Reflective Summary #1

To keep up with the technological trends in society, secondary schools must begin to branch into virtual learning communities exposing their students to knowledge based instructional designs. As I have read over the past four weeks, virtual learning communities are an exciting field for instruction. In a virtual community, Grossman (2006) suggest millions of people have the ability to connect from all over the world to help one another based on common interest. Participation within a virtual community allows for synchronous (real-time) and asynchronous (delayed) interaction (Shumar & Renninger, 2002). For a rural secondary school, this is a new concept.

Concept

I would like to develop an online learning community for a high school physics class I will teach next year. The computer supported learning community will supplant the traditional face-to-face instruction. The examples from the literature demonstrate success when both are utilized with proper guidance and instruction (Oshima & Oshima, 2002). The course will not have textbooks like traditional generic high school physics classes. In conjunction with the Oklahoma PASS objective and teacher supported resources, the curriculum of the course will be generated from materials found throughout Internet sites. Infinite amounts of information are accessible via the Internet.

I plan to prepare the course using a program similar to Desire 2 Learn. I would like to further explore Moodle, based on conversations with other high school teachers. Moodle is an instructional support site similar to Desire 2 Learn that allows scaffolding of knowledge. The course content would be accessible online along with homework submission, asynchronous discussions and quizzes. The direct instruction would be provided within the classroom recorded and podcasted for later review.

The students would be assigned to groups due to limited availability of computers around the room. Computers would be positioned at each lab station. As projects or experiments are assigned, the students will have the Internet available to search for assistance, post their findings, or for lab write-ups. Students will be responsible for reflective blogs (journals) periodically addressing question prompts related to individual knowledge. This would allow me to determine their levels of understanding and whether reteaching was necessary. Discussion threads within Moodle will allow the class knowledge to grow. Communication capabilities designed within the computer support learning community will allow the students the ability to share ideas, questions, data, resources, etc. With the use of technology students will be able to access the course content at anytime and anyplace. If they are absent from class, the podcast of the class time would be available at their convenience. With the enthusiastic interest of YouTube among youth (Cloud, 2006), class activities, labs, or student demonstrations would be periodically recorded and posted to YouTube.

Strategies

Strategies needed to prepare for a high school physics computer supported learning community offered at Maysville would include:

Needs
1 – Redesign of the room. Internet drops would have to be placed in the same proximity of the lab tables. Each lab table would have a computer networked to a printer server within the room.
2 – Purchasing of equipment. Six computers, printer server, printer, cables for all connections, and software, Ipod with microphone for podcasting, digital video recorder for demonstrations/activities to be uploaded to course site would all need to be purchased. Along with purchasing a SmartBoard, LCD projector, instructor laptop computer, and CPS handheld student response units for in class instruction and assessment.
3 – Download software. Moodle, Marratech and Skype downloaded to all computers for connection capabilities (allowing distance learning without purchasing the traditional Tanberg or Polycom equipment for digital course delivery).

Interest
4 – Identification. Group assignments along with identification and passwords would need to be established for all students in order for them to access the online course content. Due to limited computers, students would be assigned to groups whose size would be based upon enrollment numbers.

Leadership
5 – Time. Time must be invested by the instructor (me) setting up the computer supported curriculum, designing the syllabus, and preparing the instruction strategies, question prompts and assessments. Time will need to be spent on demonstrating and reviewing usage procedures with Moodle, podcasting, videoing, SmartBoard, CPS units, blogging, etc.
6 – Online course development. As I explore Moodle further, I would need to design the specific instructional requirements/syllabi and download the student roster.

Literature Support

The concept of a computer supported learning community is completely new to Maysville; therefore, to decrease the student’s anxiety levels, I will need to spend adequate time with the students on the “how to” of using the equipment and software. In the Oshima & Oshima (2001) article, along with our group discussion, my physics learning community will be a combination of face-to-face and online. With guided instruction and question prompts similar in the Hewitt (2001) article, the knowledge growth will be a whole group / class effort. Even though students will have individual task, group activities and research projects, the ultimate knowledge growth for the course topics will require efforts from the entire class.

As I have begun to experiment with a few of these concepts, blogs, webquest, etc. in a class I am teaching now, I have found students are just working to complete task to get a grade. Using strategies as the teacher did in Hewitt (2001), I foresee the students developing an appreciation and richer understanding of the concepts. Teaching a junior/senior level physics class is an exception, because the student are choosing to enroll in the class and have an initial desire to learn the material.

The leadership of sustaining the computer mediated community will be the responsibility of the instructor, which will be me. As the year ends, the computer supported learning community will cease to exist because of the science course rotation. The duration of the community’s life cycle will only be for one school year. As for the life cycle of the computer mediated activities, the course will experience the stages according to Levin & Cervantes (2002) several times dependent on the number of curriculum/instructional activities throughout the school year. With the use of Moodle, the activities will be 1) proposed, 2) refined through the use of a discussion thread, 3) organized by having a rubric posted, 4) pursued by researching the Internet and connecting to other classrooms around the world, etc. 5) wrapped up by posting the findings, and 6) published due to having the final lab write up posted to the classes Moodle site and to personal blog pages.

Venturing into designing and developing a virtual learning community is an exciting endevour for me. As I have ponder over teaching physics in this format, I find myself dreaming about the activities, lab designs and technology exposure Maysville students will encounter. Prior to this course and reading assignments, I would have never dreamt of teaching in this manner. Therefore, not only will the students have a heighten anxiety level, but I will also. Only through further knowledge growth on virtual learning communities on my part will I be able to decrease my anxiety.


References

Cloud, J. (2006, December). The gurus of YouTube. Retrieved January 13, 2008, from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1570721,00.html

Hewitt, J. (2001). From a focus on tasks to a focus on understanding: The cultural transformation of a Toronto classroom. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall, & N. Miyake (Eds.), CSCL 2: Caring Forward the conversation (pp.11-41). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Levin, J. & Cervantes, R. (2002). Understanding the life cycle of network-based learning communities. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.), Building virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace (pp. 269-292). Cambridge University Press.

Grossman, L. (2006, December). Time’s person of the Year: You. Retrieved January 13, 2008, from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

Oshima, J. & Oshima, R. (2001). Coordination of asynchronous and synchronous communication: Differences in qualities of knowledge advancement discourse between experts and novices. In T. Koschmann, R. Hall, & N. Miyake (Eds.), CSCL 2: Caring Forward the conversation (pp. 55-83). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Shumar, W. & Renninger, K. A. (2002). Introducation: On conceptualizing community. In K. A. Renninger & W. Shumar (Eds.), Building virtual communities: Learning and change in cyberspace (pp. 1-15). Cambridge University Press.