Is this really the last quest on TOOL? I feel relief to have made it to the end, but now I am nervous on whether or not I will be offered an online teaching position with Georgia Virtual. I have experienced the disappointment of interviewing for the perfect teaching job only to be overlooked because I did not have enough teaching experience needed or the right teaching certificate. For example, a principal in the county told me if I got certified in history then my chances of employment would increase. I studied really hard and passed the history GACE. I was exited to tell the principal I passed the GACE, but then she tells me it was not good enough, that I needed to be certified in more than one area of social studies because compared to other candidates I would not be picked. Taking her advice I studied for the political science GACE. Please understand my background is not in social studies, but in Family and Consumer Sciences, so preparing for a challenging test in a different subject was hard. I passed the political science GACE and again told the principal of my success. There was a job opening in social studies at her school and I thought because I had followed her advice she would consider me as a candidate. I did not even get an interview for the position. I learned a person with years of teaching experience and a general social studies certificate was hired. I felt crushed and defeated. At the time I thought I would spend the rest of my days working as a substitute teacher. I turned in my resume at the small private school in town thinking I had nothing to lose. To my surprise the principal interviewed me for the history position. A month later I was called back for a second interview with the principal, the middle school director, and the high school director. I brought my student teaching unit binder on interior design even though the interview was for a history position. Two weeks went by and I received a call that the history position was filled. Again, I felt disappointment, but I knew I still had a job working as a substitute teacher to fall back on. Then, on the Friday before the first day of school the private school calls me and offers me a full-time teaching job! The principal and directors decided I had the right teaching qualities to teach at their school. The best part of this story is I was offered to teach my subject content, FACS. I was told more than once by veteran teachers that I would never teach FACS because there was no need for the subject in schools anymore. It is true that most school systems are cutting electives from their curriculum due to budget cuts.
I have two and half years experience working as a substitute teacher. That experience has taught me to be flexible and learn to teach any subject offered to me. I have been the teacher of high school art and photography, the teacher of high school government and sociology, the teacher of eleventh grade literature, and more. I think my experience as a substitute teacher has taught me to be strong, not to lose hope, and keep striving to be the best candidate for when the right job opens.
This has been my first year as a classroom teacher with her own classroom. Three periods are devoted to monitoring GAVS students. I have seen the other side of the virtual classroom thanks to this role. I know most students do not read teacher feedback, most students are too lazy to do the self-assessments, and I know most parents do not create a parent portal account. Those students are barely passing the course compared to the students who have parent involvement, submit assignments on time, and read the teacher feedback. I was given the role of yearbook adviser even though I have no experience in creating a yearbook. Despite the lack of experience, the principal trusted me with this role. The Jostens yearbook representative visits me at least once a month to two months to monitor our progress on the yearbook and collect dues. During the last visit he told me he was happy I was the yearbook adviser because I had done an excellent job in promoting yearbook sales and raising funds to pay Jostens. Thankfully, he told my principal his opinion on my performance so she knows I have done everything in my power to create a great yearbook and meet the sale goal of 100 yearbooks. As I mentioned before I teach middle school FACS at my school. I have received a lot of positive feedback from parents and students. The high school students take notice of what I am teaching the middle school students and some have asked if they can take my class next year as a high school credit. A parent told me she enjoyed learning the material her son was learning in the classroom and she wished she could have been a student in the classroom. The last class I am responsible for teaching is computer skills for preschool four-year olds through second grade. The four-year olds play education games and the older students type their spelling words. The teachers are very happy that I have taught the students the ability to type and print in Microsoft Word.
In conclusion, I have the ability to learn new teaching skills (as evident in this course) and the ability to teach almost any subject because I strive to be the best teacher possible, despite lack of experience. I always seek advice from more experience teachers, teachers who have taught the course, or teachers who are currently teaching the subject. At first I was not sure I would be able to survive the TOOL course because the long list of quests was overwhelming. Thankfully my desire to want to teach an online course overshadow my insecurity of completing this course.
Pleae visit my LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonranlar
Feedback on Navigate Capstone:
Thank you for taking the time to share your Navigate Capstone with me. I enjoyed the opportunity to view your hard work and provide feedback.
Mastery - Jonnie's capstone presentation is organized and easily followed. Direct links are provided.
Mastery: Jonnie's capstone demonstrated a complete and coherent understanding of the required concepts and skills for Navigate. Verifier noted that Jonnie did a great job at communicating the best practices of Lecture Capture when she said, "Posting the recorded lessons allow students review before the exam. Also, students can pause the lecture when writing notes. Allowing the students control over the lecture duration will help the individuals who need more time to process the information." Not only can lecture capture allow students to revisit lessons and difficult concepts, the teacher can also create short segments to provide instructions on assignments and other how to videos. In the LMS Reporting Quest, don't think of the types of reports that you can print, but rather who has access and how they use it. The various levels would include Student Level, Teacher Level, Course Level, and Program Level. Each level will utilize the information differnetly in planning and helping
students achieve success. "
Mastery- Jonnie's capstone provided an overall description of Navigate skills with reflection upon its impact. Jonnie reflects, " I liked this unit more than the Participate unit because I experimented with Adobe Connect and Haiku. Even though I have now created several accounts for more sites than I can recall, I have learned how to navigate sites I did not know existed and I can incorporate these sites into my physical classroom setting. Thanks to this unit I feel more confident in my ability to be an online teacher. "As an online educator you will find you are introduced to many tools and resources. It is important to be able to adapt to the ones that best fit the needs of you and your students. I am glad that you were able to take away some resources for your current classroom.
Overall: Mastery
Feedback on Communicate Capstone:
Criteria 1: Overall Portfolio Presentation - organization, thoroughness, style
Mastery: Jonnie's capstone presentation is organized and easily followed. Direct links were provided.
Criteria 2: Required Capstone Skills - see checklist for details
Mastery: Jonnie's capstone demonstrated a complete and coherent understanding of the required concepts and skills for Communicate. Jonnie has clear understanding of techniques for effective online communication in a virtual classroom. Blog artifacts include: thoughtful reflections, discussion of effective teaching tools included for news/newsletter items such a Voki, a Powerpoint Presentation sample rubric and a Participation in class sample rubric both from Rubrics4Teachers, an outstanding discussion of digital feedback tools including “summing up discussion”, “peer feedback”, and “feedback from the future”, audio tools, and positive feedback images. Regarding communication Jonnie says, “As humans, we rely on technology, which is great because technology has its benefits, but we can't let the machines dictate our lives. We need to keep everything in moderation and create balance in our lives.” I think this is a very good point to drive home, Jonnie! My husband and
I used to also eat dinner in front of the TV like you said as well, and we not eat every meal that we are at home for at the table and it makes such a difference in our communication!
Criteria 3: Capstone Perspective Paragraph - reflection
Mastery: Jonnie's perspective offered an overall description of concepts within the communicate skill. Jonnie says “I have noticed some participants write lengthy in-depth posts in their blog whereas others post a few sentences but still demonstrate understanding of the material. I think this will be similar with virtual students. Some students in a discussion forum will post a long paragraph describing their three day food journal experience whereas another student will express their own experience in two sentences.” I think this is a good thing to keep in mind, Jonnie. It is not about the length of a post or answer but about whether the participant/student truly understands the material and point of the lesson/quest/assignment. Very nice job!
I am happy that you were able to take away some new communication tools for your classroom. I agree that good communication skills are essential to good online teaching. Thank you for sharing your capstone with me.
Hopefully the other capstones will be verified soon with the level of Mastery. :)
I have two and half years experience working as a substitute teacher. That experience has taught me to be flexible and learn to teach any subject offered to me. I have been the teacher of high school art and photography, the teacher of high school government and sociology, the teacher of eleventh grade literature, and more. I think my experience as a substitute teacher has taught me to be strong, not to lose hope, and keep striving to be the best candidate for when the right job opens.
This has been my first year as a classroom teacher with her own classroom. Three periods are devoted to monitoring GAVS students. I have seen the other side of the virtual classroom thanks to this role. I know most students do not read teacher feedback, most students are too lazy to do the self-assessments, and I know most parents do not create a parent portal account. Those students are barely passing the course compared to the students who have parent involvement, submit assignments on time, and read the teacher feedback. I was given the role of yearbook adviser even though I have no experience in creating a yearbook. Despite the lack of experience, the principal trusted me with this role. The Jostens yearbook representative visits me at least once a month to two months to monitor our progress on the yearbook and collect dues. During the last visit he told me he was happy I was the yearbook adviser because I had done an excellent job in promoting yearbook sales and raising funds to pay Jostens. Thankfully, he told my principal his opinion on my performance so she knows I have done everything in my power to create a great yearbook and meet the sale goal of 100 yearbooks. As I mentioned before I teach middle school FACS at my school. I have received a lot of positive feedback from parents and students. The high school students take notice of what I am teaching the middle school students and some have asked if they can take my class next year as a high school credit. A parent told me she enjoyed learning the material her son was learning in the classroom and she wished she could have been a student in the classroom. The last class I am responsible for teaching is computer skills for preschool four-year olds through second grade. The four-year olds play education games and the older students type their spelling words. The teachers are very happy that I have taught the students the ability to type and print in Microsoft Word.
In conclusion, I have the ability to learn new teaching skills (as evident in this course) and the ability to teach almost any subject because I strive to be the best teacher possible, despite lack of experience. I always seek advice from more experience teachers, teachers who have taught the course, or teachers who are currently teaching the subject. At first I was not sure I would be able to survive the TOOL course because the long list of quests was overwhelming. Thankfully my desire to want to teach an online course overshadow my insecurity of completing this course.
Pleae visit my LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonranlar
Feedback on Navigate Capstone:
Thank you for taking the time to share your Navigate Capstone with me. I enjoyed the opportunity to view your hard work and provide feedback.
Mastery - Jonnie's capstone presentation is organized and easily followed. Direct links are provided.
Mastery: Jonnie's capstone demonstrated a complete and coherent understanding of the required concepts and skills for Navigate. Verifier noted that Jonnie did a great job at communicating the best practices of Lecture Capture when she said, "Posting the recorded lessons allow students review before the exam. Also, students can pause the lecture when writing notes. Allowing the students control over the lecture duration will help the individuals who need more time to process the information." Not only can lecture capture allow students to revisit lessons and difficult concepts, the teacher can also create short segments to provide instructions on assignments and other how to videos. In the LMS Reporting Quest, don't think of the types of reports that you can print, but rather who has access and how they use it. The various levels would include Student Level, Teacher Level, Course Level, and Program Level. Each level will utilize the information differnetly in planning and helping
students achieve success. "
Mastery- Jonnie's capstone provided an overall description of Navigate skills with reflection upon its impact. Jonnie reflects, " I liked this unit more than the Participate unit because I experimented with Adobe Connect and Haiku. Even though I have now created several accounts for more sites than I can recall, I have learned how to navigate sites I did not know existed and I can incorporate these sites into my physical classroom setting. Thanks to this unit I feel more confident in my ability to be an online teacher. "As an online educator you will find you are introduced to many tools and resources. It is important to be able to adapt to the ones that best fit the needs of you and your students. I am glad that you were able to take away some resources for your current classroom.
Overall: Mastery
Feedback on Communicate Capstone:
Criteria 1: Overall Portfolio Presentation - organization, thoroughness, style
Mastery: Jonnie's capstone presentation is organized and easily followed. Direct links were provided.
Criteria 2: Required Capstone Skills - see checklist for details
Mastery: Jonnie's capstone demonstrated a complete and coherent understanding of the required concepts and skills for Communicate. Jonnie has clear understanding of techniques for effective online communication in a virtual classroom. Blog artifacts include: thoughtful reflections, discussion of effective teaching tools included for news/newsletter items such a Voki, a Powerpoint Presentation sample rubric and a Participation in class sample rubric both from Rubrics4Teachers, an outstanding discussion of digital feedback tools including “summing up discussion”, “peer feedback”, and “feedback from the future”, audio tools, and positive feedback images. Regarding communication Jonnie says, “As humans, we rely on technology, which is great because technology has its benefits, but we can't let the machines dictate our lives. We need to keep everything in moderation and create balance in our lives.” I think this is a very good point to drive home, Jonnie! My husband and
I used to also eat dinner in front of the TV like you said as well, and we not eat every meal that we are at home for at the table and it makes such a difference in our communication!
Criteria 3: Capstone Perspective Paragraph - reflection
Mastery: Jonnie's perspective offered an overall description of concepts within the communicate skill. Jonnie says “I have noticed some participants write lengthy in-depth posts in their blog whereas others post a few sentences but still demonstrate understanding of the material. I think this will be similar with virtual students. Some students in a discussion forum will post a long paragraph describing their three day food journal experience whereas another student will express their own experience in two sentences.” I think this is a good thing to keep in mind, Jonnie. It is not about the length of a post or answer but about whether the participant/student truly understands the material and point of the lesson/quest/assignment. Very nice job!
I am happy that you were able to take away some new communication tools for your classroom. I agree that good communication skills are essential to good online teaching. Thank you for sharing your capstone with me.
Hopefully the other capstones will be verified soon with the level of Mastery. :)