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.
Blogs from 'Using ICT in the classroom'
Blogs from 'Internet for Educators'
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.
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Note of Thanks! (Power of a PLN)
This past term, one of the courses I taught was Internet for Educators. This course is an elective course in Brandon University's after degree B.Ed. program. The students are in their last year & last term of their program and are generally in the middle years or senior years stream, they have a variety of teachable areas. This is the second year I have used an approach using ideas I have 'borrowed' from members of my PLN, in particular Alec Couros and Dean Shareski. The major assignment for the course is to keep a blog, there are required weekly posts, based on the topic of the week, usually presented by a special guest speaker. The students explore the idea, bring in own experiences and reflections. I started this last year, and grew and refined the idea this year. From both my perspective - and from the students, it was a huge success. The responsibility for learning was theirs, while I set the general topics, along with the speakers I invited, the learning took the direction the students wanted to take it. Many added extra posts, sharing resources, ideas and commenting on each others blogs. I want to publicly acknowledge the invited speakers - members of my PLN - who took time and effort to join us, in person and digitally. I learned as much from the presentations and interactions as my students did. The presenters were:
John Evans (@joevans) - a former Principal and now a consultant with Manitoba Education, presented on PLNs - and on the first day of classes. What a great way to start. John got us off with a bang talking about the power of a PLN and demonstrating some tools for building a PLN. John shared his wiki on PLNs.
Howard Griffith (@HowardCDN) - Howard is one of two educators who coordinate & develop Web Based Courses for Manitoba. Howard led a discussion about the whys of online learning and showed the resources and courses available in Manitoba. Student teachers are able to sign up for courses so they may use the materials as resources and to explore.
John Finch (@jfinch) - a former teacher and Technology Consultant, John is also with Manitoba Education and is on the Literacy with ICT team. John led a hands on session looking at using social media in the classroom, sharing ideas and issues.
Glen Gatin (@ggatin) - was next, Glen is an ed tech researcher and delivers a graduate level course for Brandon University, and other Universities. Glen presented a session looking at learning in a networked world. In particular he looked at various learning theories, including constructivism, constructionism and connectivism. He also discussed MOOCs and MUVES (second life). He finished with some good advice for beginning teachers.
George Couros (@gcouros) - Principal of Forest Green School in Stoney Plain, AB skyped in from his school. This was a treat as a Principal in the field talked about "Unintended Benefits" and shared his experiences as his school embraced social media. Here is a Principal with an amazing philosophy who lives what he says. He also gave advice for beginning teachers seeking their first teaching job. His presentation is embedded below, with his permission.
Darren Kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa) - Darren is a high school Math teacher on secondment to Manitoba Education (in the Literacy with ICT - French language side). Darren is a very sought after speaker and presents around the world. He presented on "What can we do now?". Darren talked about how people learn and talked about assessment and illustrated many ways to use technology in the classroom. His presentation is below.
Dean Shareski (@shareski) - well, we did not actually have Dean speak to us directly, however, I assigned his great K-12 Conference keynote "Sharing - The Moral Imperative" for viewing. His presentation sparked some great blog posts. I thank Dean for reading & commenting on a few of the posts.
Alec Couros (@courosa) - having the famous Dr. Couros, University of Regina, join us via elluminate is always a treat. Alec truly lives his 'open doctrine'. As busy as he is, Alec joined us for an hour right after his own class finished at U of R. Alec was a perfect final speaker and he summed up his thoughts on 'Open Learning in a Connected World' and spent about fifteen minutes answering questions and discussing ideas. Just the week before, I had the honour of introducing Alec on his first foray into Manitoba when he delivered a keynote to WestCAST - an annual conference for pre-service teachers, held this year at Brandon University. His slidedeck is below:
Of course, I did hold a few classes myself ;-) and we spent the last class together discussing and pulling together the themes from the course & speakers. The student blogs were amazing, and their final reflections were outstanding. Links to their blogs, including the reflections, are on this wiki - so please take a look & comment! These folks will make fine, thoughtful teachers (anyone hiring?). It is also gratifying to see a few of them continue posting to their blogs in the few weeks since classes finished.
Once again, I want to thank all these educators for their contribution to the development of these new teachers. I met & got to know some of these people on twitter, and they did not hesitate to take part. This success shows the power of a PLN (or whatever term you want to use)! This experience was valuable to both my students and to me - and I hope for these fine presenters as well - I know some have some new twitter followers and blog readers from this class!
John Evans (@joevans) - a former Principal and now a consultant with Manitoba Education, presented on PLNs - and on the first day of classes. What a great way to start. John got us off with a bang talking about the power of a PLN and demonstrating some tools for building a PLN. John shared his wiki on PLNs.
Howard Griffith (@HowardCDN) - Howard is one of two educators who coordinate & develop Web Based Courses for Manitoba. Howard led a discussion about the whys of online learning and showed the resources and courses available in Manitoba. Student teachers are able to sign up for courses so they may use the materials as resources and to explore.
John Finch (@jfinch) - a former teacher and Technology Consultant, John is also with Manitoba Education and is on the Literacy with ICT team. John led a hands on session looking at using social media in the classroom, sharing ideas and issues.
Glen Gatin (@ggatin) - was next, Glen is an ed tech researcher and delivers a graduate level course for Brandon University, and other Universities. Glen presented a session looking at learning in a networked world. In particular he looked at various learning theories, including constructivism, constructionism and connectivism. He also discussed MOOCs and MUVES (second life). He finished with some good advice for beginning teachers.
George Couros (@gcouros) - Principal of Forest Green School in Stoney Plain, AB skyped in from his school. This was a treat as a Principal in the field talked about "Unintended Benefits" and shared his experiences as his school embraced social media. Here is a Principal with an amazing philosophy who lives what he says. He also gave advice for beginning teachers seeking their first teaching job. His presentation is embedded below, with his permission.
Darren Kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa) - Darren is a high school Math teacher on secondment to Manitoba Education (in the Literacy with ICT - French language side). Darren is a very sought after speaker and presents around the world. He presented on "What can we do now?". Darren talked about how people learn and talked about assessment and illustrated many ways to use technology in the classroom. His presentation is below.
Dean Shareski (@shareski) - well, we did not actually have Dean speak to us directly, however, I assigned his great K-12 Conference keynote "Sharing - The Moral Imperative" for viewing. His presentation sparked some great blog posts. I thank Dean for reading & commenting on a few of the posts.
Alec Couros (@courosa) - having the famous Dr. Couros, University of Regina, join us via elluminate is always a treat. Alec truly lives his 'open doctrine'. As busy as he is, Alec joined us for an hour right after his own class finished at U of R. Alec was a perfect final speaker and he summed up his thoughts on 'Open Learning in a Connected World' and spent about fifteen minutes answering questions and discussing ideas. Just the week before, I had the honour of introducing Alec on his first foray into Manitoba when he delivered a keynote to WestCAST - an annual conference for pre-service teachers, held this year at Brandon University. His slidedeck is below:
Of course, I did hold a few classes myself ;-) and we spent the last class together discussing and pulling together the themes from the course & speakers. The student blogs were amazing, and their final reflections were outstanding. Links to their blogs, including the reflections, are on this wiki - so please take a look & comment! These folks will make fine, thoughtful teachers (anyone hiring?). It is also gratifying to see a few of them continue posting to their blogs in the few weeks since classes finished.
Once again, I want to thank all these educators for their contribution to the development of these new teachers. I met & got to know some of these people on twitter, and they did not hesitate to take part. This success shows the power of a PLN (or whatever term you want to use)! This experience was valuable to both my students and to me - and I hope for these fine presenters as well - I know some have some new twitter followers and blog readers from this class!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Reflections on a Year of Blogging
photo © 2007 Andy Piper | more info (via: Wylio)Almost one year ago, I started my first blog (this one). At the time, I had just decided to have students in my Internet for Educators class (pre-service teacher education at Brandon University) keep a blog for the course. I had seen the great results that Alec Couros and Dean Shareski had using blogging with their classes at the University of Regina, so I thought I would give it a try. In a twist of fate, I was also starting a course (Seminar in Educational Technology) as part of my Ph.D. program at the University of Manitoba and, you guessed it, the professor used blogs as a major component of the course. I had to practice what I was preaching, and it afforded a good chance to start, since I had little choice.
Now, a year later, I have five blogs (links to all are on this blog site). The second was for another course and explored learning as a social & cultural phenomenon, I was going to keep it up, but I have now retired it. Two others are collaborative efforts, one with members of the ICT Committee I chair at the Faculty of Education, the other explores ideas of Equity in Education. The last (Notta Stuff) is the one I keep updated the most. I use Posterous for it, since it is very easy to post to. I use this blog to excerpt sections of blogs or news articles I’m reading and then comment on them.
At first writing blog posts was rather difficult, not necessarily in terms of writing it, but in actually making my work public. I wondered if I had anything of value to share and if anyone would really care anyways. I have come to the realization that the process of writing the blog allows me to reflect on my own learning and come to my own understandings. If someone else finds it of value, then so much the better. I have discovered many other interesting blogs that I follow using RSS in twitter. All of these have become important parts of my PLN.
I certainly do not blog as much as I want to. Everyone is busy these days and I do not want to make excuses, we all have to set our own priorities or make choices. Currently my priorities must lie with my teaching, my research projects and presentations, and my work on my PhD program. One thing I try to impress on my students is to come to some sort of balance in their life, I am still searching for this balance myself. It is a learning process.
I continue to jot down ideas for blog posts and will hopefully write them someday. In the meantime my new career continues to keep me engaged, learning, curious and very busy. Through building a PLN, by blogging, but mostly through other networking media like twitter, I have made many connections, shared and received many resources and advice, made new friends, and have grown professionally and personally. As Dean Shareski has said, every teacher (educator at any level actually) should blog - it is a wonderful way to reflect, make meaning and learn.
And now I will head into my second year as a blogger. Thanks, Dr. Hlynka for starting me on this journey!
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