Reflection #2--Swimming to my Heart's Content

Now that the summer semester is drawing to a close, I find it helpful to really process and reflect upon the learning that has taken place for me by being a student in this class. From the content knowledge about ed tech to specific skills and strategies to an overall feeling about online learning, I have learned so much. Read below for more detail in breakdown fashion…

•   What attitudes, skills, and concepts have you gained from participating in the course so far?

Attitude Changes Towards…

-       Online learning: it can be fun! When done well (collaborative settings, ease in use, interesting content) online courses can be just as challenging and engaging as in-person courses. They can truly embody a constructivist core, and for this, I am a convert!

-       Missing human connections: When the course began, I was saddened to think that the semester would go by without any actual physical connections. I am a people person who craves human touch and connection, so I was worried about this being a missing piece. I realized though that through the countless tools for connecting in real-time (especially Skype!!!) as well as a balance with connecting with people from class on occasion in person, human connections are not lost. Only connecting with others through online formats is not for me (I do not think that I would like a fully online program for this reason), but interspersing online courses with in-person classes is the perfect balance.

-       Twitter & YouTube: Twitter’s not just for celebrities and people with over-sharing issues. It is a fantastic tool for building my PLN and staying connected to what is happening in all of the worlds I am interested in (ECE, ed tech, ed policy, CPS, etc.). YouTube isn’t just filled with silly, funny, and sometimes stupid content—but can instead be used to learn tons of new info!

-       Being constantly connected: I worried in the beginning of the course that it would require me to be constantly connected, or that through learning more, I would want this myself (I have a somewhat addictive personalityJ). I realized though, that again, balance is the key. Saving my online and connected times to certain times of the day, and taking occasional breaks, made the transition into having more of an online presence realistic and practical for me.

-       The bigger picture: Before taking this class, I had many beliefs about how being connected and the Internet in general had to do with me. Now, since taking this course, I have a better understanding of what this means within the bigger picture of local, national, and international considerations. I have truly appreciated the multiple perspectives shared here (especially the Schooling the World videos). I feel that I now have a more well-rounded picture of the benefits and costs of technology across many formats (at the national level with the NETP, at a local level with funding differentials, and at a global level). I feel better able to engage in critical discussions about the use of technology and its implications now.  

Specific Skills Learned—bullet-style…

-      - how to save my Internet content through Diigo

-      - when and how to post to Twitter

-      - how to corral all of my online content through my reader

-      - to renew my interest in blogging (I created a blog for my family too!)

-      - how to create a VoiceThread

-      - how to collaborate with group members when we can’t meet in person

-      - how to access always new and changing info in the world of ed tech (through my PLN!)

-      - how to create my own course Wiki (having been inspired by this course’s)

-      - how to be more concise through blog and discussion posts and my Pecha Kucha (always the challenge for me!)

Concepts Gained—again bullet-style…

-      - Connectivism

-      - Project-Based Learning for incorporating tech

-      - Wow! Some crazy-awesome new tech pieces specifically (through our group project)

-      - An awareness (and small fear) of Big Brother (tracking online users)

-      - Digital citizenship is necessary and there are many tools to help me teach it

-      - NETP—it’s strengths and weaknesses, but it’s constantly forward push into the future

-      - Standards for online learning

-      - That theories from the past (Dewey-1910) are still applicable and necessary today in the world of ed tech

-      - (not new, but just reinforced) The importance of being a critical consumer of everything I encounter also applies in the world of tech

•   What have you learned in the course that you will not forget tomorrow?

Umm, all of the above! I am so thankful to be able to reference back to our course Wiki when the course is done so that all of this stays fresh in my mind. Some pieces I will continue to use daily upon the end of the course like my reader and Skype; whereas others will not be revisited for some time (iNACOL standards, digital citizenship pieces, NETP components). Having the Wiki available will make it easy for me to come back to grab content and ideas.

•   How will you apply what you have learned to your teaching and future learning?

In my personal life…

-       - I will apply what I have learned about online collaboration to personal interactions online and continuing to follow my PLN and blog subscriptions

-       - I will continue to use these to try out new ideas on the web.

In my professional life…

-       - I am creating a Wiki for C&I 277, which I will be teaching in the fall

-       - I am also creating one for the professional development workshop series I will be leading for the Chicago Public Schools this upcoming year.

-       - I will be applying the new tools and strategies (VoiceThread, Scribd, Google Docs, Dropbox, Diigo, and more) to the content that I teach within these groups.

-       - I will be exploring what a flipped classroom would look like in each of these formats and attempting to use flipped components in my practice.

-       - I will insert all of the awesome sites, blogs, people, and connections with my students and in-service teachers.

-       - I am sure that there are more ways that what I have learned will come out in my teaching on top of these listed here!

This reflective post cannot begin to describe the ways in which I have been impacted by being a part of the 579 learning community. It is my hope that I will take what I have learned and continue questioning and learning. One specific question that I have been playing with…is related to how the internet is shaping history. If there are companies that will erase your online presence completely, and the plight of libraries are very real, where is real history being collected? Hmmm….see---like I said, always questioning and learning! :)

Blog Post #3

I am thoroughly enjoying reading the blogs I've subscribed to on my reader everyday, and I was pleasantly surprised when I ran across this post from Josh Stumpenhorst, the 2012 Illinois Teacher of the Year. Read below for his post and my response:

7/4/12

Expanding Students' Horizons

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure to model the new ISTE Ignite sessions at the kickoff session of the 2012 ISTE conference in San Diego. For those of you that don't know what an Ignite session is, it is a fast paced style of presenting. The speaker is given a set number of slides and a limited time on each slide. The presenter does not have control over the slides as they will change automatically when the time is up. For me, I had 15 slides and each slide was up for 15 seconds. It was a lot of fun and I can see this being a useful model even for students presenting in class.

Enjoy!

His Ignite presentation was included under the post on his site, and here's my response:

"Josh, congratulations on a very inspirational presentation, in such a concise and insightful package! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how you have instilled Innovation Days to allow your students choice, independence, and self-made meaning within their learning. I especially appreciated the format of your presentation as I recently created my first Ignite-type Pecha Kucha for a graduate class and know how difficult it can be to concisely sum up all of the emotion and passion that goes into your everyday job of being a teacher. Although watching this format always leaves me wanting more, your presentation really gleaned the essentials from this topic, and for that I’m thankful! I plan to continue using this presentation format to force myself to be succinct and still powerful in my message. Thanks for this inspiration to keep trying!"

You can check it out here after Josh approves the comment, which he hopefully will! I hope that this resonates with you as well:)

Blog Post #2

From Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier's blog, Bridging Differences on 6/19/12, about the Gates Foundation's new research. Its a'll interesting, but this is the section that really caught my eye...


My own reaction was that this research is reminiscent of Brave New World. It suggests the development of a device to snoop into our being. It crosses a line that allows others—whether government officials, researchers, or teachers—to peer into how we feel. Whether it is intended to evaluate teachers, as was originally implied on the Gates website, or to measure student engagement, as the foundation now says, it is sinister. It goes where measurement does not belong. The fact that something can be done does not mean that it should be done. We could, for example, search for drugs and prevent anyone from bringing them into school by regularly examining students' body cavities, but we don't do it. We don't do it because it is wrong. We should not do what is wrong even in the pursuit of the ultimate measure of student engagement or teacher effectiveness.


My Response:

Diane, thanks for adding the Big Brother component. When I first heard of this research, I was confused, thinking wow, if they had put those on my pre-k students they would have had constantly changing blood pressure rates (I’m sorry, “engagement”). Does that mean that my students were or were not engaged--not necessarily! I am surprised that researchers on their team failed to consult research showing that varying heart rates is actually okay and natural! Now that I have discussed this ridiculous research with others, I have become more cynical and angry about it. It is definitely Big Brother-ish; it screams of listening into conversations, constant monitoring, and punishments as a result.  Not only is research into testing this idea based on a disregard for research theories and findings, it is also extremely unethical. Once again, it seems that the Gates Foundation is over-extending its power.

Reflection #1: Having a Blast in the Deep End!

As I mentioned in my first post, I likened beginning this course to standing on the edge of the diving board for the second time, now knowing what happens next, and not being quite sure that I wanted to take a second plunge. Now, that I am a few weeks back in the pool, I am feeling much more comfortable with my edge-of-the-board perch and repeated jumps in. Let me explain…

• What attitudes, skills, and concepts have you gained from participating in the course so far?

First and foremost, my attitudes about being on-line and immersing myself in the tech world have improved dramatically from our readings and my growing familiarity with various platforms, programs, perks, and features of being in educational technology. I have become more adept at using Twitter, my reader, countless other cool sites and programs, and even blogging, which has made me much more comfortable being online. I have learned that a fully online course can be collaborative, dynamic, and even fun! (past experiences had shown me otherwise) My mind is swirling with everything that I have soaked in over the course of the past few weeks including: Google (aka Big Brother :) ), ECE-tech gurus, wikis in classroom, web-based portfolios (aka blogs!), and much more.

• What have you learned in the course that you will not forget tomorrow?

Although there is little that I will forget from this course, one tool/ aspect has completely changed me, and I will use it from this point on. It’s my…wait for it…my reader! Wow! Is that an awesome tool! Before the course, I worried about how much time using tech/ being online would take me, and that it would consume my life. I have realized though, that many tech pieces actually make my life easier, and although I am synced with the online world throughout the day, I do not feel overwhelmed by this connection. My reader is the number one reason that this is the case. Before knowing about it, I was checking different sites, blogs, and online features every day, typing url addresses in and waiting for the upload. This would take forever! Now, having all of my content delivered to me, especially since I have it on my Android phone, has been a huge time-saver! I always have my phone with me, and I have been using it for email and calendar features for quite some time. Since I am not an avid Facebook user (for various reasons :) ), I find that I don’t have too much to do on the phone while I wait in my day-to-day life. Now, that I have the reader, I find that I can stay current on the aforementioned blogs, sites, and features during this time! Finding awesome ed tech, ECE, and advocacy bloggers to follow has helped me to feel more informed and connected with what’s happening in schools and across the country in a way that I could not be without them. My reader just packages this up so nicely for me—can you tell I love it?

•  How will you apply what you have learned to your teaching and future learning?

How won’t I? Since the first reading in Reach, my creative and planning wheels have been churning over how I can use what I am learning in this course with my undergrads in the fall, not only for running my own course, but for helping them learn how to use technology in their own future practice as classroom teachers. Although previously, I used various online features including Google sites, docs, and Vimeo in the past, this upcoming semester,  my use of tech in the classroom will be really ramped up in an intentional, meaningful way. Some specific uses that I plan to employ include: a class wiki for sharing, discussing, and posting; a YouTube channel for sharing great ECE social studies lessons and tools; Pinterest, for sharing and commenting on Internet finds as they relate to ECE and social studies; the Digital Citizenship sites that we explored in Module 1 to share with my teacher candidates for their own future use; Brainpopjr.com for sure, for content and future use; and many more pieces. In addition, the goals I hold for my undergrads now include a much more focused and tailored view of how I can help them learn skills to bring technology into their own practices. If you can’t tell already, I am pretty excited about this work, and of course, there will be more to come…

Blog Post #1

From Margaret Powers: http://margaret-powers.com/2012/05/27/taking-time-between-your-timelines-because-youmatter/#comment-275

Just a few weeks ago, the timeline of my master’s program came to an end and with it, the even longer timeline of my formal education (for now!). With that ending, came the end of my timeline living in Washington D.C. and the beginning of a new timeline in Philadelphia. In parallel to those timelines, I have been adding experiences and learnings to my professional consulting timeline, which has become the main frame for my work in Philly. And of course within each timeline are smaller timelines, such as Capstone projects or trips to Senegal, and when I stop to think about it, there is truly a lot of change, growth, and learning happening simultaneously in one’s life!

With that in mind, stopping to think and to reflect is exactly what I want to do. It’s so easy for one timeline to fade into the next. For me, transitioning from college to work to graduate school was almost seamless. There was not time (I thought) to pause and celebrate what I had done, consider the change I had created through various campus projects or to record hopes and goals for moving forward during the actual transitions. I often take time throughout my timelines to plan in advance, reflect on my experiences, and think deeply about larger professional goals, which has helped me bring together my various experiences and studies in early childhood, global education, and educational technology in a meaningful way. Yet rarely have I allowed, in addition to that planning and goal-setting, a bit of time for myself between transitions. Now, with the end of another academic timeline and the beginning of new professional experiences, I want to make the time to consider where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m going next. I want to carve out time that in the past I have allowed to be so easily eaten up by other priorities (because doesn’t it seem like there’s always another task to finish, bill to pay, or idea to explore?).

Especially in our connected society, I succumb to the pressure to constantly check my email, chat with my Twitter PLN, finish that lingering project and then start a new one because it’s sitting there on my to-do list or popping up in my browser and I don’t want to fall behind. But what if we all take time to put that aside for a little bit and just think about why we matter, about what we’ve done and where we’re going next? As Angela Maiers says, You Matter, and by “mattering”, she suggests you should remember (taken directly from her blog):

1.       YOU ARE ENOUGH

2.       YOU HAVE INFLUENCE

3.       YOU ARE A GENIUS

4.       YOU HAVE A CONTRIBUTION TO MAKE

5.       YOU HAVE A GIFT THAT OTHERS NEED

6.       YOU ARE THE CHANGE

7.       YOUR ACTIONS DEFINE YOU IMPACT

8.       YOU MATTER!

These eight ideas are a lot to process, so that’s why I hope to take the next week or so to actively reflect on each one as I mark the ending of one timeline and the beginning of another. I hope others can take time to pause and notice their own timelines, big and small, because like me, you matter and together we can all encourage one another to remember that and to recognize the value of reflection in times of change.

My Response:

Margaret, congratulations on ending one timeline (your Masters!) and taking the time to really reflect on it! Like you, I also find myself struggling to find balance between my online and offline lives. I waver in Stage 5: Balance of Jeff Utecht’s Stages of PLN Adoption as I attempt to stay afloat of the most current twitter updates and blog posts while also finding time to enjoy my garden and sit and relax. In my teaching, I used timelines with my pre-k students to help them reflect upon and synthesize their own learning and growth. I appreciate your post in that it reminds me that using this same mentality with my work, whether on a larger scale (a semester of work) or shorter (two days with my PLN), taking time to really focus on me and my own growth can only help me with this balance. Thanks!

Hello! Welcome to my journey into the world of ed tech! I hope this title evokes for you an image of your first time at the end of the diving board, or possibly your second when you knew what was going to happen when you jumped off the board. Having lived my youth as a fish in a pool, this image immediately came to mind as I attempted to visualize how I feel about diving into the world of ed tech. Although I have dibbled and dabbled with various pieces of assisitive technology, blogging, and other digital tools and formats in the past, I see myself as someone who's already jumped in and is back on that board deciding whether or not to go for a second try. I struggle with many aspects, both literally and figuratively, of ed tech, and hopefully through blogging here about these struggles and my potential triumphs, I'll be ready to fully launch myself off of the diving board and do the most awesome can-opener, splash-inducing, jump that's ever been witnessed online! (a lofty goal, for sure!) I hope you enjoy reading along on this journey. Please feel free to leave your questions, high-fives, and comments for me here!

:)Kira