Blogs, Cybercoaching,

How does a teacher effectively use blogs in an online classroom?

Blogs are used for education in ways that require the students to reflect , build on the knowledge they have and to share with others. Blogs are used among faculty and their students. They give everyone the opportunity to post their editorials, opinions, personal commentaries and to complete the requirements of a course.

Why am I blogging? It is required by the instructors at the University of Wisconsin at Stout where I am enrolled in the E-Learning Graduate Certificate Program. Would I be blogging if it were not required? No, I wouldn't. I am not a person to sit down and reflect about what I have learned on paper. I have never been a writer. I communicate much better f2f. I am learning that I must reflect more often in order to get my students to reflect. I don't think that it is possible to get all students to reflect on their learning. This is something that online learning has brought into the equation.

Are people reading my blog? I doubt it. The only people who might be interested in reading it are my classmates. They might be reading it because it is one of the suggestions put forth by our instructors. Will I continue to blog after I complete the certificate? I don't know.

Cybercoaching

Are you a cybercoach? How much time to you spend online? After participating in the discussions and reading the many articles that were required for this model, I am beginning to think that online teaching is a 24/7 teaching experience. Coaching in the article Cybercoaching: Rubrics, Feedback, and Metacognition, Oh My! is described as "monitoring student feedback for improvement". This kind of feedback takes a lot of time and is not easy to manage. Teachers can use various programs that will provide automatic feedback to the students. The teachers have to create the program for it to work effectively. Both students and teachers must be prepared to understand the program before it can be used. Rubrics is the choice for most effective online instructors. The rubrics must be developed carefully with the class objectives the core feature.

Cybercoaching: Rubrics, Feedback, and Metacognition, Oh My!
Naomi Jeffery Petersen, Ed.D.
Indiana University South Bend School of Education
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The discussions have been quite interesting with many of my classmates giving their ideas about online teaching. Would you allow students to contact you at home? What if students do not have access to computers outside of the classroom? How much time does an instructor spend teaching the students the tech part of the class before the material is introduced?