Assessments

SurveyMonkey.com
I am a huge fan of SurveyMonkey.com as I like the open-ended format that is available. In several other survey/quiz options I've used, the open-ended answer wasn't a possibility. I can see multiple uses for SurveyMonkey in my classes between the open-ended answer option and the analysis that is available for the results.

Journalism Classes
I really found a lot of value in looking at the two very distinct units concerning journalism. For a class that would seem to need a f2f environment, there are a plethora of activities that can be done completely independently and online. I really enjoyed finding ways to take Casey's class into the online environment.

Feedback
I've really enjoyed reading the feedback that everyone is providing to each other. Even when the feedback isn't for me, the ideas are ones that I can use and incorporate in my own course creations. The activities and feedback have provided me with some great options for my final project. I am slowly getting my project ready to go. I'm starting with an anticipation guide for my students. I will also be using a webquest that I've created. I plan on completing a taxonomy chart for my project. I have the beginnings ready to go and want to spend some time this weekend getting the project ready to go.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

Journalism Taxonomy Table

The table included is an example of a journalism class's activities divided into Bloom's levels. I really believe that Bloom's Taxonomy is an excellent way to create questions and activities for any class.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

Bloom's Taxonomy-Oct 7-13, 2007

I love working with Bloom's Taxonomy because I believe that the support for creating questions is unbelievable. Some people don't understand that creating ten good questions is a difficult process that requires a lot of thought. I currently create three-four questions for every chapter that my students are reading in their novels. I try to start at the knowledge level of Bloom's with the first question and move up the scale by the time the third question is asked so that they have to decide what they think.

I really enjoyed creating the table from Casey's journalism class because it allowed me to think about how the questions are worded and what I could do for my final project. I will add my taxonomy table from the journalism class here before I post.

For my online class, I am going to work with the Holocaust. I already have a webquest that needs some updates that will help me meet some of the requirements. Because I already have part of this created, I may double up and create two possible courses with the other being about disabilities. This way, both of my current reading classes could try this process out for me yet this school year.

I'm going to be honest, after working so closely last week with Sandra and Heather, I've missed some of that constant communication this week. It would have been hard to fit it in because our readings and work were pretty extensive as matching Bloom's is difficult, but I did miss the feedback. Maybe for the final project, we can have some sort of review partner to help along the way?

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

Collaborative Learning

During my Online Assessment class this week, myself and two classmates created a midterm project together. I enjoyed how the project was set up as we each had a part to do that was different from the other students in the group.

I chose to work with SurveyMonkey.com for my portion of the midterm. I'm extremely impressed with this survey and quiz creation tool especially considering that a basic account is offered for free. One of the biggest advantages I found with SurveyMonkey is that the questions come in multiple formats and various answers can be used. This is one of the few systems I have found that allow this to happen. I also really liked how the responses can be gathered and analyzed as a group. If I have fifty people take the quiz and answer differently to question one, I will have an analysis that shows fifty answers to question one. This alone makes this my site of choice for surveys and quizzes. I'm hoping to use this in my class to create anticipation guides that my students can take. I would also like to create individual biography quizzes to gauge my students' interests in this sort of assessment.

My group had a good handle on technology as we started our project with a wiki immediately. One of the group members started the wiki and posted the assignment right in it, so we were all able to work there without the need of another document. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this sort of assignment all the time because it is difficult to work out common times with a schedule, but I do believe that this sort of activity is very valuable once or twice in the class.

If you go to the following link, you can view my group's project on my website. My part was the SurveyMonkey section. Click http://lmeyer.iowapages.org below. Go to Mrs. Meyer's Online Classroom and click on the link for Creating Communities to view our project.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer
Reading

Two of My Dogs

I know something was asking about a picture of me, and this picture is old. I do still have both dogs though...

My Thoughts from Sept 24-29, 2007

Well, this week was definitely a learning week as I was reintroduced to concept mapping and finally figured out how to add a picture to my blog! If anyone ever tells you that Help doesn't work with technology, I would beg to differ. I hope to add more pictures later this week.

I'm really looking forward to working with a group on this project, but we seem to be struggling to find common times to "talk" about what we want to do. I think we all want to be as involved as possible, but work and family schedules aren't jiving for us right now.

I rediscovered some reading I did about online learning. I created a link to the titles and hope to add more information about those titles as time goes on. The resources were wonderful and very useful to me during my class. I believe they will be one of my driving forces as I begin my own online teaching.

I can see concept mapping being a key element in online learning; however, it would be nice to have a free version of the program. Inspiration has some aspects about it that I don't like which is why I haven't purchased the program. It used to have a pretty static layout in that it only went one direction. As I was working with it, that may have changed. The other issue I had was that it only printed in landscape format. Once I have access to a printer, I want to see if that's changed as well.

I really enjoyed reading "The Perfect E-Storm" and can relate to a lot of the changes and issues discussed in the article. For example, I am 31 years old this month and learned to type on a typewriter when I was fifteen. If you would have asked me then or even five years ago if I would be posting these thoughts online, I would have laughed in your face. I love that the article provided the list of 30 Emerging Technologies for us. I'm very interested in MMOG's because I can see how the huge amount of interest in online gaming would make such an impact in education. If only someone was working on this...
I already do some work with online quizzes and assignments, and my students love that they can use the computer to access this information. I hope to do more of this as my students start reading because I believe the survey questions would work wonderfully with anticipation guides.

Overall, this week has left me extremely excited for the remainder of this course, and makes me wish I had more time to explore all the options that are available out there!

More thoughts next week...
Laura Meyer

Concept Map

I'm still struggling to add pictures to my blog; however, after doing some trouble-shooting, this should work...

Using Blogs

When I think about using blogs, I haven't even used them to their full potential. I decided to create my bog at blogger.com because it was highly recommended by a classmate. Upon working with blogger.com, I became frustrated because I didn't think the elements were adding like they should. Therefore, I went to edublogs.org and created a new blog there. Then I came back here to copy what I had already included, so that I could finish my assignment. Upon returning here, I discovered that my chosen elements were listed. I'm not sure why I couldn't see this right away; however, the only part of this site that frustrates me is the inability to load a picture right now. I'm still checking into this.

When I think about using blogs in my classroom, I really want to give this a whirl. I can see the value in book discussions more than any other item right now. I hope to soon be able to post questions concerning the novel reading students should have done. I really like that I can check the time that students posted as well as the day.

Overall, I see a blog as a useful tool as long as it is in a controlled environment. With one of the classes I teach, I have to have control over the comments students make because of their inappropriate behavior. I hope to do some exploring over the weekend, but as I look at my screen, I should be able to do what I need to for my students.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

Reading Interactive Survey

I finished the interative reading survey, and I was impressed at the setup and detail. I would love to have the opportunity to set a quiz up like it as the self-correction was awesome.

I consider myself to have more of a learner-centered classroom, and this did turn out to be the case after I answered the questions concerning my classroom.

My biggest ideas are as follows and all are in learner-centered classrooms.

Teaching and assessing are intertwined.
The instructor's role is to coach and facilitate. The instructor and the students evaluate the learning together. Assessment is being used to promote and diagnose learning.
Emphasis is on generating better questions and learning from errors.
Instructors and students learn together.

The problem with most school systems is that the assessment system is set up as a teacher-directed situation. Things are slowly changing, but it has taken a lot of time.

Thanks,
Mrs. Meyer

My Story

My name is Laura Meyer; however, I still show up here as Laura Johnson (I'm still working on the name change).

Laura is goal-oriented, determined, and focused.

Laura chose UW-Stout for her master's because of the user-friendly format for those that have to work full-time. She has a goal to become an on-line-educator soon. This has been the impetus behind getting the graduate certificate.

Currently, Laura is a 7th and 8th grade reading teacher in her 8th year at Nashua-Plainfield Middle School. She is already pretty tech- savvy, and has a website for both her students and her. She sees the value of the internet, and wishes to share this with her students as well. Feel free to visit this (well-done) site at http://lmeyer.iowapages.org. 

One thing that most people don't know about Laura is that she collects frogs. One of her best friends and her sister share her affinity for collecting frogs. They started around relatively the same time, but didn't find out about one another's shared hobbies until their collections became extensive.

Another cool fact is that Laura got married this summer. Her husband is the special someone that she couldn't give up because he always supports what she does, even if he may not quite understand the effort and time put forth to pursue some goals.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about Laura. She is sure to add both technology and teaching experience to our group, as well as friendliness.