a very well educated and very distinguished individual, former librarian and former US House of Representative's Democrat from Brooklyn, NY, Major Owens, "Children are already accustomed to a world that moves faster and is more exciting than anything a teacher in front of a classroom can do." With this program, hopefully we can catch up to our students and provide them the education they deserve. For more quotes pertaining to technology in the classroom from Major Owens please view the attached link http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/major_owens.html.

Thank you all for your time. Your comments and critiques are always welcome. I apologize for the length of this post as I had much on my mind and it is hard for me at times to contain my excitement when I feel I am doing something that will positively affect the lives of my students.