This is my blog of reflections, musings and ideas. Originally started as a requirement of the Graduate course "Seminar in Educational Technology" at the University of Manitoba. Now that I have finished my Ph.D. (2014), I will use the blog explore ideas as I proceed through my work in education & educational technology. Fast forward ... I am now retired and don't keep this up. Maybe at some point in the future I will??
Well, I thought since I labeled my last post as part 1, I'd better do a part 2! Frankly, I have not had time to keep up with etmooc much this past week. I did take in @dkuropatwa's session, but that is about it. It seems like I just have too much on my plate - for instance, right now I should be looking at student blogs and websites in order to provide feedback. Doing a MOOC while teaching 4 courses, immersed in collecting data for a dissertation, and having some home renovations in progress makes for a full schedule. On the other hand, I have been immersed in digital storytelling the past few weeks, and will be for the next as well. Multimedia and digital storytelling is the current topic in my Using ICT in Education course right now in the Faculty of Ed here at BU. So I have been discussing some of the ways, whys, and means of digital storytelling & multimedia in the classroom. Many of my students are also creating their own stories for another course they are taking - it is great to see other profs having students explore how to use technology in their practice. So far, we have looked at topics such as; what makes a good presentation, basic image editing and how even a single image can tell a story, creating short stories using multimedia (including looking at apps such as photostory, animoto, Prezi, and some iPad apps), and are now looking at elementary video production. I enjoy this topic, there are so many ways to create and share stories - and to be creative. Students also seem to enjoy it and think up great ways to use the ideas in their own (future) teaching practice. I have obtained permission from a few of my students to share some of their creations - please check out their blogs as well.
@MissLwbt created the following tutorial as a story about how to make a digital story. Kirsten is a prolific and well followed blogger and shares openly (her blog is Miss L's Whole Brain Teaching). Enjoy her creative story:
Another student, Brittani (also a former student at the school I was Principal & teacher at :-), created this wonderful little story using Storybird, Audacity & slideshare for an ELA methods class. Brittani also writes an entertaining blog for my course: Miss Britt's Blog.
I can share even more, but will finish with this great little animation made by Tyler (@Tyler_JL) after we heard from a few presenters in my I4Ed course to illustrate the importance of sharing our work. Tyler writes one of his several blogs at ICTyler.
Hope you enjoyed these examples. They are better than my own stuff anyway :-)
[PS Thanks to these promising young educators for allowing me to share their work here.]
Topic 2 in etmooc is digital storytelling. This is another one of those terms that crops up and gets thrown around, yet it is an apt moniker that highlights some of the affordances of digital technology for learning. The digital, of course, just highlights the medium used to create & tell the story. The important part is the 'storytelling', which has always been around as one of the ways we use to pass knowledge and ideas along (well - that was not a very connectivist statement - but what should I say - perhaps to share or demonstrate knowledge?). Stories, to me, can be a myriad of things; fiction, non-fiction, an explanation, an image, a metaphor ... stories are such a powerful tool for teaching and learning. Many years ago, before I became a school administrator (and subsequently a prof) I was involved, with 2 colleagues, in a fantastic project of storytelling. In our project the entire grade 12 class was involved through their English courses and the video production course that I co-taught. Students were involved in pitching ideas, story development, script writing, acting, props, filming, editing, producing - and finally premiering - a full length movie. The project succeeded because the entire class was involved, it was supported by other staff and the administration, and the community - who attended the premiere at the local movie theatre (or school gym once we purchased a full size movie theatre screen). What a learning experience and fun, collaborative project. The power of story is still very evident as I use the stories of teachers (case studies) in my dissertation, we can learn much from the stories of others. The affordances of digital technology offer so many ways to create stories using several types of media, but it is ultimately about the stories that people tell.
I hope to explore this topic as much as time allows - it is also the topic we are exploring in the ed tech course I teach at BU. I love how the ETMOOC topics are paralleling much of what I am doing in my own courses.
A Few of My Story Attempts:
Six word stories
Ok, one of the challenges in etmooc was to create 6 word stories, I wrote a few attempts:
New career, five years, now tenured!
My grandson: smiles, laughter, and love!
I had some more, but I thought: why not put together the idea of 6 word stories with images and audio. I recently purchased the app 'Sonic Pics' on my iPad (on the suggestion of @dkuropatwa and @amckiel, who gave a P.D. session to pre-service teachers at BU recently - I think it was also a trial run of Darren's etmooc presentation). Anyway, I decided to try out this app and created the following story. One thing I did discover, and will have to check into, is that the text, which shows on the app - does not show on the final product :(
Animated GIF
Wow - I haven't made one of these for many years - back when I taught an animation course as a high school teacher. So, I used an online GIF maker I came across to make this (makeagif.com) - it was very easy to do, upload, order, a few settings, then wait.. Mine is called:
An important part of the classes I teach are student blogs. In my first year courses (an after degree program - so first year of a B.Ed.) the blog is a choice, this term over half have chosen to embark on reflective blogging, most for the first time. In my final semester course, Internet for Educators, blogging is a requirement. As the first topic of #Etmooc winds up, I would like to present the blogs that my students are writing and invite readers to take a look and perhaps leave a comment or two. I leave links to the blog bundles below.
I have used blogging in my courses for a few years now, and am always amazed at the quality of writing, sharing and reflective thought. It is a great way for students to explore ideas they have encountered, wonder aloud, and share resources and experiences. I also find that I learn just as much about students through their blogs as I do in our face to face classes, connecting in this way often leads to deeper conversations in the classroom - or informally outside of it. In the Internet for Ed class (I wrote about abut this course in my last post), I like to think the learning is rhizomatic. I first came across this idea in this article by Dave Cormier, I found the idea fascinating and the analogy an apt one. We listen to speakers, examine ideas and concepts and the students then explore the ideas and take them where they want to go. It is fun to read their ideas, and chat about them. The students themselves have made connections with each other and with some of the guests, who often comment on their posts as well, or connect on twitter. I guess it is perhaps not truly rhizomatic since I (or the invited speakers) choose the general topic, but the students have freedom to go wherever their interests and thoughts take them. The learning I witness (and I learn much myself as well) is exciting to see as these promising educators wrestle with some big ideas.
This past few weeks has been all about connections for me - and they (the past few weeks, that is) have been pretty well a blur too! First off being a connected educator has been the theme over the first few weeks of the course I teach here at BU's Faculty of Education called 03.467, Internet for Educators (#I4Ed is our twitter hashtag devised by one of my students). I have also decided to TRY to take part , as much as I can in a very packed term, in #etmooc, which has Connected Learning as one of the first topics - and is in fact the nature of the course. Fortunately, since this is the 'stuff' I teach - the tools and methods of connecting are, for the most part, not new to me. I must digress to say that I am getting a new view of Google +. I never really paid much attention too it, but connecting with more people on it and the use of the communities feature is giving me renewed enthusiasm about it - and thinking of ways to use it in my teaching and future research projects.
I have been fortunate and honoured to have three amazing speakers present to my class over the past few weeks to talk about the topic of PLNs and connectedness. John Evans (@joevans, MB Education) came out to share his experience as a former teacher and principal to talk about PLN's and MAPLE (a soon to be released network for all Manitoba teachers). Then Dean Shareski (@shareski) skyped in to present his lessons about being a networked educator, and finally Dr. Alec Couros (@courosa) popped in via Adobe Connect to share his wisdom (this almost right after he presented to etmooc folks!). It is interesting to note that I really got to know this educators through online means (mainly twitter) before I met them in person (to be honest, I did meet Alec briefly when I was in the process of applying to the U of R Ph.D. program - I decided, however, to attend U of Manitoba instead). I like sharing how I have met some incredible people online and that these relationships are every bit as real as the face to face ones (but the 'separation' of online & physical spaces is a topic for another post). Having these various points of view coming into my class spurs great thinking about teaching on my student's blogs (here is a list of their blogs if interested).
One of the tasks I asked my class to do was to consider their connections as educators and to map them out (using Alec's famous diagram shown on the right) as a guide. I also asked them to consider the connections that their students have - and how these connections might impact on their own classrooms. I will share some of these diagrams. One of the first ones in was by Tyler and is pretty remarkable, and here is the next, by Kirsten (btw, Tyler and Kirsten - are taking etmooc with me - we did our lip dub line together - it is enjoyable to have these two along, and now another student, Lisa joined up). If you wish to see more of these visualizations, check out some of their blogs - which I mentioned in the previous paragraph (I made one of these for myself a few years ago and need to reconsider it). I find this an interesting assignment; reflecting on our connections gives an appreciation of the breadth and depth of our connections and how they contribute to our learning. Considering how our students connect gives us insight into their worlds and how we can use the information in our teaching. I really enjoy following the thinking that goes on as my students and I try to make sense of the implications connected learning has for their future careers as teachers. And, these people will be amazing teachers, so if you are a school Principal, start signing them up.
Hello fellow mooc-ers, here is my Introduction made using Haiku Deck on my iPad. Wanted to try something new for this, I have had this app for awhile, but never really used it yet. It is easy to use and does a nice enough job. I can see this as a great way tool for digital storytelling. So ... here it is.
Haiku Deck is the best application for creating presentations on iPad
This term is a little crazy for me, I am teaching 4 courses (full load in a term is usually 3) and I am collecting data and starting analysis for my dissertation ... among some other responsibilities like committees, other research projects... I am NOT complaining, just a little warning that I might not contribute as much as I might like to the MOOC. I will be giving it my best shot though! Looking forward to learning & sharing!
The past few months I have been struggling a bit with the direction to take 'grading' in my courses this coming term. The last term of last year, and for one course in the fall term, I tried using a no grade system. The main reason I went to this is the belief that learning should be about professional & personal growth and improvement.
The terminology used at my University for this is 'Pass/fail', which is really a misleading terminology. It implies that one can do the minimum and obtain a pass - this is not the way I see it - or apply it. I set, often with student input, a minimum expectation - one that I hope is high - and students must meet that minimum, not just get by. In my courses - generally about educational technology - I want to encourage my students to take risks, try out something new, explore new ideas. Often students will play it safe, striving to get that 'A'. I want them to try things and do their best, then look at how to improve on that. I want them to be critically self-reflective. I want them to think and be creative.
Now, back to my struggles. I was a pretty successful student in the 'traditional' system, I have been indoctrinated into the system of grades and percentages and competition (not that competition is always bad) - like most of us have been. From this standpoint, I certainly understand what grades are supposed to do - distinguish between people (sorting), provide a measure - of sorts - for learning, and as an external motivator. I even might agree with some of those outcomes, some of the time. I have, however, always really thought that learning is the important thing, not the grade. But grades are so ingrained, it is hard to leave them behind - especially with arguments such as "how will this affect me getting into grad school?" or "getting a job?" and others argue that "some people will just put in the minimum" and others claim that they are motivated to get a better grade. Sometimes I found myself looking at student work and thinking - well, this should be better ... it would only be worth a ...", then I stop and think about what I am doing, it is about improvement, not 'punishment'. I have also found that assessment is so much more enjoyable - I look at the work for what was done well, how it can be improved, and giving suggestions - much more relaxing and productive, often leading to good conversations with students. Last year, most students enjoyed the system - found it made them more comfortable taking risks.... So ... I made up my syllabi last week - and with the input from a colleague and my own reflection about what I was really after - I stuck to the Pass/Fail - and I feel good for doing so. If this term works out, then - unless I am told from someone higher up than me - I will be sticking with this system. If anyone out there has experience with this type of evaluation, I would love to hear your experiences and any ideas.
by Mike & Jackie (originally posted on ICTology, imported September/15)
This August, we had the amazing experience of attending and presenting at the The Ninth International Conference on Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, held August 15-19, 2012 at Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England. The castle, owned by Queen's University in Ontario, Canada, is a beautiful setting for a conference (see photos included). The SSTEP group is a part of AERA, and focusses on the improvement of teacher education through self-study. The process for acceptance is extensive, the proposal, then the paper submitted are subjected to blind peer review. Our paper & presentation was titled: Using Social Media to Engage Teacher Candidates in Relevant, Timely, and Rich Learning Experiences (proceedings for previous conferences area available - and I am sure this one will be as well). In a nutshell we examined our practice as we tried various ways to engage our students in discussions via social media. In particular we looked at a Ning network we had set up for current students and alumni of our teacher education faculty. Our goal was to create a network where our students could engage in rich, deep discussions that extended beyond the classroom. The Ning allowed us to include practicing educators, including many enrolled in our graduate program, to join the discussion with teacher candidates. We tried to find strategies that would lead to a dynamic, meaningful community of learners, and in the long term, we would like to find ways to help the community to become self-sustaining and a place for current and former students to share & engage one another. Our presentation is below, followed by some photos of the beautiful castle & grounds.
