Journal,+Module+5


 * Prompt: Discuss technology and your own productivity and professional practice. **

In response to one of the discussion questions for this week I wrote a long description of the new LMS that my school is using. To breafly summarize the points relevant here, the system basically has all the same capabilities as the Springboard program. I only utilize a few of the resources: rss feeds linking to a homework posts Google Site, a calendar, and some links to public Dropbox documents. However, these are way more than most people utilize. I have a Google site that I also use to manage an independat study project where students watch videos, answer qusitons about the videos, and then turn in their answers to only me, the instructor.
 * Description **

I recently read an article for my Philosophies of Education class which takes about the safety that online discussion provides(see source below) in addition to the ways that it can encourage deeper reflection because of the wait time possible with at-home projects. While I was reading the article I was trying to decide if I should open up my independent study project and make it a experiences in the fall so that students are sharing their ideas with a more authentic audience than just the teacher. Then, while I was reexamining our new LMS to write my discussion post I realized that the system does have message board capabilities.
 * Impact **

Using the message board cabibilites in our school LMS I am going to take my established independent study project and make it a social experience so my students can share their ideas and thoughts with each other instead of just offering them to me for evaluation. I'm not sure yet what the actual grading will look like for this project but adding the objective of sharing ideas about authentic expeinces and expressing ideas in a public forum in multiple generas warranets the extra work it will take me to reevaluate my graind of this project. I'm actually really excited to see how this turns out.
 * Intent **

B. Logas, “From Socrates to Wikis: Using Online Forums to Deepen Discussion”. Phi Delta Kappan, December 2010/January 2011, 92 (4):24-27.
 * Reference **