Personal Learning Reflection

This post is a reflection on what I have learned in MSU's technology class CEP 810.

The best thing for me during this class was that it gave me the time and space to look at how I am teaching with technology and reflect on where I have been and where I am going. Often I find myself moving forward at great speeds, treading water and galloping through units of teaching. The reflection that this class gave me allowed me to see what is working in my classroom and what I am not doing to the best of my ability. It also gave me so very many excellent examples and ideas from my peers as to exemplar teaching and lessons. Ben Bailey sent me a copy of his Google doc entitles Break Them In. I spent hours thinking up great projects with his list of ideas- priceless!!

I have a real love/hate relationship with the internet. My husband says I am addicted to Facebook which makes me feel like a 16 year old... This class made me join Twitter and that sure took me out of my comfort zone. For some odd reason I found myself making fun of Twitter without really knowing what it really is. Now that I know what a flexible tool it is, I am fully impressed (although officially not addicted). I enjoyed how the class made me look at different ways of filtering information through the internet, I tried so many incredible forums, feeds, social networking sites and collaborative sites. I have found several where I was very comfortable (Google Reader) and a few that push me to think outside of the box (Twitter).

Our SIG presentation was not only a lesson in podcasting but a lesson in collaboration with unseen people. At first I was a little frustrated by the communication lines but our group soon embraced Google Docs and we started to really fly! The SIG proposal was decided while I was sleeping and I have to say at first I was frustrated that podcasting was chosen. I had no interested it podcasting. I am a gamer, a video expert, a lover of all things that move fast. But it gave me a chance to learn, not to be the expert, to be the learner. And I learned, played with podcasts, attempting to embed things I never knew existed and had a great time learning from a group of experts. This group project exemplified good teaching, excellent integration and incredible collaboration. In this lesson I was able to partially meet one of my goals, that of using collaboration tools effectively. This assignment put me on the side of the collaborator, not just the assigner of work. Now that I see that side and have experienced a few of the frustrations and successes of working in a group I am better able to teach digital collaboration.

New goals are hard for me at this time of year. We are taking things off the walls, looking towards summer, saying goodbye to friends and students.... But I will keep going, keep improving, keep looking for new ways to express myself in technology and keep teaching and inspiring the best I can.

My Personal Technology Plan

Sample podcasts

Hi!
Here are the first drafts of my students summer book reviews via podcast!
Download our first podcast here.

Learning Styles

The first thing that struck me when the above results popped up on the screen was that I am not musical. I actually cannot think of anything I would rather not do than play a musical instrument. The first instrument I played was the recorder and I was so bad at it the teacher made me sit in the back and not actually play, just act like I was playing. Strike one. Second, I played the clarinet and my lips swelled horribly and my teacher made me play it so much that they bled. If my husband ( a huge music fan and an incredible musician) leaves I turn off the music. So do not pull out your guitar if you want my brain in class...
Interpersonal-100 percent. I love committees, groups, cooperation, leadership. I was a Brownie, a Girl Scout, a devoted soccer and lacrosse player (team sport), in drama. I love being with people, and I learn better from others, not so much from books. One teacher I remember in particular was my French teacher in high school. He taught the exact same way every day. He would start by speaking rapid French at us until we felt confused. Then he would introduce to us what he had just said and write the vocabulary on the board. We would rapidly write the vocabulary (and conjugations, etc.) in our notebooks while he simultaneously yelled at us to stand up one by one and repeat what he had said at the beginning. it was almost always impossible, we were singled out daily and ground into the ground if we did not know what we were saying or had the wrong accent and he was just plain mean. I wanted to learn the "language of Love". I had so many romantic notions about French, and then he came into my life. It was exactly the wrong method of teaching for me.
And then there was my Literature of Vietnam class in college. This class to me was perfect. Our teacher engaged us in many discussions, we shared freely, had assigned study groups, and group projects. He allowed us to choose our focus and we were able to focus on this throughout the course. He was amazing, and Vietnam Lit. remains one of my favorite genres today, despite the horrifying content.

What should our focus be to try and incorporate everyone?
I think the key to this must be allowing for the students to have a certain amount of choice. I often start the year in fairly rigid literature circles (I choose the students, the books, the activities). I then give a little more slack (they choose the group, I choose the book). It keeps going like that until some students are off in a corner reading their own book, creating their own goals and making up their own projects and another group has taken over the big group desk and vociferously discussing the book and deicing what they should do next. I see a big improvement in attitudes toward reading at the end of the year when the students have made their own decisions. I have been trying over the last few years to step away from always doing group work (because I am so interpersonal I think they all are too..). But I have realized that some students really do prefer to work on their own, and what they produce is quality. I have no idea how to relate or add music into my classroom, but I have never discouraged a project if it is musical.

Creative Commons Lab

Photo Attribution:

Original image: "Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatial"
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4151/5062020446_b58e6c7b42.jpg
by:David Thibault

Released under an Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

What a process to learn! I have been citing photos incorrectly for years! I have been teaching students to do it improperly for years as well. I have to say this is the lesson I learned the most on. It did make me feel better that most of the articles talked about just that, the fact that many teachers simply do not know how to properly cite photos. Excellent lesson CEP 810!
Now on to the real question, how will this impact what I teach and my curriculum? Creative Commons will be thoroughly introduced next year along with proper citation. I think it may be hard for some fifth graders to wrap their heads around which is why in my classroom we almost exclusively used photos that we have bought rights to. Our library subscribes to a data base (Image Quest from Britannica) that we use a lot when we are trying to make something quickly. However, each year we teach a major research paper and use Noodlebib to run citations of books, magazines and online research materials, I believe it only makes sense to add this into the lessons and require properly cited photos in their final paper as well.
Here is a link to my Picasa album where I have properly licensed my own photos from India.
And here is a link to my favorite picture that I posted...

PC Maintenance and Security

Our assignment was to watch a lot of instructional videos on PC maintenance and Security. I watched most of them as I feel that, admittedly, I am a very tech orientated person but I think this is an area I am lacking in. What amazed me the most about what I learned was that so much of this is extremely easy. When I chose the tutorials to share,I focused on the items that struck me as having the ability to be completed immediately, have excellent results, and be easy.
Here are the instructions for this assignment and the questions are answered below.

Tutorial Number 1
1. Using msconfig to speed up your PC's startup
2. I learned that I could be more in control of what happens when my computer starts up by simply going to my Start-Run- and typing msconfig.
3.I also learned that there is a website to go to that will help you figure out if a start up item is necessary. I am always a little terrified to cancel things from start up in case my computer does not start up properly.

Tutorial Number 2
1. Using the Quick Launch toolbar
2. I learned how to customize the task bar and quickly go from one program to another. I immediately applied this to my work computer and was really excited by how quickly I could open a program.
3. That you simply had to create a shortcut and drag it onto the task bar in order to add a program, or even a document.

Tutorial Number 3
1. Optimizing your folders for better viewing of files
2. I have long been annoyed with the fact that the view of my folders never seems to be the right view. I prefer the list view, but it does not like remaining in that view.
3. I learned how easy it was to create a default view for all my folders by simply going to My Documents and clicking on the Tools and then the Folder Options button. So easy! Huge rewards!

Getting Things Done-GTD Lab for CEP 810

COLLECT:
This is how and where I started my process, at my messy piled up crazy looking teacher desk. Usually I am surrounded by 22 gabbing, lively, adorable 5th graders, but I had a few hours of peace one afternoon while they were taken care of by the Middle School for Orientation. So I started the Getting Things Done process. First of all, I am a sporadic list maker. I am the organizer in my house, I usually do most of the shopping, I do all the accounting and I take care of the house. Scott does pretty much the rest. Then there is work, and now this class. So I started with making a list in my red notebook. This notebook goes everywhere with me. It contains everything from current lists to the medication my son is on.
I looked into listing on my iphone, but I am fairly new with my iphone and not quite fast enough of a typer so I listed with pen and paper. You can see the result below.




The list got bigger as the day progressed.....

PROCESS and ORGANIZE
There were a few items on the list that I was able to take care of quickly (the two minute rule) as I was at school and wanted to feel a sense of accomplishment. Two crossed out. Moving along, I started to place them in categories. If they were in the calendar category they immediately went on to my Google Calendar so the date is recorded and I will receive an email a day beforehand. Projects were noted with a "P" next to them and Next items were noted with an "N". I also realized at this point that many of the items on my list were big, so I started to list the smaller actions that would get me to the end of the project. A whole new checklist was created for our house move in July (as we are going on vacation for 6 weeks in June I thought some clarity on this huge project might be needed).
REVIEW
I used this time and point in the process to bring in my husband, so he could look at the lists I had made and see if he thought they were helpful. He liked the "Move" list so much a copy is now taped to the fridge.

How did I feel about this process and did it help me? I felt it was needed. I have a tendency to throw myself into projects and offer my help to various people without thinking of time commitments and if there were other commitments I was going to shirk off for the new shiny project. Seeing everything in one place put a clarity on it that I was lacking. Sometimes I sit at my desk and try and think of something to do, knowing full well that I have a lot to do but maybe not being able to prioritize it well. This list made it much clearer.
Will I continue the process? I would love to. I am already a good list maker but the organization of the lists was what I was lacking. I do think it will take some practice. I actually added to my calendar a few sessions for next week so that I will feel obligated to look over the list and re-prioritize it.