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Week 1  http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/09/09/week-1/

What I learned that week: The 1st week was easy but wondering in what I embarked myself into, at first…Intrigued but willing to explore!

Week 2 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/09/16/week-2/

What I learned that week: I like the beginner’s questionnaire, which gave me some good directions for what to expect for Potcert. It also gave me the opportunity to talk about some online tools I use regularly for my class (Blackboard, NING, etc.).

Week 3 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/09/29/week-3/

What I learned that week: I mentioned my pedagogical goals for my class stating that I always focus on those each semester. One important thing I learned is that I should put more emphasis on auditory cues.

Week 4 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/10/01/week-4/ ‎

What I learned that week: I enjoyed a lot looking at some online classes as examples to get ideas. I then realized that you have to concentrate on what is the most important: not to add too much content but centralizing yourself as a teacher on what is the goal of the course: clarity and the main focus of your discipline.

Week 5 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/10/07/week-5/ ‎

What I learned that week: Three main parts here concerning the contract, the map and the schedule clearly stated in the online class. I focused on two sections that I regularly use: the face to face instructions and the online components to make the “perfect” hybrid class.

Week 6 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/10/15/week-6-is-behind-me/ ‎

What I learned that week: Learning new tools that week about embedding a video into my blog.  Also found a fun video about acquiring the basic elements of French on the Internet. But above all, the Internet quiz showed me that I was only 88% right about basic Web definitions….

Week 7 ‎http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/10/22/week-7-online-…-virtual-world/ ‎

What I learned that week: I kept reading my weekly assignment in the online teaching book by Ko & Rossen. I commented on the intricate online tool Second Life. Interesting but requiring some good time involvement to become good at it. I also commented on other Potcert candidates’blogs. Finally, I inserted in my blog a basic dictation in French as an example for an exercise for anyone who would like to try it out in Pedagogy first!

Week 8   http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/10/29/week-8-creatin…munity-forever/ 

What I learned that week: I mentioned that I used quite a few times the Blackboard tool, Elluminate live! Going over also the NING cultural blog that I set up for my students where they can make comments based on comparisons between their culture and the French one on many different subjects: 74!

Week 9 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/11/05/week-9/ ‎

What I learned that week: I became a member of Merlot and Diigo. Merlot: This is a site is full of wonderful information stretching from videos to comments to files on every subject under the sun. Diigo: I made a couple of comments also. I realized that Diigo is also very useful as a community effort to gather and share information about online teaching. I also talked about an online tool that I use for my students, goanimate.com where for fun and learning my students can make up cartoons.

Week 10 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/11/08/week-10/ ‎

What I learned that week: Lots of new learning thanks to mainly J. Sullivan’s and L.Lane’s Elluminate session about blogging. I really feel part of this because of the blog I created for my class about 3 years ago. I also created for the first time a mini Website for my class with Google Sites and realized that it was not so difficult to make a basic and attractive website as an introduction about myself and my class to new students. Fun to make too!

Week 11 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/11/20/week-11-2/

What I learned that week: copyright is an important factor to know about as a teacher. When to use or not to use information on the Internet. The temptation is big when you can just copy and paste what you read without asking for permission, first. I learned that there are more boundaries to respect and think about before highlighting some passages….

Week 12 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2012/12/02/week-12-resources-online/

What I learned that week: I talked about the open textbook site, which I frequently use for finding resources. The Project Gutenburg was good too to be able to download some foreign books.  I also did, of course, the mid-year assessment to have a look at what I learned and achieved so far.

Week 13 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/02/03/week-13-creati…nd-screenshots/

What I learned that week: That week was easy! I especially liked the screen shot part and I now use this feature almost every week. Very useful instead of recopying what I see on the screen. Big time saving. Flickr was very good too and so useful when you can add annotations to your pictures.

Week 14 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/02/13/week-14-creati…udio-and-video/ ‎

What I learned that week: There was a lot of frustration at first that week with mainly Audacity BUT I figured it out later thanks to Anthony Ginger who inserted an extra audio tool within WordPress so I could embed this tool. Later on, I found out that Souncloud was even better than Audacity. Now, I know several weeks later. Slideshare and Eyejot were two big tools for me also: making a video of myself and integrating a Power Point presentation into Slideshare.  Super useful tools for an online class.

Week 15 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/02/22/week-15-creati…and-multimedia/

What I learned that week: That is when I started to have some serious technical problems on that week out of nowhere…. Lisa Lane helped me out the best way (and Laura P. also) she could and Anthony Ginger had to recreate a new WordPress for me because my week 15 could not be inserted into Pedagogy first! Nonetheless, that week was very important to me as I learned about the brain mapping tool with the site Personal Brain. The SurveyMonkey was also wonderful and Screen-o-Matic as well. I was so happy to be able to navigate in my Personal Brain while in my blog and explaining at the same time my thought process. The big plus was that Potcert participants could also use their mouse and navigate in my Personal Brain as well. So much fun! I also talked about Prezi finding it more attractive than Power Point thanks to the flash feature.

Week 16  http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/03/05/week-16-our-students-online-2/

What I learned that week: Very pertinent articles and the one from the Nielsen Norman Group was excellent. I talked about my daughter in reference to that article: the multitask digital functions that teenagers assume on a daily basis. This leading to talking about the online technology being a huge part of students’ lives. I also created my second online survey thanks to SurveyMonkey again.

Week 17 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/03/13/hello-world/

What I learned that week: Another fun week with brain mapping with Mindmeister featuring my class sections in Blackboard.  I used Audioboo for the first time commenting on my Mindmeister. New things also: htlm codes with Quackit and learning about using templates and group assignments to make a teacher’s life easier and students happy thanks to Lisa Lane blog post on that subject.

Week 18 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/03/18/week-18-the-co…agement-system/

What I learned that week: at first, I found that week a bit harder in regards to the reading . I did not know the difference between CMS and LMS. After reading all the articles for that week I realized that Blackboard and Moodle were part of these two “new things” to me. Not familiar with Moodle yet as I am so used to Blackboard, which I like. LMS and CMS: once I viewed the charts with images, it made good sense to me.

Week 19  http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/03/24/week-19-web-enhanced-hyb/ ‎

What I learned that week: Talking about blended classes, I put forward again several Web features I use on a regular basis. The “big” conclusion for that week was naturally about sharing what you know to advance learning on all levels: on site classes, online or hybrid classes.

Week 20 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/03/24/week-20-introd…ctional-design/

What I learned that week: The focus was about the increasing number of online classes in the US as an option for learning. Wikipedia was also mentioned and I said that I did not always rely on that site… Overall, the “magic of teaching” is a notion not should not be lost when teaching online. The human touch is still important.

Week 21 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/04/09/week-21-introd…ucation-theory/

What I learned that week: All about interaction with students = teachers are not just lecturers but they have to interact with their students and get the learner to learn on his/her own with the guidance of the teacher.

Week 22 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/04/13/week-22-person…rning-networks/

What I learned that week: Lifelong learning is for everyone. Students need to reinvent their learning patterns by exploring what is out there in the academic world. The teacher can be a curator so can be the student. It all boils down to work as a unit: teacher and students in a common networked world.

Week 23 http://wordpress.miracosta.edu/darnaud2/2013/04/15/week-23-presentation/

What I learned that week: For that week I chose week 15 and I again used Personal Brain. I did follow Jim Sullivan’s guideline on how I share my knowledge and what I learned. I talked about my audience, ideas and my favorite online tools. A cyberspace world without (in a way) limits.

 THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS PROGRAM

First of all, thank you so much to Lisa Lane, Pilar Hernandez and Laura Paciorek in accepting me to the Potcert program. I also thank the participants of this program who were willing to make comments on some of my posts. That is how you learn by listening to others. Good lesson form people who know more than myself.

Lots of work (at times) and of course, I learned a lot like many other participants, I am sure. I already know that I will be using more online tools to enhance my onsite class next semester. There was not one week when I did not learn anything simply because I learned something new each week through the reading, exploring and making online tools work for me. This program was an excellent idea (may I say invention as well?) to bring forward. No time wasted as far as I know. So one more time…….:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!

And I also did the course evaluation.

 

Week 15: Creating Class Elements Part 3: Screencasting and multimedia

 

 

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♠ Eric’s video

Very passionate in his presentation. I now just have to do everything he says: Twitter, Facebook, etc,…..So much is readily available nowadays. We just have to pick and choose.

♠ Ko & Rossen, Taking Advantage of New Opportunities

→ When I read that chapter, I was thinking of a particular sentence, which is the following:

 Lifelong learning is for everyone

That made me think that the age factor in French universities is not comparable with the one in the US. In France if you want to go back to school after your midlife “crisis”  we have special universities just for seniors and which are part of the “Union Française des Universités Tous Âges.” You are not really mixed in with young people who study towards a degree. At UCLA, I remember a lady, who was my classmate who started the Phd program at 50 years old. I was so surprised to see an “older” lady at the time and I did not know that it was possible to start your Phd. studies so late in life knowing that it requires a good amount of work to write the thesis. But now I understand and I can see that lifelong leaning is really for everyone.

♠ Video with Dean Shareski, Sharing : The Moral Imperative 

→ I like the passage where D.Shareski says that the information he uses does not always comes from him exclusively but from sources that he finds on the internet. What you insert into a specific content provides the unique tool called sharing via blogs, websites or other online tools. And we already know this is the main function of a teacher: to share his/her knowledge to the world and find the information not just from books but from the Internet as well. I think that it always has been a moral imperative to share what we know, at least in the academic world. Otherwise, no one would be able to learn anything if concepts, facts, etc, were not exposed to the world and namely our students.

♠ Gardner Campbell, A personal Cyberstructure

→ I took note of this particular comment in that paragraph: Many students simply want to know what their professors want and how to give that to them. But if what the professor truly wants is for students to discover and craft their own desires and dreams, a personal cyberinfrastructure provides the opportunity. To get there, students must be effective architects, narrators, curators, and inhabitants of their own digital lives.

→In my point of view and commenting on the readings from week 20, it is basically the same for the teacher, who has to be not only the leader but having also the same virtues as the students: narrator, architect and curator. The teacher leads and informs of the tasks and the students go further by making their own digital lives, their own research.

♠ Martin Weller, The virtues of Blogging as a Scholarly Activity 

→ This article was my favorite. I thought that he was very strait forward by stating that blogging did not have  the best impact on his academic life but the counterpart did: he persevered because he believed in this new Internet tool, which opened up so many doors to his world and beyond: ……. I have written books, produced online courses, led research efforts, and directed a number of university projects. While these have all been fulfilling, blogging tops the list because of its room for experimentation and potential to connect to timely intelligent debate. That keeps blogging at the top of the heap.

→ It is not a question of given up on other forms of educating people via the reading of books, for instance but blogging adds to what you do to make it 100% better: A key aspect of the digital revolution is not the direct replacement of one form of scholarly activity with another, but rather the addition of alternatives to existing forms. You blog so you automatically share to expand knowledge and it is free. A wise career choice.

 ♠ Video with Alec Couros, Teaching and Learning in a Networked World 

→ Alec Couros’video was neat. Great speaker. There are several passages which were funny. I like the presentation he did about himself at the beginning making some collages on his face. And viewing videos on YouTube ,which for some don’t make too much sense, was interesting also but as he says not everything is bad on YouTube and that is quite true, of course. There are some “intelligent” videos also. And I like the fact that he went into his past to show how quickly he was connected to the outside world. Showing his daughter with a computer at 4 years old was quite indicative of how much he believes in the Internet at a young age.

Working on for my presentation → Week 15: Creating Class Elements Part 3: Screencasting and multimedia (Feb 16-22)

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Lots of reading this week and my head is full of information so I now need to deconstruct my thoughts and everything I Iearned / I acquired.

♥ Adventures in Online Pedagogy with Jim Sullivan / Lisa M Lane

What I liked the most was that the overall presentation was very well explained. Not boring at all! The slides were an excellent support to have a clear understanding of the various facets of online education theory, which you may choose,  via three important steps:

→ Instructivism

→ Constructivism

→ Connectivism

Instructivism: I apply this method when I explain grammar but I mix it with constructivism (they have to make up their own sentences after showing examples) and connectivism (same principle of taking the content to give it to the students and in return they give me their input with new material of their own but using the baseline I gave them previously and they share it with everyone) at some point in the class when I get students engaged in group discussion and dialogues.

♥ Larry Sanger’s Individual Knowledge in the Internet age:

A few things I like here below

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→Quite a few comments from him I very much liked: The bottom line is that how well an employee can focus might now be more important than how knowledgeable he is. You can have education but how well do you apply your knowledge? Focusing on your work, using your experience can be more valuable than just knowledge itself.

→I agree with this. It can still be a superficial knowledge even grasping a few important key elements from Wikipedia, for instance. Nothing can replace critical study and spending time in making research to go to the heart of the matter = Reading a few sentences in Wikipedia about some theories on the causes of the Great Depression does not mean that one thereby knows or understands this topic. Being able to read (or view) anything quickly on a topic can provide one with information, but actually having a knowledge of or understanding about the topic will always require critical study. The Internet will never change that.

→Same thing here and Larry Sanger having a background in philosophy certainly knows that reading between the lines and understanding all the facts cannot lead to constructivism without putting your brain at work: The point is to develop judgment or understanding of questions that require a nuanced grasp of the various facts and to thereby develop the ability to think about and use those facts. ….

“learn how to learn:” My students need to learn that short sentence……

→Dramatic statement! Learning in a group is good but it still all comes down to knowing and learning to learn on your own too. A group situation is not always available. Thinking on your own lets you go further too: ……we will have a society of drones, enculturated by hive minds, who are able to work together online but who are largely innocent of the texts and habits of study that encourage deep and independent thought.

→What makes learning interesting is how we learn and in an academic situation, the teachers have a major role to play by teaching student the way to learn. Sharing and sharing and sharing : The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning…….. the social view of learning says, “We participate, therefore we are.”

CONCLUSION

→Everyone needs shelves full of books and less time spent on Facebook and other social medias but more on reading “good” books: …we must as a culture retain our ability to comprehend long, difficult texts written by individuals. Indeed, the single best method of getting a basic education is to read increasingly difficult and important books.  

♥ George Siemens, Networks, Ecologies, and Curatorial Teaching

→ I like the term of being a curator:  it strikes me as being more important than just being a teacher. It adds another dimension to the education field. The teacher is now an important entity in our academic world. We are SOMEBODY. I find this choice of word even better than “network administrator” to describe the role of teachers. Just like the curator of an art exhibit: you create, you show, you share your knowledge. Being a teacher is being a creator of knowledge and asking students to do the same by adding their own “juice” of creativity.

 

♥Lisa Marie Blaschke, A review of heutagogical practice and self-determined learning 

→ I read this article but overall I had two favorites this week:

• G. Siemens because of the idea of being a curator. Art can save the world, teachers can too.
• L. Sanger who is determined to put the focus on reading books.

This goes back indirectly to Sanger’s remarks on still understanding the value of self-learning with the guidance of the “chief” (as I call it) = the teacher / the “wise” person. Thereafter, you just keep going on your own with  a strong base from the start: …placing value on learner self-direction of the learning process…..to accept the heutagogical approach as one that is unconventional, where the instructor becomes a facilitator in the learning students’ learning process.

CONCLUSION

At my level of teaching, I still see some  “No response” from most students who are often waiting for the instructor to do the work. But… with the right “touch” and especially dedication, I can envision a positive reversal coming from students from time to time. I think that the main thing is to keep everything interactive to insure a true collaboration between the teacher and the students and collaboration students-to-students.