While there are still a few tools that I will be discussing in the future, your basic PLN tools should be set. I have included a survey on the class blog to gather your information in one place. Now, I guess it's time to begin to use the tools in an attempt at deeper learning.
Let's begin with your blog. As I mentioned in class, I want you to reflect on some possible ideas that you would like to pursue for the remainder of the course. Hopefully, you will find a topic driven by your passion. Write a blog post of at least 200 words reflecting on some possible topics and any questions you might have around the topic. We will discuss these topics in class on Monday. You do not have to decide right away, but you should be close. . .As you are doing some research on the Internet, remember to bookmark anything you find on Diigo. Don't forget to share to the Learning and Technology Group (and if you haven't joined the group, please do so ASAP). You should also begin looking for some Diigo users to add to your network. My network would be a good place to start. I wouldn't follow anyone who doesn't have a picture associated with her/his account.
You should have Tweetdeck installed on your computer by now. There should be at least four to five columns with #usdedu as one of the columns as well as any topic of interest that you found on cybraryman's edchat page. It is officially time for you to start tweeting. Use the hastag #usdedu in your tweets so that your peers and I can follow your progress. You will also use any other appropriate hashtag that applies to the information you are sharing. Start to add others to your network by following them. If you have questions about this, we can discuss further in class on Monday. I am not going to give you a specific number of tweets, but I will be monitoring your participation.
Begin to find your voice. This means that you are not only writing/reflecting on your blog, but you are reading other blogs and looking for opportunities to comment on topics that interest you.
In summary, I want you to:
read
tweet
tweet
bookmark
write
comment
Repeat
This Week's Question: What is one thing that you have learned without formal teaching? How did you learn it?
In my former position as the Head of Teaching and Technology at a private language college I was given the opportunity to pioneer the school’s transition from whiteboards to Smartboards. The only “problem” was that the technology came long before the training did. In order to motivate other teachers to STOP TURNING THEIR BACKS on the new technology (literally, they were turning to face the old whiteboards at the back of the classes instead of using the Smartboards at the front of the classes), I just had to PLAY. It was intimidating at first until I changed my perspective and really thought of it as playing. I decided that no mistake could be undone so I just went for it; I pushed buttons, I clicked on icons, I Googled. All in all it was a great experience. Essentially I taught myself how to use the Smartboard and Smart technology to teach an ESL class and then I shared what I learned with my peers.
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteThis is a random question, but I have been creating PowerPoint presentations for one of my other classes at USD. I've now become bored with the themes that Office has stored on my computer, so I found a few websites that have free templates. I have found a bunch that I like, but I wanted to know if there is a way to save the template that I downloaded to the "themes" that are stored on my computer. Also, I've noticed that spell check doesn't really work in these templates that I have downloaded. Is that because it is in whatever the "lorem ipsum" language?!?!?! Any help would be appreciated!!!
So I posted a very well thought out post around noon today, but for some reason I do not see it here now. Obviously i must not have pressed post after I put in the word code... very disappointing. (Okay I'm done venting)
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of this questions I think of my Myspace account I mentioned in class. When I was in highschool I had the COOLEST myspace page. My text scrolled, flashed, spun and sparkled, I had videos and music, and I did not just have a photo album, I had a photo slideshow. I learned everything from the internet at first, but once I started noticing that if you put text, that would make the text scroll. Suddenly I caught onto the pattern and I wouldn't even need a website to tell me the code, I would just create html code on my own. I was intrigued and challenged, and I spend hours mastering the new skill. This was great, but it was because motivation took over and I did not know anyone else who knew the trade. Later i was the one teaching my friends how I had photo albums. I even created and submitted banners on websites for public use. Now only if I could have retained 100% of that skill to apply to my blog! :-P
Annie,
ReplyDeleteI would suggest you use prezi.com instead of PowerPoint! It is a web-based, non-linear presentation tool. If you use your USD email, you can get an education account that allows you to download the presentation to your desktop, which makes presenting easy. If you need some help with it, let me know. If you want to stick with Ppt, then Microsoft has more free templates online and should give you so much trouble.
Ms. Davis,
If you go to your blogger dashboard and click on 'posts' you should see that your post was saved but maybe not published. If you meant a comment, then I'm afraid it is indeed lost ;-)
jeff
I think that the things you learn the most without formal teaching are life lessons. Sure, your parents can try and teach you those, but life lessons are things that you truly have to learn on your own to really "learn" them. I think that the biggest lesson that I have learned on my own growing up is that you get what you give. In order to obtain things (such as material things, knowledge, improvement) you have to make the effort. I have learned that life and everything in it takes hard work and a lot of effort. I have also learned that the amount of effort that you put into something correlates with the amount of benefits you receive from it. I have also learned that most of the reward is feeling proud of yourself for working so hard and putting everything you have into something. This is most important to remember when you don't receive a benefit for your hard work (such as doing everything you can in an interview, but still not getting a job or working really really hard to reach a student but not quite getting there). Although in both of these situations (and others that mirror it) it is really a bummer when you don't get the result you were hoping for, knowing that you did everything in your power and gave 110% is still a rewarding feeling. You know that having that will one day give you the result you are looking for. Anyway, in summary, you get what you give :)
ReplyDeleteSo I thought I was on top of everything and then I realized that I had yet to answer this question. This leads me to something that has been a challenge throughout my life and I have gotten better or worse at it out of necessity. One thing that I have learned outside of formal teaching is time management. Growing up, I was great a procrastination. Somehow I was always able to produce quality work no matter how close I was to deadline. My theory was always "oh I work well under pressure." But that quickly changed once I got to college. My lifestyle in college and need for sleep forced me into having good time management skills. I was on the crew team and 5am practices required me to be in bed early. And on days where we had afternoon practices, I was in no state to do work after practice was done. This pushed me to getting my work done during the time I had and was most productive. Ultimately, I found myself getting my work done earlier than I had in the past, and if it was a project, I would spend time working consistently on it rather than all at the last minute. So although teachers and my parents have always emphasized not waiting until the last minute to do things, it was out of the sheer need to survive college that I really honed in on successful time management.
ReplyDeleteThis question is actually difficult for me to answer because there are so many things that I have learned without formal teaching. I LOVE to learn new things all the time, whether it is a skill set or just basic knowledge. I think most things that I learn without formal teaching are usually things that appeal to my creative side. I love to make things whether it is sewing, building, or cooking. I love being able to look at something and create a whole different use for it. I have a garden because I love to cook and decided to plant my own food to cook with. We have a few larger plants that need a lot of support(grapes, blackberries, tomatoes). I was sick of having to buy support structures for the growing plants (they are very expensive the larger your plants get) so I decided to use materials I found around my yard to build my own. We have two very large trees that I have to constantly cut branches back. So I used the branches to build trellises for each of the plants. Since I've never done this I decided to take a look at already built trellises and see where I needed the strongest support. After that it was a trial and error process. I am happy to say that I built three trellises and they are all still working wonderfully (it's been about 3 months since I built them)! I think that this scenario is how I tend to learn most things. If I have no clue how to do something then I usually go to a resource in which I can learn from (I tend to rely on the internet because it is a wonderful source) after that I just try something out until it works the way I want. I think the most important thing thought is having the desire to learn and wanting to figure something out.
ReplyDelete