ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!!

Since the frontpage of the course really doesn't provide a good place for general announcements.  I will use this space here for that.  Check back soon for important notices...

11/1/11-- Week Five and the Home Stretch!!!

It's November already... can you believe that?  I can't.

First off, I just want to apologize for being a bit MIA last week.  It turned into a crazy busy week topped by a weekend snow storm that left me power-less and heat-less for three days, which with a 10-month old at home is no fun!  We got power back last night though so now I am hoping for a return to normalcy this week.

I will also be catching up in our discussion boards.  You have such wonderful inisghts and thoughts I want to be sure to respond when I have a good chunk of time to devote so I can really delve into them.

This week our content will focus on strategies for assessment in a differentiated classroom.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts!  Also, don't forget to continue working on your final projects.  I am going to figure out the best way for everyone to share these projects with the group.  I am not sure if it will be via a discussion board in our Google Group or an alternative.  I'll keep everyone posted!

Ok, that's it for this morning.  Carry on and and I'll see you in the discussions!

10/18/11-Week Three is underway!

We have officially moved on to Week Three of the course, but you can still aprticipate in our earlier discussions as well. 

This week we will be looking at Mutliple Intelligences theory; another popular way of looking at how people learn and show their strengths.  Don't forget to contribute to the discussion and respond to the contributions of others.  A learning community works best when you actively engage with each other!

10/11/11-Week Two begins!

I apologize for being a day late from our "official" start of week two, but yesterday was a holiday for me and I actually took the day off from technology to be with the family.

We have officially begun Week Two of our course!  We had some great thoughts posted in the discussion board for week one, but it seems that many of the folks who have signed up for the course have not made their way over to the discussion boards yet.  It's not too late!!! I am happy to still have you post in any of the previous boards at any point in the course.  We can always benefit from your contributions even if they are a bit late.

This week we will be exploring the theory of learning styles and taking some inventories to discover our own learning styles (which most of you probably are already well aware of).  We will discuss what this means for our teaching in the discussion forum.

10/4/11-Some things that have come up

Now that the course is underway, some of the things that were perhaps a little confusing or unanticipated have started to pop-up.  So just a quick note to address them.

1) Since you are not required to use your first name in either your P2PU account or your Google account it is proving difficult for me to be sure what to call you, so please let us all know what you would prefer to be called in your introductory post if it is not readily apparent.  Thanks!

2) You will notice there is a "Final Project Planning Forum" on our Google site.  This is an open board that can be used optionally as needed throughout the course.  Don't feel you have to post something to it this week or at all if you don't feel you need to.

Okay... that's it for now.  I'll post again as more things come up.

10/3/11- Welcome!

So today marks the official first day of our course.  I am so excited to have all of you here.  We have 25 people signed up to take the course and a bunch of additional people following us.  You represent an interesting cross section of individuals from diverse professional bacvkgrounds, and several different countries.  It will be great to get to know many of you over the coming weeks and learn from each other.  A couple things to be aware of for this week: 

1.  If you are an official participant in the course, please request access to the Google Group that will serve as the home base for our discussions.  The group is linked to from the home page of the course in the "External Links" section, and also from the "Discussion" section of each of the Weekly task pages.

If you are just following the course and don't plan to actively participate, you can still view the GoogleGroup dicsussions but won't be able to post anything without requesting memebership to the group.

2.  Once you have been granted access to the Google Group, please be sure to introduce yourself in the appropriate discussion forum.

3.  This week you should read over the "Getting Started/Orientation" and "Week One" task pages.  This content will serve as our common point of discussion for the week and hop[efully engage you in the topic of differentiated instruction.

4.  When you have completed your exploration with this week's content, please then return to the Google Group and engage your fellow participants in conversation in the relevant discussion forum.

5.  Those of you taking the course as official participants will be asked to complete a final project in the course which will be completed at the end of week six.  You will be introduced to that project this week.  A special discussion forum has been set up for converstaions and thoughts on these projects, but please feel free to email me questions too.  The project is intentionally pretty open-ended so if you have an idea for something you might like to create that is not suggested, let me know and we can easily work something out.

Okay, I think that's enough for right now.  Again, great to have you all here and I'll be in touch again soon, both here and in our discussion boards!