Final Week CEDO 525

Of all the strategies that we investigated, I found the most common that I will try and use in my classroom is the Cooperative Learning concepts and Providing Feedback. Cooperative Learning will work good because it will allow me to better monitor the group work that is being completed and provides an easy, accessible online environment for all students to work together.

Providing Feedback is something that I have to work on. Currently, I do not do a very good job of providing support for my students. I envision having students submit their homework in on an online blog or Wiki, allowing me to leave comments about their work on that type of format. By doing it in the online environment, I believe that I can provide a better response and I can access the students files from virtually anywhere.

Bubbl.us, Inspiration, Educational Oasis

I really like using all of these programs. Educational Oasis is great because it provides the educator hard copies of different organizers for students too use. This is important too me for my automotive courses where my student do not have the computer access needed to operate the other programs. I like that Educational Oasis provides all of these different varieties because educators need the opportunity to work with different formats.

As for the other two programs, computer based, I find them very comparable. Both are quality programs, providing great aesthetically pleasing organizers for students to brainstorm and document ideas. The two main reasons that I like bubbl.us over Inspiration is bubbl.us is a free program and allows the documents to be created virtually, allowing for student collaboration. The one bonus that I see with using Inspiration is the program provides the students to add more elements to the presentation and work with less headaches.

Electronic Student Response Tools

Providing electronic response to students is a much better form, in my opinion, then having to write out a bunch of feedback comments. In our school, we use Moodle and Blackboard to provide students comments, quizzes, and other feedback options, such as email. I really like these programs because they are convenient to use, provide a good support system for the teacher, and provides an easy format to allow for comments and quizzes. Our district is in the process of switching over to Moodle completely for one reason, cost consideration. Moodle is free where as Blackboard is fee based. What is really cool with Moodle is the ability to transfer Blackboard content right into Moodle. This allows instructors who have been using Blackboard for years to easily transfer over all information.

When looking at the Rubric programs, I really liked the Rubistar program. I found that it was much easier to use compared to the other programs provided. I need this ease of use because in my field of Technology Education, my rubrics look a lot different than the ones supplied from other sites. The rubrics that I have created through Microsoft Word are subpar to what this program provides for me. Instead of focusing on setting everything up, I can concentrate on the crticial comments that are provided in each box.

When looking at the quiz programs, I focused in on Quia. While the program would work great for a school setting, providing instant comments that teacher could help base student knowledge on, I do not like the fee portion. I can use Moodle to generate the same type of quiz and comments that this program provides. The other beneficial thing that Quia provides is the ability to keep grades. While that is an excellent feature, our school district uses Infinite Campus which is where I must enter my grades. I would be doing double duty transferring grades, something that doesn't sound entertaining too me.