Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Communication Plan for Online Teaching

I created a Communication Plan for online teaching. It includes routine tasks, management strategies for facilitating discussion forums, and techniques to get students to be critical thinkers when completing assignments, collaborating with others, and participating in online discussions. It will serve as an evolving guide and will also show what I have learned in my Masters program through Boise State University. I have divided my Plan among four pages. Please click on the sections below to view each section:

Part I: Routine Administrative Tasks
Part II: Discussion Forum Strategies
Part III: Discussion Forum Assessment
Part IV: Management Issues and Strategies

Monday, April 5, 2010

Welcome!

Welcome to my EdTech Learning Log. My name is Alicia Mueller, and I am in my last semester at Boise State University. I will earn the Master of Educational Technology and a Certificate in Online Teaching after I take the comprehensive exam during the summer. I am beginning this learning log as a requirement for one of my classes, EdTech 523: Advanced Online Teaching. However, I intend to continue with it beyond graduation because I will continue to learn new ideas and gather resources. Educational technology is a dyanamic field.

Some personal information about myself: I live on the southern Oregon coast, and I do not have a job in education - yet. I have a secretarial work background, mostly in the legal field. I have a 9-year-old son in the third grade, and we spend a lot of time together (I am a single mom). We love the beach, playing games, building Lego sets, and finding funny videos together on the internet. I love to read, write, and watch movies. Solitarily, I'm an indoor person. With my son, I am an explorer, discovering new places for myself.

I can't decide if I want to work in adult education, or K-12. My focus in this program has been on adult education, because I have been a student for much of my adult life, and a lot of that time has been online. However, my son's struggles in school have inspired me to think about designing curriculum for K-12 because many public schools are seriously lacking the resources to implement or integrate technology in the classroom. The focus for them is on the basics, and preparing to pass State tests; and, many students need extra help with that. It eats up their precious time. My son is one of those kids who have so many intellectual interests outside of regular school subjects. He sees the value in learning what interests him, but not in the basic skills of reading, writing and math. Wouldn't it be wonderful to facilitate that learning and have the time to move on to subjects that really interest kids and get them more motivated to learn?

Please check back periodically to see what I add to my log.

Click here to view my Communication Plan.