RILS Refection

One of the many things not mentioned in the video due to time constraints was the problem of locating the access code. It was not intuitive as where to find this information for the course. Accessing the course name and clicking on the edit members found the access code located on the left side of the interface. Once there, the access code could be found easily. Once there the access code could be found easily. For some reason the interface did not make it intuitive to locate this information so that there can be student enrollment.

Accessing Access Code

Another area a future facilitator should be made aware of is how the gradebook is populated. This is done when a student enrolls in the course not by the facilitator. In addition, the facilitator needs to create an assignment with a hyperlink to the discussion so that the discussion is included in the gradebook. At this time, only assignments are viewable in the gradebook not anything else. In time, maybe Schoology will have new code to fix this problem.

A lessoned learned with regard to assignments. It is recommended that e-mail should go out to the students describing the expectations of the assignments. Furthermore, a number should be put in front of the each assignment so that it will show an order of listing.

With the exception of these few things listed, I did find Schoology user friendly. Looking ahead, these items will be taken as lessons learned and the mistakes made will be taken as a learning experience.

BP8 -Links to Comments

Follow this link to my comments on K. Kellen's RILS

K. Kellen's Video

Follow this link to my comments on Ari Sutton's RILS

Ari Sutton's Video

Final Post

Here is a short documentary of using the virtual classroom Schoology.com with a course in Google+. Generally speaking, my participants found both interfaces easy to use. Learning about both Web 2.0 tools was beneficial in that they both had social networking in common.

These are my supporting information Google+ Meets Schoology - A Virtual Classroom | Educator Studio.

PE5 – Schoology

Schoology was the second of the Web 2.0 tools that I learned for the Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) project. It  merges two worlds, education and social media. At first, I thought that Schoology would be user friendly. Some of the components were and some were not. Here is what the instructor sees to create components for the course.

Instructor View of Schoology

Creating the course about Google+, I found easy. All that was required was creating pages, inserting text and graphics as applicable. Looking back I could have possibly added a movie to it.

To create the space for the course was also easy. Where I had difficulty was finding the access code so I could give it to my potential students. To locate the access code, first you need to go into the applicable course, then click edit members that is located on the left, and finally you can see the code. Without the code, student cannot access the course.

Another area of difficulty was the grade book. It appears that it gets populated once a student is given the access code and logs in. Jena Wayt was nice enough to test this with me so I could attempt to add items to the grade book. For future, testing I will create a fictitious student so I can test my own course. The next thing I had to create was a weight category for grading. This had to be attached to my assignments in order for them to appear in the grade book. I wanted to add a threaded discussion to the grade book. This was not a feature of the interface. What I could do was create an assignment, remove the dropbox, and provide a link to the threaded discussion from there. It did work with the fictitious student I created.

There is one cool thing that Schoology does for the instructor. It sends e-mails anytime something happens in a course to keep you aware of it. In addition, once I create my assessment, I will put a link into an assignment so the students have quicker access. Lastly, once I did some research about the product and received assistance from Jena Wayt and Dr McBride for their assistance.

PE4 – Google+

Google+ was the first of the Web 2.0 tools that I learned for the Relevant and Innovative Learning Scenario (RILS) project. Once I started using the tool after some introductory training from Lynda.com I was able to create a lesson plan that would explain what Google+ was to creating and deleting Circles. I took screen shots to supplement what I was describing, which included the tool bar so I could make a diagram labeling its parts. See below.

Google+ Tool bar Labeled

Originally, I was only going to discuss the tool bar and Circles but realized that some people may not even have an account. Therefore, I created as part of the lesson a component of how to create an account along with providing a link on how to change the profile if they already had an account or wanted to update it. The link is https://plus.google.com for updating the profile so people can find you. After all, what good is it being on a social media tool that combines a social network if your profile is not up to date?

As my lesson continued, I chunked the information into three parts. The first part was an overview of Google+ and things related to creating the account/profile. Part two consisted of learning about the tool bar. Finally, part three was about Circles, which I thought would bring meaning to the course. I went over how to create them, delete them and add/remove people.

Once I started creating the course, through its completion, I found Google+ extremely user friendly. It was a mater of going in and “playing” with this Web 2.0 tool.

BP6-Comment to Faith

Follow this link to my comments on Faith's blog

BP5-Comment to Shrav

Follow this link to my comments on Shrav's blog