Leading Edge Certification – Online and Blended Teacher

I think I am addicted to learning.  This week I am finishing up my Leading Edge Certification – Admin, submitted my application for Boise State to hopefully join the Ed.D program in the Fall and now I am starting the Leading Edge Certification (LEC) for the Online and Blended Teacher (OBT).

Part of the program requirements for the LEC OBT is to create a blog for your assignments. I am going to attempt to utilize my same blog and create the assignments in a way that fits in with my blog style of creating resources for educators.  Fingers crossed.

My first assignment after introducing myself is to:

Considering the online learning self-assessment you took this week, and thinking about your reasons for taking this course, what is your highest priority learning goal for this course? What are some specific skills, strategies or tools you are hoping to learn more about?

My highest priority goal is to get a better feel for what makes for good online instruction.  While I have created and ran several online courses I do not feel that I have come close to mastering what makes a good online course. I am always learning and there is always room for improvement.  In my 14 years as a face to face high school math teacher I think I worked just as hard my 14th year as I did my first… until I have 100% success with students there is always a way to do it better, to engage more students and to innovate the learning environment.

My biggest focus in creating online instruction is working on building the community. Online instruction does not have to be a lonely endeavor with you hiding in your basement behind your computer screen. Since we are not politely sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher teach we can actually spend a lot of time collaborating, chatting, video conferencing, creating and getting to know classmates.

I am excited to take part in the evolution of online learning. I learned from the amazing Jaime Casap that with new technology there comes a series of iterations before we truly innovate with it.  A new technology is adopted in the same way we do old process and then as we use it more we evolve to really discover the potential for new ways to use the tool to totally transform what we are doing.  I feel online education is there, right now we are trying to recreate what we do in a classroom… oftentimes: give information, do an assignment, take a test. But what is the possibility of online education? That iteration is so far out there I can not even picture what that looks like yet, but I am excited that I know it is out there.  What online learning will look like in 10 years I think will be so revolutionary that many of us can’t even wrap our brains around it right now. So I am excited to be part of the pioneers that eventually get us to that iteration.

So my specific skills, strategies or tools that I want to learn is how to take online learning from being reading text online to being innovative, creative, connected and a better learning environment.  Guess that is not too specific, but I want to be a dreamer and reach for beyond what I even know is possible.