CED0550 - Week Three

• What is the greatest challenge that I have encountered as an online teacher/facilitator and how did I manage it? (If you have not yet taught online what do you think would be the greatest challenge for online teachers/facilitators?). I think the greatest challenge would be to get into the swing of things for the very first classes. I remember my first week in teaching and the nausea I felt going in each day dreading the unknown. After a while, I began to get more comfortable and felt like I could handle any of the little issues that would arise. I imagine the same uneasiness starting to teach online as I question how I would handle technology issues, facilitating, keeping track of all elements in the online environment, and/or questions I may not have an answer to at my fingertips.
• Some things that I feel are really important to consider about synchronous and asynchronous facilitation as I prepare to facilitate my threaded and web conference discussions are not to confuse the two and to keep the activities and discussions linked but not redundant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done an exercise in an asynchronous format and in the synchronous session, the facilitator reiterates the same content, nearly word for word without adding anything new to the discussion. That was one of the main motivators for my adding different, but related, activities in the synchronous discussion. The asynchronous portion will be revisited, but with the addition of applying the examples from discussion to the appropriate federal and state mandates, thereby extending the knowledge. For this to work, it was important that the asynchronous discussion came first. This also allows me to add into the synchronous conversation major items that were missed or skimmed over in the earlier discussions. On a side note, another item that I wanted to consider was that one of the participants currently teaches virtually and has a much different perspective to bring to the table than the ‘brick and mortar’ teachers.
• I choose my particular discussion topic because the issue of technological access is close to my heart living in the northwoods of Wisconsin. I struggled with internet access at home for 7 of the 13 months we’ve been in the MEIT program. Just recently, I’ve been able to enjoy taking classes from home and not having to travel to the local motel (8 miles down the road) in the middle of January so that I could attend class. This one aspect has made me think of the many issues with access as well as equity and how in the public school system we are required to provide for all students.
• One thing that I thought about when developing rubrics for the 2 different discussions is how to create them for dual functioning, that is how to make them easy to use on the instructors part as well as how to make them easy to read, understand and follow on the part of the students/participants.