At the beginning of the course, my biggest misconception on E-learning was that it consisted of just reading and posting reflections. In the past courses I have taken, there might have been one group project in the mix. Throughout this course and the development of my initiative I have learned the benefits of collaboration. I have also learned the importance of the role of the instructor/facilitator. The facilitator should be actively involved to give participants feedback and encourage higher level thinking.
I developed a professional development initiative to help teachers adapt to the math common core curriculum. I am not directly implementing my initiative at my school, but aspects are being built into the county wide math staff development that I am helping to plan. Elementary schools within the same feeder pattern are going to be paired together to develop online resources similar to my Wiki idea. My county also uses Moodle and Edmodo in addition to Wiki so we are in the process of determining the best platform for this many people. The overall format will be similar.There will still be a mix of face to face meetings led by math leaders at each school and online sessions.
I definitely have some ideas for other e-learning initiatives at my school; especially ones that are more student centered. This year I experimented with KidBlog.org to give students opportunities to publish and share their writing. I could see expanding upon this experience and grouping classes together to create writing buddies across grade levels. With technology being built into the Common Core Curriculum, one focus next year is going to be developing students' typing skills and overall computer skills.
