PLN's, Ipads, Google Art Project and Final Papers!

As we enter the final stretch for CI 505, our array of topics in a single evening may appear unconnected. All of our topics for April 9, however, share the focus on using technology to create learner centered, active environments for students (and sometimes teachers).

Dennis Culver encouraged all of us to work on expanding our Professional Learning Networks in useful and efficient ways. After his presentation, I decided to try Twitter one more time and after class, I became a follower of Dennis on Twitter.

Dennis also offered some interesting Ipad Apps and opened up student thinking on possible uses of Ipads in classrooms. Dennis's presentation, combined with Adam's earlier presentation on Ipad text books, will help all of us carefully consider affordances and constraints of Ipad technology for classrooms.

We then moved to Leah's informative presentation the The Google Art Project, which also provided a good introduction to our consideration of virtual worlds as classroom tools.

And, finally, each student shared ideas about final paper topics and we formed three work groups to facilitate the development of the papers. I was pleased with the topics chosen for final papers and I look forward to our work together on this project.

I am pleased with the community that has formed in 505 and the contributions of each student as we work to construct knowledge about technology and human learning together. The results of the midterm suggest to me that we have a group of strong leaders who will be able to make thoughtful and coherent cases for appropriate uses of technology to expand and enhance technology use for learners. I am hoping that many 505 students will use social media to expand their PLN's to include colleagues from our class.

Final Paper Info

Final Paper Questions

I am getting questions around final paper work. This is a great sign that most of the papers are now in progress and I am pleased about this.

Several students have asked about citing outside sources and what is acceptable. Since this is a paper for teachers and/or practitioners, I am not looking for extensive literature reviews. I am looking to see that you have knowledge of what others are doing in your topic area. Thus, if you are writing on implementing Moodle in your school, you would want to check out what other K-12 schools are doing with Moodle. Your sources will probably be from the web and will be based on practical experience and they will broaden the effect of your paper. Web citations are fine for this assignment. My interest is that you show an awareness of the work of others around your topic---a typical 505 final paper might have 2-6 references.

A typical 505 paper is 8-12 double spaced pages and can't be much longer for publication in most practitioners' journals.

I look forward to reading your outlines next week.

Spring Break!

After a couple active weeks online, we are now enjoying the relative peace of Spring Break. This weeks marks a good chance to take a break before the final weeks of the semester. I have noticed, however, that several of our class members are handing around in Moodle Rooms, even during our week off.

I also noted that I probably should have made the TPACK discussion summaries due Monday, March 19 instead of March 12 since some of our group are out of town for the break. Because of Spring Break, I will not count any of the summaries late if I get them by March 19.

I am looking forward to meeting f2f on March 26. We will use that class time to review major points in the readings analyze the ideas behind Bransford's learning environment and review major topics for the midterm the following week. The midterm will be online and students will be able to take it any time during the week of April 2.

After the midterm, we will focus on defining topics, creating outlines and drafts for the final paper. We will use our online presence to help students get feedback on their final papers each step of the way.

And I look forward to our work with social media next week!

Making it Happen Online

I have been enjoying our online activity this week as I slowly catch up with class activities. Grading digital stories while lying on the couch was great fun and probably the ultimate of enjoyable "paper grading". The stories were compelling, informative and personal. I will be eager to see the outcome of the vote for the three best stories. Given the overall quality of the stories, this will be a tough choice.

Throughout the semester, I have been pleased with the high quality of the resource review presentations and follow-up discussions and this week was no exception. Nicole's narrated Teacher Tube presentation was clear and complete and the ensuing discussion was reflective and informative. Making these presentations online seems to be working well.

I also note that we are beginning to have a Facebook community beyond posting assignments. Several students posted information and resources this week, and I hope this informal, professional community continues to grow.

The week of March 5 we will try forming smaller discussion groups as we work together to understand and interpret TPACK. We will use this same format again after Spring Break and each student will have a chance to either chair or act as secretary for a small group discussion.

I am glad to be back and look forward to our work together.

Moving Our Community Online

Last night marked our final f2f class before our 5-week online adventure. Fortunately, we have established a collaborative community and we should be ready to move our learning and interactions to an online environment. Our first online week (starting Feb. 20) will feature viewing our digital stories in our Facebook site and providing one strength and one suggestions for each story. Viewing these stories is an ideal way to begin our online experience together as it will help all of us know each other a little more deeply.

Robyn effectively shared her enthusiasm for and knowledge of the DropBox application and I download the application this morning! I look forward to Toni's online presentation next week. Fortunately, our f2f presentations have modeled well organized, clear and detailed approaches to sharing resources with others.

We also probed a little more deeply into Bransford and Papert and explored similarities in the approaches of the two scholars. Results from this group work will be posted on our Facebook account.

I look forward to this next step in our learning adventure.

My "old" hip made it very clear to me last night that it has no more 3 hour classes left in it (after 40 years of good service in this area), so I look forward to returning in about 6 weeks with the new model.

An Evening Emphasizing Visual Learning: IBooks and Digital Stories

Our focus last night was on using technology to provide more visual learning experiences for students. Ultimately, our new abilities to relate to visual learners could lead to schools and educators providing high quality visual learning experiences for students and to creating school environments that are successful with more students. Thus, the emphasis on visual digital affordances in this class.

Adam Wade kept up the tradition of high quality resource reviews with an interesting and informative review of digital textbook capabilities. I look forward to a lively discussion of this topic this week.

Diana provided a useful definition of digital stories and a useful way to think about creating a story line. Students then completed a quick introduction to the basic skills needed for creating a digital story in either IMovie or MovieMaker. I noted that most students already were quite comfortable with techniques in either IMovie or MovieMaker as evidenced by the quick and creative sample videos now on our class Facebook site.

I am hoping that students will be well started on their own digital stories by class time next week and that we can spend some time discussing these projects and providing suggestions to each other.

After next week, we will move online for several weeks and I am feeling confidant that we have the procedures set up for an interesting and successful online learning experience.

Do Over??

Last night was one of those teaching nights that I would like to have the opportunity to do over. Although there were some highlights, the evening did not go as I had visioned it. Perhaps one saving grace is that we talked about Papert's emphasizing learning from mistakes and somehow the evening presented an opportunity for me to do that!

Highlights during the evening were Adam's interesting and useful resource review, the specific examples from Mindstorms identified by students and the example blog assignments for students.

The major lowlight was my introduction of Webspiration and the fact that I tacked the application on the end of the class without setting it in context and giving students enough time to explore the application. In retrospect, I could have integrated our work with Webspiration with the Papert discussion and thus used the tool in an authentic environment. Had I done this, our topics would have all flowed together and connected naturally. I will work to introduce our applications in better context in the future.

Adam's presentation was well organized and effective. Once again, a student chose an application that is important to him/her and was able to communicate this importance. Adam's contribution also got us started thinking and talking about apps.

I look forward to our discussions this week----both Adam's application discussion and the sharing of delicious pieces from the readings. I am hoping for more student to student conversation as we build the skill of online communication together.

Cognitive Science Meets the Blog......

Our evening began with a quick review of memorable Facebook postings and a chance to get to know members of our community a little better. Memorable Facebook postings included Greg's German ancestry, Robyn's scuba diving, Nicole's running, Erin's canning ribbons and Janet's rendezvousing. We will continue to use our Facebook space for informal communication and posting of useful and interesting resources. We began our discussion of cognitive science and Bransford's four characteristics of effective learning environments, based in recent research findings and we shared examples of Logo as an active, technology based learning experience.Tom (Picasa) and Janet (Adobe Presenter) began our weekly resource reviews and each used the tool they were describing in their presentation. I look forward to an interesting online discussion of these tools this week. Each presenter chose a resource that he/she has used and finds valuable and this type of choice is a good model for our future presenters. Both presentations were well-organized, attractive and effective. I was pleased to see a good start for this part of the course! Toward the end of the evening, we began to consider our first Web 2.0 application, the blog. Students examined a few sample education blogs and began setting up their own accounts in Blogger. For next week, students will begin their first application assignment where they will create a blogging assignment for learners. Things for me to worry about this week: activity in the online resource presentation discussions (we have two!); helping students clearly make the connections between cognitive science and effective, active technology use in classrooms; expanding and deepening our community of learners and successful completion of the first technology classroom application assignment. We clearly have an active, capable and engaged group and I look forward to our work together this semester!

Getting Started!

Getting Started!

Our first meeting went well and we have a large (16) group of students with diverse backgrounds, which will make for interesting and useful interactions as we explore technology applications for classrooms. We began with course and people introductions and then moved into a brief introduction to Logo. Logo provides a backdrop to our course since it was the first educational computer application that focused upon creating an active learning environment for students. 505 students quickly embraced the Logo experiences and worked through primitives, procedures and simple programming. I look forward to seeing the resulting Logo assignments.

I was pleased with our first night together. We have an active, well informed and talkative group, and I anticipate a dynamic learning experience together.

I am a little concerned about the Martin Luther King holiday taking some of our initial momentum, but I think we will all be ready to go with issues like cognitive science, school transformation and blogging!