Before we get into this, let’s all just take a moment of silence for Padlet going to a paid subscription model.

The great thing about the internet, though, is that there are usually multiple tools for doing the same thing, and so the search begins for other ways to foster interaction.  In a recent webinar, a colleague shared a tool with us that really caught my attention: Wakelet.

I hadn’t heard of Wakelet before, but I was immediately drawn to it as a way to organize links and information.  Using Wakelet, you can store links, images, notes, etc. in a “Wake” or “Wakelet” or “Collection” or “Story” (consistent verbiage isn’t really their thing, apparently…).  These collections are customizable and embeddable (using HTML code), so I thought that they would be fantastic for organizing supplemental resources for students in Blackboard in a way that was visually appealing and easy to navigate.  I’ve done some work to that end, and I wanted to share an overview of this really useful tool!

 

Intro to Wakelet

After you’ve registered for an account with Wakelet, your homepage looks like this:

As you can see, I’ve already made a few collections for my Spanish classes.  To create a collection, you’ll click on the green plus sign in the middle of the page labeled “New Collection/Story” which will take you here:

From this page, you can add background and cover images (they have a set of stock images you can choose from, or you can upload your own), as well as a title and description.  You can change the visibility of your collection:

Only collections that are set to Public or Unlisted can be embedded.

Once you add a cover image, you can adjust the size of it using this menu:

 

Adding Content

To add content to your collection you’ll use the widget in the middle of the page:

You can add links by simply copying and pasting into the left text box.  Wakelet will automatically create a tile for your link along with a title and sometimes an image (if one is provided by the website).  These can be edited later.  You can also use the buttons on the right to (going from left to right) add a link from twitter, add an image, add content from your saved items (within Wakelet), and write something in a text box.

Once you’ve added some content, you can use this menu to choose how they are arranged within your collections:

Both Media View and Compact View are stacked on top of each other, with Media View giving the additional ability for videos to play directly from your collection.

Grid view stacks link tiles in a 2xN grid (with N being the number of rows necessitated by the number of links you’ve added).

It’s important to note that the view you choose here doesn’t affect the view when the Wakelet is embedded, but the embedded configuration can be changed later.

 

Editing Content

To edit your link tiles, hover over the tile you wish to edit while still in editing mode:

The red button deletes the tile.  The gray arrows move the tile to the top of the collection or the bottom.  You can also click and drag tiles to reorder them.  To edit the image, title, and description of the tile, click the green button:

From here you can change the image and edit the Title and description.  When you’re done, click Save.

When you’re done adding and editing content, be sure to click the green Save button in the upper right of the page.  You can always edit a collection by clicking the green Edit button in the bottom right.

 

Sharing/Embedding your Wakelet

To share or embed your Wakelet, you must have the collection open, but not in editing mode:

The Share and Embed buttons are in gray in the upper right.  The Share button opens a dialog box:

From here you can share your collection to social media or Google Classrooms, as well as copy a direct link.

The Embed button (for collections set as Unlisted or Public) also opens a dialog box:

Before you copy the HTML code make sure you choose the layout you want using the toggle buttons below the code box.  You can choose from three options: Media View (important if you want videos to play directly from the embedded collection), Grid View (the 2xN grid described earlier), or Horizontal Scroll View with sets link tiles side-by-side with arrows for scrolling.  You can also choose whether or not to include the title, description and cover image with the embedded collection.  I’ve chosen not to, as the Blackboard content items I’ve embedded them into already need titles and the cover image takes up a LOT of space.

The way I’ve used Wakelet in Blackboard is I’ve embedded multiple collections on a new content page I’ve named “Resources.”  To embed the collection, you first need to create an “item” on the page using the “Build Content” menu:

You can then paste the embed code into the item the same way you would to embed a Google Slide into an announcement, for example.  For my page I’ve included three collections, one in each of the three layouts to best fit the types of links I’ve included:

 

 

I’m excited to use Wakelet in upcoming semesters to provide better access to supplemental resources for students.  I’ve been very pleased with the user-friendliness and easiness of Wakelet and hope to use it in other ways in the future as well!

I have had some amazing experiences connecting with students this semester!  I feel like this is something I’m usually pretty good at, but several of my experiences this semester have been on a deeper level than “We both played tennis in high school!” or “I was in marching band, too!” or even “Childish Gambino is definitely one of the most talented rappers of our time!”  All of these are valid and valuable ways to connect with students, and common interests and activities are my in-roads to student connections 90% of the time.  However, sharing interests and hobbies is easy and it usually doesn’t lead directly to a deep connection or a relationship of trust with a student on its own.  Something else is necessary for those connections to form: vulnerability.

My best relationships with students this semester have formed when we have both shared something about ourselves that pushed us to be vulnerable with each other.  Most of them have centered around something that I have struggled with for almost two decades now, but that I don’t talk about very much – mental illness.

It always amazes me how much students are willing to share with us as teachers.  A troublingly large number of students have admitted to me that they are struggling with mental illness and that it frequently interferes with their ability to focus on work.  A couple of students shared this with me up front, which is great, because it means I can keep closer tabs on their pace and catch it more quickly if they start to fall behind.  Several more students shared this struggle with me after I had noticed them struggling and reached out to check on them.

Often, when students share these types of struggles, we sympathize with them and try our best to help them, but I think there’s something really powerful in saying, “I’m here too.  I’m struggling through this same muck every single day, and sometimes I stumble, and sometimes I fail, and sometimes you will too, and that’s okay.  When that happens, I’m here to help you stand back up and get moving forward again.”

I’ve struggled with depression and anxiety since middle school – and that’s one of the first times I’ve ever written/spoken about it in even a semi-public setting.  I grew up with a mother who also struggled, but did not give an example of seeking help or self-care.  She suffered through it alone, and to this day, as much as I fight against it, I carry that attitude with me.  Talking about my problems or asking for help is reeeeeally hard for me.  My students have impressed me so much with their courage and willingness to say, “this is hard for me, but I’m going to try my best anyway, please help me if I can’t do it alone.”  Their willingness to be vulnerable is inspiring.  I have made a conscious effort to try and be vulnerable in return, and have been amazed at the results.

Now, thankfully, mental illness is not everyone’s struggle.  The takeaway, I think, that is applicable to everyone is don’t be afraid to share yourself with your students.  Be open.  Be vulnerable.  Be an example of a human person with struggles and passions and allow your students to be the same.  That is when real, deep connection happens.

I read the following article the other day and I thought it might be an interesting and amusing follow-up to my previous post dealing with emojis and their use in the classroom.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lawyers Faced With Emojis and Emoticons Are All ¯\\(ツ)\/¯

Apparently, over the past 10 years, the number of legal cases involving emoticons and emojis has been steadily rising and has jumped significantly in the last two.  In 2017, there were at least 33 court decisions that mentioned the little guys, up from 25 in 2016 and 14 in 2015.

One case mentioned in the article that hits rather close to home was a defamation case here in Michigan.  According to writer Mike Cherney, in this case, “the meaning of an emoticon, an emoji-like image created with text characters from a standard keyboard, was up for debate. A comment on an internet message board appeared to accuse a local official of corruption. The comment was followed by a “:P” emoticon.

The judges on the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded in 2014 that the emoticon ‘is used to represent a face with its tongue sticking out to denote a joke or sarcasm.’ The court said the comment couldn’t be taken seriously or viewed as defamatory.”

Lesson: if you’re being rude to someone, “:P” is the new “bless their heart.”

Lawyers are coming up more and more against emojis and emoticons, the meaning of which have real legal consequences for the parties involved.  To help deal with this new and growing issue, lawyers have put together seminars, held informal meetings and courses, and done research studies on the topic of emojis and emoticons.

“Emoji Law 101” – coming soon to Harvard Law School (probably)!

One thing that I am trying to do differently this semester as opposed to last semester is to establish high expectations earlier.  Last semester I fell like I gave more leeway on early assignments without inviting students to meet higher levels of effort and deeper levels of thought, at least not explicitly enough to be helpful.  Which resulted in some issues further along in the course (obviously).

While I still think that greater leeway should be afforded to students as they learn a new system and get used to the level of work expected of them in a new course, it’s important to make expectations for future work clear and, if appropriate, inviting students to rework and resubmit early assignments to conform with those expectations.

A recent example comes to mind that occurred in my English 10 course.  In completing the introductory discussion post and classmate response, one student elected to give a single sentence answer in his self-introductory post and single word answers (Hi!) in his responses to classmates.  While he technically completed each part of the assignment brief, it was clearly not a thoughtful, engaged response, and did not meet the standards and expectations I have for my students.  I was also concerned that, in a writing class especially, if this lack of thought and detail went unaddressed, it might show up later in larger writing assignments when it would be more difficult to course-correct.

My public response to the student on the discussion board was as follows:

“Hi, [Name]!  Welcome to class!

What are some of the hobbies that you most enjoy?  Do you participate in any extra-curriculars at your school?  What are you looking forward to in this class?”

Here I prompted for the information that should have been included in the original post without overtly correcting him in front of peers.  When creating a more private comment, however, I could be a little more straightforward:

“Thanks, [Name]!  I’m excited to have you in class this semester! However, I’d like to know a little more about you than you’ve shared here.  I think that it’s important that you know right off the bat that I expect high levels of thought, detail, and effort from my students.  I can’t give you full marks for your work on this assignment yet, but you are welcome to edit your posts or reply to them and give us some more information on yourself, and give more thoughtful responses to your classmates!  If you’re unsure about how to do that, or about what type of information/response I’m looking for here, shoot me a message/email/text and I’d be happy to help!  I’m rooting for you!”

I think the trick is keeping a positive tone while at the same time making it clear what you need from them and what your expectations are.  In my experience, both in the past and so far this semester, students respond very well to this mix of firmness, expectation, positivity, and availability.

One of the frequent complaints that I hear about communicating with people online or through text is that it is extremely difficult to communicate tone and mood.  This is very true with text alone and can lead to miscommunication, misunderstandings, and a myriad of other problems.  Thankfully, online and text communication has evolved to give us several options to mitigate this pitfall.  Today I’ll be talking about three of those options.

As teachers, tone is very important in our communication with students, parents, colleagues, and other stockholders.  It helps convey our message to students as we intend it to be received.  As online instructors, this can be a challenge.  However, appropriate use of the following tools can greatly up our chances of communicating clearly with our students.

Tool #1: Emoticons/Emojis 

First of all, what’s the difference between the two?

Emoticons (a shortening of “emotional icons”) are a precursor to emojis.  They consist of punctuation marks and other characters combined to recreate a facial expression or other image.  They’ve been in regular use since about 1982.  Some typical examples include:

Emojis, which were initially based on these images, are small pictographs of faces/symbols/images that can be inserted into text.  They were invented in 1990 in Japan and quickly entered popular use there.  They became popularized worldwide when Apple added an emoji keyboard to their original iPhone in 2007.  While many platforms have their own style of emoji, the most readily recognizable remains Apple’s standard keyboard set.

Both emoticons and emojis serve the same purpose on a surface level, however.  Both are intended to convey emotion or feeling alongside the text, allowing the writer to communicate tone or mood.  Some emojis have taken on specific meanings within the culture as time has passed, but the original intent was to augment text communication and allow for emotional communication.

In practical application, emojis and emoticons can help us communicate tone to our students, to indicate irony, or to personalize our communication and build connections with students.  They can help reduce the distance imposed by the computer and virtual aspect of our instruction. (note: Emoji for Google Chrome is a great extension for making the use of emojis really easy)

Tool #2: Memes 

Internet memes are easily communicable images/phrases/videos or a mixture of these that are spread on the internet, usually with humorous intent.

The term “meme” was actually coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins to describe an idea the spreads throughout and permeates the culture in a sort of “viral” way, all while mutating and changing in a manner comparable to biological evolutionary patterns.  Internet memes are a sort of mutation of that idea (fitting, no?) and have been around as long as the internet itself.  Originally passed around on message boards and in chat rooms, they are now widely spread on social media platforms.

Some of the most enduring memes include a common image that allows variation on a theme.  For example, there are many, many variations on the Woody/Buzz meme used above.  Other examples include Grumpy Cat, Philosoraptor, Overly Attached Girlfriend, and Chubby Bubbles Girl.  Some of the earliest memes included:

Among many, many others.  Many recent memes (like the Woody/Buzz example) take the form of an “image macro” which consists of an image and one or two lines of text based on this template:

There are obviously far too many memes to mention them all here, but the website KnowYourMeme.com is a very useful resource for all things meme-related.

Memes can be used to lighten the mood, insert some humor and visual interest into a text-heavy announcement, and display personality, helping students to get to know you as a person and not just a teacher.

Another strength of memes is that they are easily adaptable to fit the context and subject matter you’re working with.  There’s a whole subset of teacher memes that are always relatable:

And there are lots of memes that have been created for any subject area:

One of my favorite recent trends is taking images from classical art and turning them into memes.

The point is, you can usually find a meme to fit your situation, and if you can’t, you can use tools like memegenerator.net or imagechef.com to create your own!

Tool #3: GIFs 

And now on to the main event!  Many of you may have noticed my affinity for GIFs throughout the past months.  GIF stands for “Graphics Interchange Format” and is pronounced with a hard ‘g’ like ‘gift’ but without the ‘t.’  If you disagree with that, well…

They were invented (partially) by a compuserve employee named Steve Wilhite, who incidentally, also pronounces it wrong, because “graphics” is not pronounced “jraphics” nor is a GIF a brand of peanut butter.

Anyway… basically, a GIF is an animated image, sometimes with a phrase, like a meme (in fact, there’s an argument to be made that a GIF is just a subset of memes, but that’s a discussion for another day) that loops on a time delay.  As with the other tools discussed, they insert a bit of humor and personality and conveniently break up blocks of text.  They’re my preferred format because they’re just so darn fun!  While there are several online tools that allow you to create animated GIFs, websites like GIPHY.com have gathered thousands upon thousands upon thousands of GIFs and organized them in a searchable database for your convenience.  Chances are you can find the perfect GIF for any situation.  In case you can’t, though, GIPHY also allows you to create your own using an on-site tool.

A Word of Warning 

Emojis, memes, and GIFs may seem like a lot of innocent fun, and for the most part, they are!  However, as with everything on the internet, they do have a darker side.  Several emojis carry with them sexual connotations, and there are a few memes, including Pepe the Frog and images of Crusade Knights (Deus Vult) that have recently been associated with radical or racist groups.  GIFs and memes can be created about anything, so care should be taken to make sure the images you’re using are appropriate for students to see.

However, used thoughtfully and appropriately, any of these tools can allow teachers to better communicate with their student and connect with them through that communication.  These are methods our students are using to communicate with their peers and friends and they are methods they understand and appreciate.

So…It’s been a while since my last post.  For those of you who have been desperately missing my uniquely GIF- and sarcasm-fueled brand of dazzling wit, buckle up!  This one might be a doozy.

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that at certain points along the way, Life takes a massive wind up and kicks you right in the face.

Followed by an elbow.

And perhaps a karate chop or two.

Between family and personal sickness, an already packed schedule with two small children, and a returning battle with mental illness, the past two months have been especially difficult.  It’s left me feeling bruised and unsure about many things.  More relevantly to this blog, it’s left me continually playing catch-up with my courses and workload.

The first half of this semester, I think, represents me at my best as an instructor.  I was engaging students, tracking my communication, trying new things, and giving thoughtful feedback.  As time went on, however, those things fell by the wayside one by one.  Additional strategies for building student engagement went out the window, my tracking system became more of a hindrance than a help and was eventually abandoned, I fell behind on grading, and I ignored many of my responsibilities outside of the classroom, including this blog.  By the time things began to calm down, I was forced into prioritizing efficiency over quality in a few areas, including grading and feedback.  Now, I did reach out to individual students that seemed to really be struggling, and I did try to be open with students as much as was appropriate about what was going on (something that I think is vital to building trust with students, especially in a situation that’s not ideal) and invite them to ask me if they wanted more specific feedback on assignments in order to redo them or better understand them.  The bottom line, however, is that my effectiveness as an instructor fell significantly.

I’ve recently gotten things back on track and have been doing some intense reflection.  Life dealt me a bad hand, true, but it’s also true that I did not play it strategically or thoughtfully.  I crumbled.  But it has taught me a few lessons, not the least of which is:

It’s okay to need help and ask for it!

I’m terrible at this.  Like, über bad.  I tend to work best isolated, and even when things aren’t going well I tend to not reach out to others.  I don’t want to burden them, or I don’t want to look weak or incompetent, or whatever the reason may be.  The point is, it’s a failing of mine.  One that I’m starting to work on.

The truth is, teaching is hard.  Even online teaching.  It takes a lot out of you, and when life is taking most of that away already, it’s nice to know that there are people out there who care and are willing to help you get back on track.  We’re super lucky at Michigan Virtual to have a whole organization with this as part of its culture.  I’ve received several offers of assistance from different people, without them even knowing anything was wrong, and I have no doubt that each of them was genuine.  I’ve set new goals that will hopefully help me move forward into the new semester and navigate the complexities with a little more grace.

In the meantime, thank you to all of you who have always been there to offer assistance, even if I didn’t take you up on it.  I promise to do better.

 

In my previous post, I talked about a survey that I had created and sent out to my students to get their feedback on how they were feeling about their courses, what they specifically liked, and what they wished were different.

Well, the results are in!  While I enjoyed the comments about what was going well and the things I was doing to help them, for the purposes of this post, I want to focus on the answers I received to the last question: What changes could be made to your online course to better help you learn and have a good experience.  Amidst the suggestions to “make it easier” or “don’t assign work,”

there were two serious suggestions that were repeated by several students that I want to address in my online classroom.

The first was to clarify instructions for how to get started in the course and how to navigate the system.  While I can’t go back in time to the start of the semester and change this aspect of the experience for students, I can move the creation of tutorials and instructional videos/documents from my “want to do” list to my “will do” list.  My plan is to use some of my time this semester to develop some tutorials and videos to incorporate into my courses next semester.  If my children ever stop getting sick, I may even get to it!

The second is more applicable to where we are currently.  I got the feeling from some student responses that they were unsure how to get help from me.  This confused me at first because I thought that I had been super clear about when my office hours were and what methods they could use to get a hold of me.  But obviously, it wasn’t getting communicated effectively to a significant portion of the students.  So I decided to attack the problem from two angles:

1. Straight-up telling them again.  I had a professor in college who used to refer to themselves and to teachers in general as “professional repeaters.”  Turns out, if you say something, kids don’t always listen.  Huh.

   

   So, I repeated.  I sent out an announcement/e-mail detailing my office hours and contact information.  I’m also toying with some ideas about how to tweak my method for holding open office hours (which at the moment is rather unstructured).

2. Focusing on my teacher persona.  I want students to feel like they can approach me and ask questions when they need to.  I had done an okay job of this already, I think, but I wanted to focus on it more.  After sending out the announcement about my contact info, I started receiving more messages asking questions, and I’ve been very mindful of the tone of my responses, as well as the tone of my feedback on student work.  Another part of this that I wanted to improve was engaging students outside of course content.  You know, as real people.

   

More on that later 🙂  Stay tuned!

I am a huge advocate for clear, frequent, and open communication in educational communities.  Communication between educational stakeholders is key to improving student achievement and helps make the experience smoother for everyone.  I feel like I’m fairly decent at communicating, especially in writing.

I also feel like communication is one of my major weaknesses as a teacher.

Maybe it’s because I feel it’s so important and don’t want to mess it up.  Maybe it’s because it always seems like such a daunting task.  Maybe it’s because delivering content has always taken so much of my attention that communication tends to fall by the wayside.  Maybe it’s due to my crippling fear of talking on the telephone.

Whatever the reason, communicating regularly with students, parents, and other stakeholders outside of the classroom and assignment feedback has been a struggle for me since I began teaching.  This semester, however, I’m aiming to change that.  I’ve developed two main tools to help me accomplish this goal.

Tool #1: Anonymous “Check-in” Surveys

Because delivering an awesome experience is a prime goal of Michigan Virtual (and of mine), I’m always looking to improve on what I’m doing in my online classroom.  To facilitate feedback, I’ve created a survey that can be administered to students throughout a term.  I just launched the first one for this semester:

The survey is short, the questions are simple and straightforward, and most importantly, the responses are anonymous.  It’s so much easier to give honest feedback to someone when they have no idea who you are, right?

To be continued!  I plan to follow up on this check-in survey with a results post.  I also plan to do a parent version soon!

Tool #2: Communication Tracking Spreadsheet!

I love spreadsheets.  Ben Wyatt and I are very similar in this way.

This particular spreadsheet, combined with the “Work Offline” function of the Blackboard Full Grade Center (fully downloadable and copy-and-pasteable spreadsheets, baby!), allows me to track if a student accessed the course during the previous week, what their current percentage is in the class, and what kind of communication I’ve initiated with them in past weeks, who was involved in the communication, and what it was about.  Using this data, I can identify students who are in need of a push or help getting going, who hasn’t been contacted in a while, and who is making exceptional progress so I can send a positive e-mail to parents (which is just as important as the other, I believe).

I’m pretty excited to get working on improving this aspect of my teaching.  I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

Hey, Everybody!

So one thing I’ve learned this week in my online education adventure is that I am somewhat terrible at working from home.

Turns out that being at home around all my things and having the distractability quotient of a Shih Tzu don’t really mix.

Whether it’s a burning desire to binge a TV show, or play the piano, or check my phone, or just eat ALL THE THINGS…

…Managing my time was becoming a problem.  During the summer, I had become used to finishing all of my work pretty much every day.  Everything was graded, every message was responded to, and all extra tasks had been checked off by the time I signed off every day.  Although I remained my distractable self during the summer, I’m a fast worker, especially on a computer, so with the reduced student load, I was able to get through all of it in just a few hours every day. That’s not happening for me anymore and it’s stressing me out!

I mean, I even ship my kids off to preschool every day, and I still wasn’t measuring up to my expectations!  Although, that did cause some extra problems, seeing as we’ve all been more or less deathly ill since the first week of school…

However, I got to thinking this week that perhaps I was being a little too hard on myself.  Perhaps what was possible during the summer with the reduced load simply wasn’t going to continue being possible for me during the regular school year.  As difficult as this was to accept at first (If I don’t get something done during the day, I have a tendency to neurotically obsess over it all night), once I got the idea through my brain, it’s been strangely liberating, and I was able to make a plan to make better use of my time.

First of all, I cleared my workspace, which happens to be a tiny desk in my bedroom, of all potential distractions.  Most importantly, I moved my phone charger out of that space and now keep my phone plugged in away from me during the time that I’m working.  To go along with that, I’ve started breaking down my work into smaller, (approximately) 45-minute chunks, and giving myself permission to take 10-minute breaks in between those chunks to do something else like check my phone, or do a bit of exercise, or grab a snack.

I’ve also given myself permission to not get everything done every day, and I’ve started creating a prioritized schedule for each day of the week that I’m going to implement starting next week.  It’s still a work in progress, as I haven’t figured out the exact timing needed for each task yet, but I’m pretty excited about what I’ve got so far, and I hope it will help me maintain my sanity!

I think my main takeaways from this week are:

1. Keep your expectations reasonable, especially the ones you place on yourself!
2. Prioritization and organization can make seemingly insurmountable tasks manageable.

I look forward to implementing my prioritized schedule next week.  I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

 

Why, hello there!

I’m gonna stop you right here and warn you that this whole blogging thing is somewhat alien to me.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love writing.  I’m an English teacher, after all.  And a Spanish teacher.  And before that, I studied computer science and software development for a while.  So I’ve basically spent my entire educational career learning about languages and how to use them.

Some of you might be wondering what computer science is doing, just sitting there in the middle of a paragraph about languages, amidst all that social science mumbo-jumbo.  I’ll tell you.  While studying software I learned four distinct programming languages.  On a basic level, these languages are a lot like any other language; the goal of learning the language is to be able to communicate meaning in a way the person on the other end can understand (only, in this case, the “person” was a machine, of course).  A software designer or programmer works within the rules and limits of the language to tell the machine which functions to perform.  However, software compilers are the ultimate grammar nazis.  One little mistake and the whole masterpiece of complicated language falls apart or gets stuck in an infinite loop.  A machine cannot infer your meaning, despite minor errors, or interpret meaning based on tone.  There is no sarcasm, no metaphor in software code.

Feeling a deep void left by the lack of sarcasm in my life, I veered back to my original love: human languages, and became a language teacher.  I studied all sorts of writing — poetry, short fiction, creative non-fiction, literary analysis — but I’ve always stopped short of truly sharing my writing with others.  So this whole blogging thing is rather alien to me, as I said.  Oh, what?  You forgot that’s where this ramble-fest started?  Well, scroll up a bit to remind yourself.  I’ll wait.

You good?  Great.  Moving on.

So, yeah.  Point is, I’m a bit nervous for this blogging experience, but at least I get to talk about things that I really care about.  You see, I recently landed a gig working for an amazing company called Michigan Virtual.  As a non-profit educational service provider, Michigan Virtual contracts with schools, districts, and parents to provide a quality online learning experience to students around the state in a hue variety of subjects.  Each online class is led by a highly-qualified and certified teacher, who spends his/her time coaching students and helping them to build knowledge and develop skills.  And I get to be part of that!

My job is somewhat different, as I have been hired on as an iEducator, part of a 21st century digital learning corp.  Basically, the idea is to take newbie teachers like me and give them immersive experiences in online and technology-aided teaching (skills that are becoming fundamental to a rapidly changing educational landscape) and then unleash us upon the world!  Muahahahahahaha!

Well, maybe with somewhat less evil laughing.

It’s an amazing opportunity to learn vital skills and see great work first-hand before venturing out into the void.  I’ve been teaching classes for Michigan Virtual for a few months now.  I taught a couple Spanish classes over the summer, and we’ve recently begun the fall semester.  I’m mostly teaching Spanish classes again, but I get to teach one section of a sophomore English class, which is very exciting.

This blog will, hopefully, become a place where I can share what I’m learning with a wider audience.  I hope to be able to both help other educators and learn from them as I continue my adventure in online learning.

Want to join me?