Thing #19 Virtual Classroom

In the day and age in which we live, we need to plan for the instruction we give to extend beyond the walls of our classroom and after the dismissal bells have rung.  This assignment involved making a plan for a blended classroom.
I plan to:

• Post a weekly schedule of the skills I will be teaching during the upcoming week's worth of LLI instruction, along with links to any supplemental or continuing practice sites or opportunities I can find to further and/or enhance my students' learning. 
• Post a bi-weekly WebQuest on a topic related to one of the Michigan GLCE's for the grade levels involved.
• Post a weekly schedule and the learning targets for each group with whom I meet.
• Post weekly Quizlet formative assessment quizzes for student monitoring of progress.
• Post recommendations for books I think my students might enjoy

I plan to do this in my Face of the Classroom blog.  I'd also like to post a section for new teaching resources I discover for those teachers I coach--things my colleagues might find useful.  I would also like to try participating with the Read Across America activities offered on CapSpace.  It looked like there were some really cool things for elementary kids to do--author conferences,reading aloud and sharing projects--gosh, I saw about 20 things that looked great right at first look.  I am looking forward to getting involved with some of those projects as well.
This will help me use my blog to fulfill the NETS-T standards:
1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity--  I believe the Web quests will inspire student learning and creativity.
2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments--I think the weekly Quizlets for formative assessment and the additional enrichment or extra practice sites will accomplish this. 
3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning--I believe the ability to communicate and collaborate with students, parents and my colleagues demonstrates this standard.
4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility--I plan to use the blog entry I have about Netiquette and direct my colleagues toward resources on digital citizenship, copyright and fair use.  I believe this will fulfill one aspect of this standard.
5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership--by participating in local learning communities with mycolleagues and a more global community with some of the projects on CapSpace, I feel I will have also addressed at least one aspect of this standard as well.
The second part of the assignment was to play the student role in Navigating the Land of Online Learning and write a summary of what it takes to be a successful online student.  There were a series of questions to answer--is there a cost?  Can I use my own lap top?  Can I access the course from home?  Is it harder than a face to face class?  Is there tech support available to me?  Can I drop it without penalty if I don't like it?  Do I have to do it only at home or at school?  Can I use my lap top at school?  Do I need special skills to succeed in this class?  Will this course support either platform? How many online classes can I take?  These all dealt with the questions to ask before you sign up for an online class, but I think you must also ask yourself if you are willing to take the time and effort it is going to take to complete the tasks--are you self-driven enough to not require someone standing over your shoulder reminding you that the work needs to be done?  Do I have good time management skills? Am I a good communicator? Am I technology savvy enough to handle the work?  Do I understand Netiquette?  Copyright laws and plagiurism?  Do I think I would enjoy it?  I believe you don't have to be a computer wizard, but you do have to be tech savvy enough to maneuver through the tasks without constant assistance.