Week 1 Blog Wimba Summary

Week 1 Blog Wimba Summary

Long story long: Started with an Introduction to month 11 course, Media Asset Creation of MAC. Joe made sure that his correct contact information was dispensed.

Some of the best ways to contact Joe include email Edm613@me.com or Skype (the best way.) When someone has a question, Joe tends to reply all to the question incase other students have the same question. This happened to me when I asked a question about a “Share your Blog Here” discussion board that I couldn’t find.

Joe than went over the week 1 Wimba agenda. First was the course overview.

Joe asked which of us viewed the FSO introduction videos. I did. He also said that AR would be done this month. We are responsible for four blogs each week; one on the reading, two on others’ blogs, and one freebee on any topic. (or a Wimba summary blog if you missed the Wimba session.) The blog posts can also be a post about someone else’s free post.

Then it was course at a glance. He impressed that due dates and deadlines are very important. It is human nature that without deadlines projects can last forever. Be aware of them and focus. There is no time in month 12 to be reviewed. If you have Cycle 2 data out there getting done, cut it off but add later. That is okay.

Work for the 1^st week is due on Monday not Sunday. He moved forward to discuss the Literature review. Once it is approved, be sure to resubmit it. Again it is not a research paper. Week 2 the AR website will be due.

An additional assignment was the abstract. We need to compress AR into 120 words. It needs to be detailed and specific shorten but describe the project. Not a trailer. Should be easy and take about 20 minutes.

We are to find multiple ways to use our AR study. One way is the publishing/leadership project. Through lists of papers and publications, we need to go through and research ideas then do one blog post about the thinking out loud that occurred to present or publish. From that information then do a second blog post more specifically where A B C and why? Then collate the information into one big document about 2000 words. Create a paper, or presentation one slide for every section, with 300 words per slides. Should equal a total of 2000 words. Ten things you learn in the documents by the end of week four. Then comes the sharing the project. Month 12 you will present conferences to get credit. Everyone’s head was ready to explode.

Week 1 Comment

Tim Edinger wrote:

In this week’s reading of the first three chapters of The Art of Possibility there were many interesting things that stood out. The first chapter talked about “truths”. They used examples about how we don’t know the whole truth. We learn from our prior knowledge. Each experience gives us greater insight into what we thought we knew. For me I wonder if this is always true. I think that sometimes the more we know about our students coming into a new year, the less opportunity they may have with our preconceived thoughts about them.

For example, in the beginning of the year many of my fellow teachers look at CA-60’s as well as other documents to find out what behavior their incoming students have. They use this to create a seating chart that pairs “good” students with “bad” students. These teachers hope that the “good” students will be role models and help to curb some of the poor choices that the “bad” students had made in the past. I on the other hand, do not agree with looking at those files. I prefer to meet my students with no preconceived notion of their prior behavior. I feel that, even though I may not intend it, that I would be looking for those students to comment the same poor choices they did in prior years/classes. I feel that by not looking I am giving every student a fresh start for the year. If I start the year looking for the “good” in every student, that may be all the prior “bad” student needs to have a good year. What do you think? Should we look at prior behavior of students at the beginning of the year to find an ideal seating chart for them to succeed, or should we go in looking for the good in all students? Or, is there a way to do both? I know that if I start experiencing problems with a student in the beginning of the year, I can then go back and look at those records; and look for recommendations that may help them. What does waiting a couple of weeks hurt?

As a side note, the way the authors use stories to highlight their points makes it a very easy read. For me, reading stories allows me to make connections on a personal level, thus increase my interest and understanding.

Ken Morris Commented:

You bring up a good point. It is all theory that putting students with certain "other" students in a seating chart is going to positively affect behavior. There are differences in where students sit but nothing concrete. I don't know if there has ever been a study that offers scientific proof either way. As teachers, we do things that have not been proven at all. Some things by instinct alone. And it varies from teacher to teacher. If there is an ideal way to seat students, I would love to know what it is.

Saturday, November 27, 2010 - 04:04 PM

Week 1 Reading

After reading the section "The Universe of Possibility," I couldn't help but think about the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" Like the reading, this movie discussed how our lives are subject to an infinite amount of possible outcomes that we are in control of. The movie mentioned how we "create our reality" rather than us reacting to it. It is hard to imagine but if we take the simplest decisions we make, and think how those decisions lead to other decisions, we can imagine that our reality can change one decision at a time. One quote from the movie that comes to mind is this: "I wake up in the morning and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. Now sometimes, because my mind is examining all the things that I need to get done, it takes me a little bit to settle down and get to the point of where I'm actually intentionally creating my day. But here's the thing: When I create my day and out of nowhere little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation. And the more I do that, the more I build a neural net in my brain that I accept that that's possible. (This) gives me the power and the incentive to do it the next day." -Dr. Joe Dispenza http://www.whatthebleep.com/create/
Change your reality and create your day instead of reacting to it.

Week 1 Free Choice: Digital Freedom

Week 1 Free Choice
I believe that the lack of digital freedom does nothing to help our students. Students spend their time outside of school immersed heavily in a digital world. Facebook, texting, YouTube, Twitter are all examples of ways students interact with the world. The named are also mostly banned in schools. There are ways to incorporate all of these into the curriculum but they are not. Why? or why not? Why not create Facebook pages for learning? Why not use texting to do live interactive surveys (Polleverywhere.com)? While a site like YouTube has a lot of content for entertainment, there is a lot that can be learned from this site. Twitter also has ways of searching for information on posts that lead to other learning opportunities through articles, images or videos. When teachers start to use these tools in the curriculum, a new kind of learning will take place. Learning that students are used to.