Well that is a wrap on another course! Thank you to all that contributed to my learning over this short semester and good luck on the rest of your education!

Below is my summary of learning of what I learned over the course of the semester!

In reflecting on my journey through developing a module for Mental Wellness 30 I am proud of what I have accomplished in a mere 3 weeks of time. I have managed to provide students with accessibility tools, interactive lessons, and variance in my lessons that have audio as well as text. I have attempted to provide an online community in an asynchronous course that did not come without some frustrations, while wracking my brain to accomplish the best atmosphere for my students to learn in. I am happy with the process of my course and feel as though it will be very beneficial to the youth that “walk through the doors” of my classroom. I was able to produce eight weeks of material over the course of the class, and it is by no means perfect I have a starting point that can be changed as I learn more about my students. I hope to learn more about enabling a community for online learners as well as further my learning on accessibility tools for students.

I was not able to attend the last class of the course, however I received some positive feedback through the duration of the course from my blog posts. One of the pieces of feedback I received was on my Lumi video and to write “click here” when the student was to complete a task throughout the video. I implemented that in my Lumi video to make these aspects more noticeable to the student. Another aspect was regarding community of online learning where my peer suggested to make all blogs seen through the class as opposed to just the individual and the student. I, however, did not change this aspect as students may be sharing some sensitive material where they would be less likely to engage in blog at hand. That being said there are still four blogs that are seen as a class to help promote that sense of community as well as allowing students to learn from one another. I received a lot of positive feedback from my peers that allowed me to improve my course modules.

Here is a link to my course walkthrough: Course Walkthrough – Mental Wellness 30

If you have any thoughts on my course I would love to hear from you!

How do you build community online? Online community is difficult to build online as opposed to in the classroom, but there is importance to building an online learning community as well. An online community is allowing students to engage and gain knowledge with each other and promote active participation within the online platform. I would argue that community is harder to grasp in an online learning platform, but is essential as there is “potential for students to feel isolated and alone” according to K Patricia Cross Academy article 6 Strategies for Building Community in Online Courses.

Community Within Mental Wellness

1. I have set up a blog page within the course framework where they are incorporated into the lesson or direct learnings/lead up to the topic at hand. In Bates’ article, they describe the need for blogs or discussion to be core component of teaching materials, otherwise students see these forums or blogs as secondary and perhaps even optional. I have included blogs that are individual (only I see them) and class blogs that others can learn from students and comment on other people’s blogs to promote a sense of community. I find this is a slippery slope in Mental Wellness as not all blogs can be public to the class, and if they were all public students would not fully reflect or engage in the prompt at hand. Therefore, it is hard to develop a online community with sensitive material students do not want to share, and the course is fully asynchronous with the exception of check-ins once a week.

2. Students have a check-in meeting weekly to address any concerns, questions, conversations they wish to engage in. The population of students that attend check-in meetings will be a small number if students are asynchronously learning, as well as have different schedules within their own base schools, therefore students are not always able to attend at specific times when those times work in the instructors schedule. That being said, the small group of students that can meet at that time will be able to develop their sense of community with other learners in the classroom as I will ask or voice a prompt for students to engage in, in a small group setting and then discuss as a whole group. Are check-ins are done through Microsoft Teams where students that don’t feel comfortable using their voice can still engage with the chat feature.

3. Jamboard – I have created a Jamboard for students to collaborate and learn from others viewing other student responses. However, this platform only enables students to form a sense of community within their comfortability level. Students will be given a prompt to discuss on the Jamboard and must comment on other students posts, and all posts will be anonymous in order for students to feel more willing to share with their peers.

These ideas are starting points to build a sense of community online, but there are more platforms I can use in order to help students connect collaboratively and learn from one another. Alternatively, within an asynchronous online class there feels to be restrictions as to how collaborative you can make your course shell, and the question that remains is will their be buy in from your students. I find that a lot of the students that are learning online are avoiding peer interaction all together, and one student did not show up to class for two months after he was put in a break out room with other students. I will leave you with a final question, how do we promote a sense of community within online platforms with taking into consideration the students that struggle to learn in these types of environments and do not want to have peer interaction?

First off, I learned new ideas and ways of looking at how accessible our courses/lessons are surrounding accessibility. Which, in turn, allowed me to reflect on how accessible my module on Mental Wellness is. One aspect I would like to look into and understand better is screen readers on various different platforms, in an effort to see what they need to operate to their full potential for students and which screen readers do the better job. When I worked at SECPSD our technology gurus really liked the screen reader from Microsoft Edge, however Blackboard operated better through Chrome. How do we bridge this divide of one platform working better via Chrome verses the better screen reader through Edge? Throughout my course I have links that open in new tabs which screen readers have a hard time navigating. The reason I have them opening up in a new tab is because it is more accessible for me when teaching, but not for students that are dependent on screen readers for learning. I will have to adapt this aspect in my module.

– https://www.allconnect.com/blog/screen-readers

Regarding accessibility, I am going to input a landing page that directs students to different tools they could use to allow their education to be more equitable. If you have any suggestions on which tools I should put on the landing page I am all ears! Which tools do you use the most? What is your go to? By providing students with tools at their fingertips and teaching students about these tools will help each learner reach their full potential. I think it is essential to prepare students with online tools for not just their courses, but for future uses in their job settings perhaps.

Reflecting on my module of Mental Wellness, I need to be cognizant of type sizes, alternative text, text of high contrast, ensuring links are properly labeled, changing the size of any targets that need to be clicked, and being aware of the reading level the as well as difficult or unusual terms are eliminated or defined. Within my course I frequently have “click here” as opposed to listing the link, therefore accessibility is lacking for students that need to use screen readers. Another aspect I will have to change is the size of the targets that students must click, as they are the same size as the rest of the text. When I created my Lumi video, I embedded one of the questions to have dragging features. In an effort to provide an accessible learning environment for all, I must be aware of how this drag feature could be restricting to some learners and to ensure that these words could also be clicked as opposed to dragging them (one of my classmates tested this in Lumi and they can also click words). Lastly, I will need to embed alternative text for some of the pictures that are within the course. Full disclosure, I had no idea what alternative text was until Tuesday’s class. These are just some of the many aspects I will need to change and be aware of when ensuring my course is accessible and equitable for all learners.

Education has changed immensely over the last 10 years, especially with technology and diversity in the classroom. One of the aspects our group spoke about was the cuts in the classrooms and the class composition becoming more diverse. There are a lot of moving pieces in order to ensure all students in the classroom have all the tools for them to reach their full potential. For myself over the years this is becoming trickier and trickier to accomplish. For my learning process in equity and accessibility, this is just one more aspect I have to think about for my students. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that accessibility and equity for all students is the priority of the teacher, but the diversification is getting higher within the classroom setting and teachers are burning out.

Tools I can incorporate to help accessibility and equitability in online learning

• Microsoft Education – has accessibility tools for inclusive learning such as immersive reader, translator, dictation, and live captions.
• Google Read and Write

• Google for Education – Google offers a wide range of tools to help with accessibility regarding vision, hearing or cognitive. One of the tools that Google offers is Google Lens where it helps enable high-contrast, screen readers and dictation help people who are blind or low-vision access information and collaborate.
• Blackboard Learn – has a screen reader embedded into the platform, as well as a whole website page on accessibility

Now that I have had my eyes opened to the needs for accessibility within the online and blended platform specifically, I will be more cognizant when I develop my material for students. That being said, diversity within the classes will change every semester where I am sure I will learn about new needs to promote accessibility and equitability in the classroom.