EXTRA EXTRA read all about it… details about my LMS that is

Hi Friends, This week I wanted to give you a bit of a run down on how I intend to facilitate my Blended Course.  These are just my preliminary ideas and are possibly subject to changes, as I find I am learning more as I go. Sarah has some fabulous ideas in her blog this week in terms of establishing boundaries and participating for her older students.  Although, I think that working with young grade 3 students there is only a need for pre-teaching about “Netiquette” and digital citizenship. 

I think for student/student-instructor interactions I will implement a blog. This form will be used so that students can publish their assignments and respond to readings or video’s. I think that once students get the hang of commenting on each others posts they will quite enjoy it. Although I believe that it may be difficult to create a community, this is something that the students have to do for themselves. Elizabeth had a great point when she said “we can try to foster a welcoming, open environment in which students feel a sense of community, but we can’t ensure this in all of our classes”. Image Source 

Choosing this form of student interaction is beneficial because grade 3 students are smart and full of great ideas and they will be able to share their thoughts with their peers online. Perhaps there is a way to moderate as the facilitator so that student blogs and comments can be reviewed before being posted. I also like the idea of commenting on students post, they will see that the teacher has read and thought critically about their post.

When facilitating an Blended Classroom I will make sure interactions between students and teacher are genuine.  I believe that awarding marks for participation is a starting point for students.  By encouraging participation with marks, students will begin to explore using blogs and commenting on their peers work and do so in a appropriate manner. This is the first step in meaningful interactions. Students will gain confidence by having fellow students reading and responding to their blogs. I think that both peer assessment and self assessment have value in a blended classroom. Elizabeth mentions the importance of teaching students to use pingbacks in their blogs as it “further encourages them to read other people’s blogs at their leisure and quote them in their own. It is important for students to read other people’s work, and to know that their work will also be read. This will help them see the value and importance of blogging, and the importance of reading something over before submitting it.” Image Source

I thought that I would check out the hyperlinks that were found in the document  Mastering Online Discussion Board Facilitation for some assessment ideas.  I was very disappointed to find out that all the hyperlinks that I tried were broken.  I think that it is very important when setting up a Blended Classroom for students to make sure that all links are working.  By not checking for dead links an educator can run into a lot of wasted time in terms of having students refer to a link provided.

Well this is my starting point, oh yeah and rubrics.  Have you ever used a blog platform in your classroom, which one?

Connecting with my community

Over the past few weeks I have managed to find support for my health goals online.  I found the website Spark People awesome in terms of setting health goals.  There are also plenty of articles and support to guide you on your journey.  I also enjoyed participating in the online community, where you can post within different forums.  I defiantly suggest looking into his online tool for some education and support!!

I also focused on connecting with other healthy eating bloggers.  I explored 2 different website.  My first pick is called Thestonesoup.  I enjoyed that all of the author’s recipes were simple,  as she works hard to post delicious recipes that encourage us to become healthy home cooks. I also enjoyed the organized recipe index.

Screenshot from The Stone Soup

The other healthy recipe blog that I was able to check out was Hungry Healthy Happy.  The tag line is ” a blog that will motivate you to change your lifestyle”.  I like the blog as it is very supportive and motivating.

Screen shot from hungryhealthyhappy.com

I also follow a few different Facebook gals for motivation: curvy girl on the lose, Bree gets fit.  I enjoy when recipes or little victories come up on my news feed. I also want to mention that I attend a fitness center called Fearless Fitness.  If anyone is looking for a great workout, I suggest checking out one of there classes.  I attempted to attach the schedule, but it was a blur, just check out the link above or look at their Facebook . Comment on my blog if you are interested in attending, as it is invite only.  I tend to do Waist trimmer on Mondays, and Cardio-kickboxing on Thursday, come on and join me, you won’t regret it!