Week 1: Getting organized

The first week seems to have gone relatively smoothly, although the students coming in and out still makes it hard to create a week that is interesting for students who start on time but not so heavy that late comers can't catch up. The lack of interconnectivity between Moodle and the registration systems makes for constant checking on my part but that should go away once the updated Moodle is in use by everyone.

The class has an interesting mix--more students from other programs at TC than last year but fewer students from outside the country, more classroom teachers than last year and fewer instructional designers. This may mean we avoid some of the problems that CCTE students had last year when we came to curriculum-creation unit.

I did not expect that the K12, Inc. schools would look so much like state schools to those not in the know. I am sure that is their intent but I will need to clarify that next time.

About me

I am Director of Research and Evaluation at the Institute for Learning Technologies as well as an Adjunct Professor in the Program in Computers, Communication, Technology, and Education at Teachers College. As a researcher and evaluator, I work on all kinds of projects, mostly K-12 classroom-based curriculum interventions and mostly in math, science, and engineering (because that is where the funding is, both at the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education). As part of this work, I have researched many teacher professional development initiatives, including some that were offered online, and in 2005 I was invited to conduct one of eight studies funded by the U.S. Dept. of Education to study online learning. Since then, I have done more and more research on the rapidly growing world of online learning. Since 2006, I have also been evaluating the new International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme Online, which is increasing the number of courses offered each year. This has given me a great opportunity to look closely at online teaching and learning.

Although I have been studying online teaching and learning for several years, last year was the first year I taught one. I found creating the course an interesting challenge, particularly coming up with assignments that would be learning experiences. The students in last year's course liked it but had some helpful ideas that I have incorporated this year. I will be soliciting your ideas for improving this iteration at the end of the course.

I should add that I am an anthropologist, which means that I am always interested in the big picture (the context) as well as the little picture (interactions between people, or between people and context). You can read more about my past and my current work on the ILT website:
http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/about/staff_list.html