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.
While you may have felt that the webspiration piece was 'tacked' on to the end of class, I got value out of just learning of the tool. I generally learn better if I have a chance to explore a tool first before trying to use it in context And that introduction allowed me to play with the tool. Not sure i would use it over a good old pen and paper, but it had some very nice features.
ReplyDeleteI did not feel the evening went poorly. However, one nice thing about teaching multiple sections is that if something didn't go as expected, you can easily change it up for the next time you teach. I liked that aspect...sometimes the first time around I felt as though I overloaded the instruction before giving worktime, so I would adjust it the next time I taught.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of pre-writing and concept mapping could not have come at a better time for me. I'm currently taking a research methods class and working on the lit review of a research project (which could potentially be tied to my thesis). During class, I used Webspiration to organize and analyze the pieces of literature that I have already read and I was able to see the "big picture" of what I was doing. I was able to use it as a "pre-writing exercise" for myself! Thank you thank you thank you...
ReplyDeleteI liked the Webspiration app and the time we spent getting to know it - it's like an online version of Visio, Power Point, and various desktop publishing packages all sort of wrapped up into one. I didn't know something like that existed, especially online.
ReplyDeleteI also really dug Adam's app presentation - it's a very specific one, which was cool to see. Someone saw a need for something that would help themselves and others in their field, and set out to make something for that population. I love directed programming tasks like that!
--Bryon Dudley