Kimberly Hefty

EdTech 521-4201
Reflective Journal


Quotes from Readings and Class
Tasks and Activities*
Thoughts/Learning/Questions**
Week 1:
Self Portrait





Define Online Learning













Interview Tool











Creating the self portrait was more
challenging than I expected. I decided
to try out a new phone app that allowed
me to collage several photographs
together and add captions. My ultimate
goal was to portray several aspects of
my life: family, work and fun.

This activity gave me the opportunity
to apply the readings and do some
research. I particularly enjoyed the
book by Kerry Rice. I was struck by
statements about the level of learner-
autonomy necessary for successful
online learning. According to Rice,
Online environments can encourage
learners to take initiative in their own
learning by seeking out information and
building connections (p.30). The
feedback I received by the other
students in the class was also profound
and thoughtful.

This task was particularly meaningful
because I will be able to immediately
implement this in my work this summer.
I am currently mailing out confirmation
letters for the fall and have included
this with my information packets.

Week 2:
Build a Beast




Community Building
















Interview Tool extended Reflection
Were the things you learned
about the student and family
important information for you
to consider while working
with them this year?
Do you feel this was a
valuable exercise to complete
before starting the school
year? Why or why not?


What a fun activity. It really taught
me a lot about good communication. It
also gave me the opportunity to use a
new voice-recording App that my son
recommended. It worked great!

Online communities such as blogs, wikis,
discussions or social networks benefit
both students and teachers. Teachers
get the opportunity to collaborate and
share ideas and resources with each
other. Students in a learning community
get the opportunity to interact with
each other which provides them the
opportunity to develop personal and
educational relationships with their
peers and collaborate. Online
communities are an important part of
learning experiences for both teachers
and students.



Last week I developed a pre-admission
interview tool to use before I meet my
students. I asked my two summer
school students, who start next week,
to complete the interview form (with no
other instructions except to complete
the entire thing). I discovered that I
need to modify a few of the questions.
I need to be more specific. For
example, when I asked what was their
personal strengths and weaknesses, the
student didnt really understand what I
was getting at. I am modifying it to ask
What specific areas of math are you
strong/weak at? Such as solving
equations, working with geometric

formulas, graphing etc.
I think this is a very, very valuable tool,
especially for me and what I do. The
question how do you learn best
actually generated several ideas on how
I can improve my structure
immediately.
The most entertaining answers came
from the Family section. It was clear
both senior high school boys did NOT
want me to communicate with their
parents. I think I should have the
parents also fill out that section!
Week 3:
Netiquette Group Project





















Netiquette Rules



I had a great group for this project!
We actually started working
immediately. We began by creating a
group Google doc. We began by
addressing issues of availability for our
synchronized meeting. Then each
person address the key questions:
Are emoticons and acronyms
appropriate for students to use with
their teacher in an academic setting?
Will you allow invented spellings, or
will you expect students to always use
correct grammar and punctuation
whenever they are communicating in
an academic environment?
Should the expectations be different
for discussion boards, email or chat?
In what ways can they differ and to
what extent?
Then we had to build a consensus.
Overall I think the group worked very
well together!



The final netiquette rules were
developed collaboratively with my
group. I was heavily influenced by the
readings of Kerry Rice, Netiquette is the
term used to refer to etiquette, or rules of
acceptable behavior on the Internet. The
practice should extend to email, chat, and
discussion boards and even into the
synchronous environment (Rice, p. 79).

Our group had to come to a consensus
in order to develop the rules. I was
very glad this was done as a group;
alone I feel I would not have been able
to create the amount of detail that the
group was able to. Our group held a
synchronous meeting via a chat room.
We literally went through every line of
the document.
This lesson taught me that great things
happen with collaboration.







* Include relevant/interesting quotes with page numbers, postings from discussions, links to
resources that you want to try, or specific tasks or activities that you have engaged in.
**As you go through the readings and activities, make notes in each column when you find
relevant issues, topics, develop new understandings, identify solutions to problems, etc.