TRICIA'S+PROJECT&nbsp;JOURNAL

PROJECT JOURNAL: 9/30-10/14 Last June, I contracted with moodlerooms to host five courses using the moodle platform to try online learning at our high school. I used the first for an online new teacher orientation. It was a great place to store information but there wasn't a great deal of interaction because there was really no consequence. I planned to teach a new employee how to manuever in moodle so that she could set up an online guidance resource for freshmen and sophomores at my high school. We have not yet made progress. However, the requirement for this course gave me another idea. How about using technology to create a discussion forum for teenagers that helps the school fulfill its expected student learning results (for accreditation) and meets teens where they are? I know that an instructor used a discussion feature at turnitin.com last year to facilitate student understanding of various assignments. I had a couple of parents remark on it and I have even heard students talking this Fall about last year's experience. I'm thinking I will easily get some volunteers to commit to a month of interaction for this teen spirituality project. Tomorrow at school, 10/15, I plan to advertise my need for a group of students, Christian and non-christian, to join me for this project. I will also begin to seek out guest instructors for each week. The only week I'm worried about staffing is Thanksgiving week. But, my husband, who has two earned doctorates and is the 12th grade Bible Instructor, can probably do that week.

10/14-10/21 I've run an advertisement in the school bulletin asking for students who would volunteer to help "Mrs. Meyer with a project that involves meeting online for discussions." I received no inquiries. My next step is to choose students that owe me favors :>) and students that I know enjoy technology more than others. I will start calling them in this week. But, first, I am going to start the moodlerooms site. I have e-mailed Bob at moodlerooms so he can set up this class and I can begin entering information. I think students will be more apt to help if they have somewhere to go and check it out when I first ask them. I ordered the books on a young man's battle and a young woman's battle last week and expect them to be in Monday's mail. I've decided to ask Gerard Cruz (Bible Teacher and ThM), Raymond Meyer (Bible Teacher, EdD, PhD), Kim Chiolero (Chapel coordinator and youth pastor), and Mike Brown (M.Div. and Vice Principal) to be my guest hosts for the project.

10/22 I have received a notice from moodlerooms that my new course is set up. The courses is called "issues." The enrollment key is available by contacting me. Visit [|moodlerooms] and enroll in "Issues." There isn't anything there yet.

I have also sent out my e-mail to my guest hosts to get their cooperation. My e-mail read as follows:

//Message: Favor// //I need to put together a small project that uses technology to encourage spiritual growth. I'm going to use an online classroom where I'd like to have discussions with FCS students on issues important to teens. I'm going to set up 5 sessions for this course. I handle the first session over the weekend of Nov 1-4 with Ray's help. Each session will have a different set of questions. I'm going to ask some students to join the discussions. I would like to have a "guest host" who will interact with the students regarding the pre-determined questions.// //Would you be willing to be a guest host for a week? I'm thinking it doesn't need to take more than a maximum of 2 hours of your time. I will be commenting as well.// //Let me know as soon as you can? I have to be up and running on November 1.// //Also, if you are willing, would you identify which week would be best:// //Nov. 5// //Nov. 12// //Nov. 19// //Nov. 26//

I'll be assigning each guest host to a Monday-Sunday week in November. I will take November 1-4 as a mini-week and have my husband guest host. I intend to participate as well.

My books still haven't arrived so I haven't been able to develop the questions. If they don't arrive in the next two days, I will come up with an alternative source for questions.

10/31/07 The books arrived and they do not have varied topics. This was disappointing. I've been thinking and came up with the first two topics. Good thing, we start tomorrow!

I've set up the first two sessions of five total sessions. I'm excited; I think we could have some good interaction. There is much to learn from teenagers and much for them to learn from the guest hosts.

I've prepared a handout for my guest hosts and the students so they can all get logged in tomorrow. I'm sure I'll be nagging them quite a bit but I feel I can get the registrations done. Here is the text of my handouts:
 * Guest Host Instructions**

Thank you so much for helping me out with this project! The first step is for you to register with the course. Follow these instructions:


 * 1) Visit [|http://individual.mrooms.net]
 * 2) Search the list of schools for Fremont Christian School-Secondary Campus
 * 3) Choose “Issues.” This is the name for this online course to engage with Christian high school students via technology.
 * 4) Then choose “Create A New Account” on the right. Follow the instructions and then log-in to the Issues course. The enrollment key is //issues//.

Once you login to the course, you will see 5 sessions set up. Please read the introduction just to have a feel for what the students and you are helping me do. Then, you can skip down to where you see your name listed in a Session as “Your guest host is….” This the first sentence of a session and is in color.

I will post a topic and some questions about 3 days before your session goes live. If you have a topic and a few questions (no more than 3) to suggest, great! E-mail me.

I’ll remind you when your week is coming. This should be pretty simple. I’d like you to address at least one post by each student and any follow-up posts they make to you. If I see something that has been left unaddressed and I don’t feel I should address it myself, I’ll bring it to your attention.


 * Student Participant Instructions**

Thank you so much for helping me out with this project! The first step is for you to register with the course. Follow these instructions:


 * 1) Visit [|http://individual.mrooms.net]
 * 2) Search the list of schools for Fremont Christian School-Secondary Campus
 * 3) Choose “Issues.” This is the name for this online course to engage with Christian high school students via technology.
 * 4) Then choose “Create A New Account” on the right. Follow the instructions and then log-in to the Issues course. The enrollment key is //issues//.

Once you login to the course, read the introduction. Then, go to Session 1. You will see that there are peach colored bars on the sides of the Session 1 block. This tells you which Session is the one we are working on right now. Please do both A and B as soon as you can.

This should be a really safe environment. I’ve asked you to do this project because you have been recommended by one of your friends. I believe I’ve got a group of people who are all friends, who are all Christians and who are all kind to one another. I’m really looking forward to a good time of interaction! I hope you are too.

11/1/07 I spoke to all 10 of my student volunteers today. I gave them background on the project and my class. Then, I handed them the student participation sheet. Then, I showed them the website and how the forums work. All good comments; all of the students said they would like to participate. Many expressed great excitement about the teachers and pastors who would be "guest hosts." I had the students all check the list of who else I was inviting to be sure they would be comfortable.

One of my guest hosts has already registered as have 3 students. I'm expecting to see the other students online tonight or tomorrow. I don't expect the guest hosts to sign up until right before they are due to host.

11/4/07 About 6 of the 10 students have joined my moodlerooms class. But, only 2 have posted answers to the "truth" questions; this was the first session. Another student did post a small comment. I know that all of the kids I invited had a big suprise birthday party for another one of the students who is also participating. I think this may have kept them from participating so far. Also, the questions were pretty challenging. I'm hoping I"ll get something more today.

My husband is serving as guest host through tomorrow. He has given solid answers/challenges to the kids that have participated but I am worried that it isn't warm and friendly enough to get them engaged. Next week is Mike Brown. He did a bit of this online discussion with these same students last year in their Advanced Composition and Rhetoric class. I'm thinking they'll be more engaged becauses they are familiar with how he works? We'll see. I'm spending a lot more time online with this class than I am getting my own work done! I check constantly to see if kids have posted, etc.Of course, this is probably normal. I want to be sure this is successful. However, I am already thinking about how not to hassle the kids if they don't post. I don't want them thinking about this is as some kind of homework their principal is making them do.

11/7/07 We finished the first "week" of posts. There were only about 6 kids involved of the original 10. Only 4 of them really entered into discussion. However, we did start with a really tough topic. I'm pleased that we got something going so quickly and we're able to challenge a bit of thinking. Yesterday, I sent our a reminder notice to the original 10 students to encourage them to join if they hadn't already and to post for the second session.

My guest host for Session 2 was great and plugged in quickly. He posted before the deadline of Thursday (which is tomorrow). I've heard him encourage the kids in person to meet him online. I visited just now and saw three terrific entries. The topic of "guard your mind" is really easy for them to relate to and I can tell by the posts so far that they have thought about this topic before.

One of the students references a website she visits to be encouraged in her Christian walk about how to deal with guarding her mind! Hurray! This is what I think we are looking for in this class---how are students using online venues to grow spiritually.

11/12/07 This week I didn't see participation grow significantly. There are several students who showed a great deal of interest but after two weeks and one written reminder at school, they still haven't joined in. I don't want to embarrass them so I will not be asking them why at this point. However, I am planning to ask them in the end. I have to find a way not to embarrass them or make them feel they've let anyone down but I think it is important to my experiment to know why they didn't participate.

The other significant element is that students seem to like to post their own answers but are not very good at responding to others or at respond to follow up questions. Both Dr. Meyer and Mr. Brown did a good job of posting answers with questions to try and get a discussion going but it didn't really hook the kids. My theory is that they are too busy to check back frequently. Dr. Meyer thinks that they do check back to see if anyone wrote anything new but they don't care that much about working hard to respond to probing questions. I don't know but this will definitely be an issue around which I will write an evaluation question at the end.

I was late in posting my week 3 questions but neither my host nor the students seem to be engaged with the project today. It is a holiday. I'm hoping we get some interaction during week 4 when the students are off on Thanksgiving vacation.

I am learning something about the students from their posts. I have had a high opinion of this group of students for some time; that is partly why I invited them to participate. But, I am really pleased that several of them share their thoughts well. I am also glad they haven't been using those horrible word shortcuts that we find in e-mails and text messages. I hope this means they know what is appropriate in a more formal situation than what is acceptable in conversation between friends. Maybe that should be a question on my evaluation at the end?

11/18/07 I have spent more of this week in fact-to-face explaining than actually online in the Issues class. I think I hit upon a guest host who just has too much to do. We were able to make time to meet so I could show him how to log on and explain what I needed him to do. We looked at the past two weeks so he would have the right idea. He responded right away to the first posts but a couple of other posts happened later and I haven't seen any response to them yet. I made sure that I posted something to all that had submitted by yesterday. Today, Sunday, is a big workday for Roger. So, I'm guessing he may just run out of time and not be able to wrap everything up. But, that's OK. This project is about experimentation so I'm not bothered by anything that happens or doesn't happen. I'm just taking it as more information for my presentation.

I did have another student approach me about whether she could still sign-up. I told her anybody could sign up at any point. No problem. She was very excited to not miss the change to be included. This makes me think that the kids are talking about it amongst themselves at school. I'll have to confirm that in my end of session questionnaire.

I am planning to drop the final partial week session and just insert the survey instead. I need the information early in order to be able to put together my presentation. Also, my guest host is not sure if she can actually fit this into her schedule. This seems the most sensible course of action. I do have to say that I am very tempted to do my questionnaire on paper at school so that I get answers. If I leave it up to the kids to log on and do it, they may not. Also, I'd like to hear from the kids who didn't end up participating and I'll have to do that on paper at school.

I've been pleased to see that both my husband and my second week guest host have popped in a little bit to check out how the next hosts are doing.

11/25/07 By Monday of this vacation week, my guest host had posted a very welcoming introduction to himself. I was alarmed that no one, not even Donald (who always posts first) had posted. I sent out an e-mail on the 21st asking the students to post. Still nothing. Then, on Saturday, there was a post from one student! Hurray. I was starting to feel badly for Gerard. Then, today, I saw his very good answer. But, still, no further posts.

On Wednesday, I did cancel the 5th week of interaction and replaced the topic and guest host with end of course "feedback." I figured since the interaction was so low, why prolong it? And, I'm up against a deadline for this course. So, I am going to bug all the kids tomorrow at school to get on and answer my feedback so I have something good to share with my cohorts in this class. I'm pleased with the questions and I made sure to incorporate the things I had been concerned about earlier in this journal.

I tried to find on Moodle the exact dates that I sent out an e-mail urging the kids to post. I did this through moodle using the participants page. But, I couldn't find it. I did find a place where I can track absolutely everything I have done in this course and the activity of all the students. From previous GFU classes, I knew that I could track how many posts I had made. But, I did not previously know that I could check a full log of every move I have made in the class. A little creepy :>) But, I have made 358 hits in the "Issues" class. I was thinking this class was pretty low impact. I'm curious to see how many hits I've made in a "regular" GFU class. I just checked 675b and do not see the option for "Activity Log" activated.

My general feeling is that I am disappointed that I wasn't able to engage the students more. I thought the questions would be intriguing and I tried to choose guest hosts they were familiar with and would appreciate advice, opinion or direction from. Overall, I do think this is a valid means for engaging students. They were quite enthusiastic about it. But, we just have to hit on the right combination of factors. It does seem that my project has reinforced the idea that the internet is more of an information place than a community. My other thoughts are that if these students, who are all friends, weren't able to be together because the school burned down or there was some illness or something, I think they would jump in and communicate with each other frequently. But, in households where the computer is a bit suspect because of all the negative press that social networking gets in the newspaper, I don't think the students are free to jump online whenever they feel like it. Also, these particular students are highly involved. They are not students with little else to do. Perhaps I should have chosen a group of withdrawn quiet kids who aren't involved in other school activities and tried it with them?

12/1/07 I had to remind them several times this week and even bring one student to the computer screen but I got feedback from all 6 students who participated. Open this Excel file to read the feedback: [|feedback.xls]

The feedback cleared up any misgivings I had about the project. I've determined it was a success.

Class Presentation: [|A Strong Spirit & A Sense of Community.ppt]