Daily Archive

Interesting, I just noticed my progression on posting and creating this blog.  The first thing I did when setting up the blog was to mess around with the theme, the colors, links, the look of the sidebars… then I got fancier and worked on bringing in widgets… now, it’s mostly about the posts.

Sure, some has to do with the homework becoming progressively about the posts – but honestly, 2 posts a module shouldn’t be too hard.  I really see my own progression being just like a new student being introduced to blogging.  I bring this up because it is something I want to keep with me.  So that when I introduce blogs to students I give them the time and space to personalize and play with the resource before asking them to buckle down and get to the “real work”.  Letting them have the time to take true ownership of their own space is invaluable when they are asked later to produce from their space the homework assignment.

Hmmm, so even though I am “old” (I’m leaving the quotes there) my progression was indicative of a more global student learning experience.  Gotta remember this.

Today’s Question:

What is something you are happy to have learned in this class?

Let me start by reminding you that this was my first of two classes for grad school taken this summer (2008).  I have been out of the education loop for a number of years and am jumping back in with both feet!  The class has covered a number of topics that I have been meaning to investigate on my own, but with the direction of this course I have been “forced” to go out and do it instead of leaving it on a back burner to “get to later”.  This has been great.

My favorites so far and what I hope to do with the experience:

• Putting together the blog – I already have my teenage son working on one and will bring it to students this coming year.
• del.icio.us – how did I live without it?  Now I am hoping to manage bookmarks online in a way that staff at school can access what they need.
• RSS – I now use my Pageflakes page every day and look forward to introducing this to teachers as a web 2.0 tool in the classroom.
• Research paper - not the actual formatting and deadline of it, but once I found a topic of interest (Text Messaging & Teens – Benefit to Classroom Writing?) and got into the paper it was quite interesting and I enjoyed the process.  This is great information that I can bring to the staff and engage in some discussions on what they are seeing now in student writing and how we might use text messaging activities in the classroom.
• Putting together a wiki - as with the blog I am thrilled to have a better understanding of the tool and how to set it up, now I can focus on how to implement it in the classrooms if needed.  The one drawback has been that my “group” is non-existent.  Just me.  But, even with that hiccup, I am confident with the tool and look forward to using it further.

It would be wonderful, as a followup to each tool, to have real success stories available as to how these tools are being implemented in classrooms.  Once we have had the opportunity to “master” the resource (or at least have a good working knowledge of it), it would be beneficial to have some strong examples of how the resource has been utilized.  As a class, we make comments and throw out ideas on what could be done, but to have real-life “hey this worked for us” examples (perhaps at the end of the module) would take the learning experience one step further.

That brings me through module 4 (out of 6).  Looking forward to the next thing!