Instructional+Unit+in+a+Virtual+Classroom+Environment

 Instructional Unit in a Virtual Classroom Environment Description and Process  In this assignment we were to create and develop Virtual Classroom on Blackboard. We needed to come up with a class that we wanted to teach virtually and I chose to do Business and Personal Finance which is in my current content area and a class that I teach now. Once I chose the class that I wanted to design it was necessary to set the class up in blackboard. The assignment prompted us to create and banner, content area menu tabs and we could change the color and design the Blackboard page as we saw fit. A syllabus needed to be created as the basis for our unit and lessons. There were certain content tab requirements that we needed to have with information that would be helpful to our students. For example, the START HERE menu tab. This certainly will prompt students to begin at this tab and they will find instructions to follow as a means to get them familiar with the Blackboard environment. Once the basic course overview description and general information was complete it was time to create our unit and lessons. I chose to start at the beginning with Chapter 1 entitled Gross Pay. Within this unit there are four lessons and each lesson has lecture documents that could be used a reference sheet, exercised to reinforce the lecture and another activity. A screencast was created for one of the lessons as a means to demonstrate formulas and a reference tool for the students. Students also have access to a YouTube video to explain how to use Excel to calculate gross pay and even a Webquest collaborative project. There were alot of elements that were placed into this virtual classroom environment.

Effectiveness as an Educational Tool  I could definitely see this being a great and effective educational tool. More and more things are being done online and this is really the "wave" of the future. In my opinion this gives students a sense of control, it slows down the pace a little and allows them to review things as much as possible to be able to fully understand the concepts. There are a lot of resources that are available to them at a click of a button. And it is a good way for them to discuss and share ideas with each other and interact on different levels using different forms of communication. I can see myself using this in my classroom as a test to see how well students like it. I would want their feedback and what they liked and didn't liked of course so that changes could be made. But overall I think this will be a great effecitve educational tool.

Reflection  Much like with all the other assignments I had anxiety and was overwhelmed. Who knew that so much could be done with technology. And when you are not comfortable with using technology it is even more frightening to have to do something new and out of your comfort zone. I know I have been out of my comfort zone throughout this entire class but this assignment really got to me. There was so much that had to be included that I was afraid that I would forget something. It needed to be organized just so and it was hard for me to wrap my head around organizing it all. I personally think it would have been easy if I taught in a different content area or something more exciting and interactive. But I feel as though I did my best with my content area. I did enjoy learning how to do a Blackboard vitrual classroom and as stated earlier would like to try it out on my students or something similar to that and see what they think. I also think that I learned a lot from this assignment and it did required me to think outside the box a little, which is always a good thing.

Link to Virtual Classroom Syllabus