This blog post is to reflect on what I have learned while completing the Create lesson.  The following standards were addressed during these lessons:
Standard B: The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment.
Standard C: The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.
Standard E: The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.
Standard K: The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment.
There have been many lessons in this module that have helped me to meet each standard.  Standard B and Standard C were met in Create 2 - Web Tools for Differentiation of Teacher Instruction  and in Create 2 - Web Tools both of these lessons provided me with the information to support student engagement in a fun and interactive online environment. 
Standard E was met in  Create 3 - Open Educational Resources this section, I feel, prepared me to show students how to use resources in an ethical and legal way.  I will also be able to share information that is safe for my students. 
Standard K was met in  Create 4 - Aggregating Lesson Material where the focus was to help students by having information in an easy to follow LMS. Without delivery the students will never learn. 
The strategies I will take away from create are; how to find save material to deliver to students, and how to create learning objects to make learning more engaging. Throughout the lesson one of the most useful items was the learning maps.  The maps make lessons easy to follow for the instructor and the student. 

Searching for a LMS that can aggregate lesson material can be an overwhelming task.  I have done some research and testing and found two that seem to work well.  The first is Litmos. Litmos is a SAAS/Cloud platform for e-learning, also known as a learning management system or LMS, based in Silicon Valley, CA, USA. Litmos is used for employee training, customer training, channel training, and compliance training.  The virtual classroom is easy to navigate and a huge plus is the phone application.  This means students can complete work and learn along the way.   There is a free trial in place that will let you examine the site for yourself.  The top of the price bracket that has all the bells and whistles is only $15 per month.  
The second LMS I found that can aggregate lesson materials is BluVolt.  BlueVolt  has some nice amperage with extended enterprise LMS distribution. This company gets it, and effectively marries learning with marketing. Manufacturers, distributors, associations and service companies use the BlueVolt LMS to develop and deliver highly effective online training.  There are a few problems with BlueVolt; there is not free demo and there is  limited access until you pay to use the LMS. This is a sleek and easy to navigate LMS but it is not intended for instructor-led classrooms. 

Building portable learning objects is the title of the blog, but what is a portable learning object? A portable learning object is a easy and fun plug and play learning activity. 
I have two examples that I have created.  The first is of the Auburn State Prison that was made using Thinglink. The intended use for this learning object is to give students a visual reference and link to more information about Auburn State Prison. This object can be posted as an easy icebreaker to the subject.

The second learning object I made was a lot more time consuming, but very fun for the students.  I created a Jeopardy game using JeopardyLabs.  This tool does cost $20 to purchase, but you can use it to create as many objects as you like.  This object is intended to be used as a review and study tool for an entire unit.  This item can be played by more than one classmate allowing them the opportunity to be a support network in study.

Please follow the link to play Motor Vehicle Law Jeopardy.

The purpose of this blog post is to discover new learning object authoring tools.  Through my research I was able to find two tools that I really like.  The first tool is Smartbuilder.  Smartbuilder  This tool is the award-winning course authoring tool that enables you to create rich Flash e-learning with an easy-to-use interface.  With the easy to use interface the teacher can author material with easy to use puzzle pieces.  I personally would use this tool for the action mapping and elearning authoring functions, but there are so many more applications to explore. 
The second tool I found is easygenerator. Easygenerator provides cloud-based eLearning authoring software. Easygenerator enables instructional designers and subject matter experts to rapidly create the most engaging courses that have the highest learning impact. Easygenerator is affordable, easy to use, and future proof. Simply create, design and publish your eLearning courses. Used and loved by 5000+ users in more than 120 countries in both enterprises and universities.  I love this tool for the simple use with the drag and drop features.  I will use this tool in my classroom to create easy to follow lessons. 

Locate one online image designated as an open educational resource. Locate one online text object designated as an open educational resource. Locate one online video designated as an open educational resource.
The following are open educational resources:
Openclipart is an open educational resource where pictures such are this can be located.
​

Onetonline is a site where creative common text can be found.  This site was found using a Google Search with a creative commons filter. 

This video was found on Youtube using a common source filter.​

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open educational resources are freely accessible, openly licensed text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessing as well as for research purposes. 

What are the various Creative Commons licenses one may encounter when searching for these resources?
Creators choose a set of conditions they wish to apply to their work.
 Attribution (by)
All CC licenses require that others who use your work in any way must give you credit the way you request, but not in a way that suggests you endorse them or their use. If they want to use your work without giving you credit or for endorsement purposes, they must get your permission first.
 ShareAlike (sa)
You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified work on the same terms. If they want to distribute modified works under other terms, they must get your permission first.
 NonCommercial (nc)
You let others copy, distribute, display, perform, and (unless you have chosen NoDerivatives) modify and use your work for any purpose other than commercially unless they get your permission first.
 NoDerivatives (nd)
You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only original copies of your work. If they want to modify your work, they must get your permission first.

This blog post is used to explore using a web tool as a differentiation of student assessment.  I chose to use Piktochart.  For the assessment students would follow these directions.

• Go to Piktochart and create a new infographic poster. 
• Your infographic poster should contain information about the current prison population in the U.S.
• The student will create a poster that explains who is sentenced to prison, where the closest prison is to their location and how many prisoners are confined in the U.S.  
• The poster should be attractive and informative. 
• Once the student has completed the poster it should be uploaded to the class assignment folder.

​I plan to use these tool in the classroom to stimulate student learning by having them be creative artistically and complete research to find present day statistics for modern prisons.  The material collected and placed in the poster will allow the teacher to conduct a summative assessment on the students comprehension.  The following picture is an example of a poster created in Piktochart. 

For this blog, I focused on Prezi as a use of a Web Tool as described in Web Tool 2.0.  The focus of my Prezi is on the History of the American Jail.  I really enjoyed using Prezi and look forward to using it more in the future to create interactive presentations to distribute material to students.  This allows students to move through material in an asynchronous lesson.  Additional links an actives can also be embedded.  Please follow the attached link to view my Prezi.

The History of the American Jail

This lesson involved discovery of web tools.  Prior to this lesson, I had very little knowledge of web tools.  I have complied a list of some that I found on my journey that I hope you find useful also. 

1. Font Base is a font management tool which works across all platforms, offering a beautiful and intuitive UI for searching and sampling fonts. Font Base also enables fonts to be shared among teams so you’ll never need to hassle your designer to send you the fonts ever again! This is a free site that teachers and students alike can use in managing fonts for projects and assignments. 
2. Tablesaw provides  tables are one of the most difficult layout considerations. Tablesaw is a set of jQuery plugins to help in this area, by means of features like stack, toggle, minimap and more. This is also a free site that teachers and students can use to find any table that can assist with assignments. 
3. ​Wireframify is a Chrome extension that enables you to turn any website into a wireframe. It works by applying a custom stylesheet onto the website, which removes all images and modifies all of the colors and borders, leaving you with what looks like a wireframe. This is a free extension that is great for teachers when they need to provide a resource for students without having all the ads and pictures of a site. 
4. ​Blotter is a JavaScript API for drawing unconventional text effects. Powered by three.js and underscore.js it is capable of producing some weird and wonderful animated text effects. The library offers five different material effects all of which can be customised.  This is a free and fun tool for both teachers and students.  The application can allow students to be creative with their assignments. 
5. Vivus is a dependency-free JavaScript library that animates your SVGs, giving the appearance of drawing. The on-page demos are well worth checking out. This is also a free tool that allows teachers and students to be creative.  Whether you want to make a creative lesson for your students, or you want your students to be creative on an assignment this is a useful tool. 

​