In retrospective, my first blog was quite an accomplishment at the time considering I had never blogged before in my life. The whole process of creating a blog, posting, getting familiar with tools and concepts was innovative and exciting. I am proud to say I have come a long way from week 1. Being able to compare myself from week 1 and week 14 is definitely astonishing on a personal level.
Week two, like every progressing week, added more to the homework and posts. Taking a quiz and posting results and analysis of these results was definitely the right amount of progress at the right pace. In the beginning I was a little hesitant to take this class because I did not fully know how I would personally feel with the pace of the class. At this point I felt “baby steps” were just the right amount of progress needed with the right amount of substance. I was glad to read and watch YouTube videos about concepts/issues, us, educators’ experience. This assignment gave me the sense of belonging to the Online Teaching class 🙂 <– (emoticons and communication were also part of the week’s lesson).
Week three was definitely breaking grounds. I learned how to integrate hyperlinks as media components in blogs rather than just copy and pasting the entire URL address on the post. As instructors’, we already know the importance of setting class guidelines and objectives, but sometimes we can get caught up in information and lose some sense of the objective. This week reinstated the importance of this fundamental base for any class, not just online classes: course objectives and outline. It allowed me to step back and take a look at the broader perspective and regain these important elements.
This week highlighted the importance of the written form. Creating and writing a syllabus/ assignment or any document, is one issue. However, formatting such text is a completely different matter. As mentioned, some students quickly scan through information, and can potentially miss important content. An important lesson for this week was how to capture students’ attention by re-formatting text. There were several online tools and ideas suggested to successfully focus special attention on certain sections of the syllabus/document. I also learned how to upload a YouTube video into blog posting without having to post the actual web link and instead being able to play video right from the blog. This was quite the accomplishment for me 🙂
Creating an academic community can be interesting and fun, however, to create an online community when you are new to the online environment can be quite the challenge. Some tools (e.g.: videos, friendly reminders, etc..) were demonstrated in order to motivate students and remind them they are part of class and also give them a sense of, not only belonging, but also it can exemplify where they stand and how far they want to go in class.
Statistically speaking, students are more productive in relaxed and familiar environments. Getting to such environment takes time and effort. Some of the initial activities in any class are the famous “ice-breakers” which try to do exactly that: break down barriers in order to create a more prosperous and productive setting. How to create these “ice-breakers” in an online class? I was glad to learn, not only from readings but also from colleagues, about online tools that help integrate students into class and set an academic and yet personal and familiar environment. Avatars were somewhat of a new concept to me, definitely sparked my interest in order to have a personal touch in this virtual world.
Copyrights issue and sharing are a very slippery slope and must be extra careful how such material is employed. I loved to read about PDF formatting because it was something I was already familiar with. One of the golden rules in my book is (in regards to copyright issues): when in doubt ask or, as Lisa pointed out in the week’s conclusion, don’t proceed until 100% sure. I was also introduced to LucidCharts. It was exciting to learn about tools that can be utilized in online classes.
This week we also learned about online tools, but it was a little more hands-on for me. I had already been familiar with Prezi presentations, but this time it was my turn to switch from being the observer of the presentation to being the creator of one. I also experimented with Voki, where I created an avatar and personalized it with accessories and other tools. Loved getting hands-on experience and adding to my technology knowledge.
Multi-tasking can be oh so ever productive if successfully employed. Nonetheless, multi-tasking can easily be a double edge sword. Attention span, we’ve all got it, but how much do we have? We are living in an era of instant gratification where if we are not immediately rewarded we move on to other things. Such is the case of internet and its constituents, such as uploading and downloading information. As soon as we feel it’s taking a long time to view/ download/ upload something, we open up another tab hence dividing our attention. Is this really productive? What can we do to facilitate internet navigation and increase productivity and keep focus on the task? Guidance, workshops and tutorials are often time the answers to avoid troubleshoots and stay focus on task in hand. One useful tool was SurveyMonkey which I loved and will definitely use in f2f class and online classes. This survey is an indirect guide for students to find information when in need of guidance. It establishes work ground from Day 1.
A few of the CMS I was familiar with were Blackboard (which every school I’ve worked with has), Moodle, Gradekeeper and other book publisher cites. It was great to read my colleagues takes on this topic and also learn from them and get new ideas as to what can be used and what issues can arise. An interesting point that arose in this topic was saving your work due to unpredictable malfunctions. As an online educator, certain points have to be taken into consideration. One of them is this issue I hadn’t really considered: backing up online work. With technology evolving at the speed of light, anything can happen and it is always a good idea to prepare for an upcoming problems. Definitely raised awareness for me 🙂
This week was another trending topic was presented. Very interesting and also very slippery slope. How much is too much and how much should we memorize/obtain etc..? I learned the importance of how to effectively employ these 2.0 tools and promote didactic activities. Many pedagogical issues were brought up with this topic and it definitely helped to read colleagues posts and also receive feedback from them. I love that colleagues did not only commented but also suggested new tools. Sharing: priceless.
“The more you share, the more you have”. I have been very lucky to have been able to share and activities with colleagues and also students. It is how this world runs. Had inventors never shared their ideas we would still be living as cave people. Through the act of sharing is how we have also evolved and progressed. It is no different in the academic setting. It is always a great feeling to find out about a new method to use in your class or share experiences and material with others. Point in case, is what we have been doing all semester long. We have all been posting about our experiences and reflections on topics and also we have been sharing new techniques or any idea that can make us create successful learners, class environments, etc.. 🙂
POT_Week 13 and Week 14
In conclusion, it was a semester characterized by progress and an accumulation of technological knowledge for pedagogical purposes and beyond. I personally enjoyed this final project because it forced me to look back to my cumulative work and compare and contrast older posts to newer, most recent post. Progress can be clearly seen in posts and personally, I have become more familiar with certain online programs. I can look back, recognize some of the online tools we used and actually say, “I did that!”. It feels good to have actually experimented and become familiar with all these forms of teaching. I know there’s a lot more to learn, however, I feel the first step has been taken in the right direction. This class gave much more insight into a dimension I had somewhat experimented with, but never really got as involved as I did in this class. It was immensely helpful and valuable to read other colleagues posts and comments. This class was an open forum where we all shared ideas and learned from each other. 🙂