Week 9, Final Reflection

K: What did I know? Next to nothing. Seriously. I was so lost during our Skype call (Diigo? Delicious? RSS? Um...pardon me?) and was pretty worried for the first few weeks of class. 

W: As much as possible! I live in constant fear of turning into a technologically incapable dinosaur before my time. My mother knows how to do things on computers that I haven't even heard of. This is unacceptable.

L: I honestly think that I've learned more in this class than in any of my other graduate courses. That is not to say that my other classes have been useless (although some have certainly been less than amazing), it's more that the learning we've been doing in CE5160 is so easily measurable. What do I know now? For starters, I'm not scared of leaving a digital footprint because I understand the value of educational web tools and personal learning networks in a way that I didn't recognize before taking this class. I can use social bookmarking sites like Diigo to make online research faster and more convenient for myself and for students. I can use Audacity and Audioboo to make and upload podcasts, and I feel comfortable transferring this knowledge to my students. Also importantly, I know where to go to find webinars that are relevant to my interests and professional goals. In short, I'm at least passably familiar with a handful of web tools that will help my in both personal situations as a student and professional situations as a teacher. I'm excited to experiment more with these resources and eventually integrate them into my classroom in a way that revives old, dry learning activities in a modern and interactive way.

Week 8, Ch. 5: Allow Me This (Long-winded) Metaphor

I’m an exercise fanatic. It started once I realized, mid-teenagehood, that my metabolism wouldn’t last forever and that I would eventually have to counter my ice cream-eating habits with some sort of physical activity. And it’s lasted for years. The key, I think, has been fitness classes and groups. You name it, I’ve taken it: yoga, pilates, aerobics (regular & step), boot camp, kickboxing, spinning. Most recently, I’ve narrowed my fitness repertoire down to my two favorites: spinning and running.

My instructor and fellow runners and riders make me feel like a capable, contributing member of a community and constantly motivate me to endure and improve. They have helped me to recognize my own power, as well as the control I have over my body. We share fitness-related advice (our recommendations for shoes & gear, tools to help record & track runs or rides, tips about form and new ways to improve speed), talk about articles we’ve read or techniques we’ve tried, discuss our goals and realistic ways of achieving them. I learn from their mistakes and improvements and they from mine. Although I believe that I am capable of attaining the same fitness goals on a personal level without these relationships, my success rate has always been higher and my progress more consistent when I am an active member of a group.

I couldn’t help but compare my personal fitness network (PFN?) to the personal learning networks that we’ve been exploring in our latest chapter; to me, the metaphor is obvious. Interaction, collaboration and improved practice? These characteristics are as essential to PFNs as they are to PLNs. Learning while doing instead of learning as preparation for doing? That element is there, too. We share the same objectives of advancing our collective knowledge and skills, learning more and improving. Although this metaphor may not be helpful for people who aren’t as involved in fitness communities as I am, I found that comparing PLNs and PFNs has helped me to better visualize the role that I might play in a personal or professional learning network, as well as the significant impact it could have on my life.

Week 8, PLNs: Under Construction

Is it terrible that I haven’t created a personal or professional learning network throughout this course yet? I mean, I’ve certainly started to. I use Diigo on a daily basis now--but I don’t share my notes with anyone. I blog about educational videos and articles and read others’ blogs--but that’s mostly within the confines of this class. I find some of my friends’ links posted on Facebook interesting and useful (how I found out extra details and opinions about the riots in London and the Fukushima earthquake & tsunami), but I ignore most of them (couldn’t care less about the score from the latest Jets game or another anti-Obama news article).

As I get more and more comfortable with the different web tools, I think the next step, then, is to start including the right kinds of people in my PLN. Up until now, I’ve limited myself to social networking (Facebook, for example) for purely personal purposes. I see pictures of my friends’ babies, get invitations to parties, share comments about the quirks of day-to-day life via status updates. If I were to broaden my network to include people also interested in using web tools as learning forums, then its potential as a PLN would expand indefinitely.

There are a few reasons, I think, why I haven’t yet done this. First of all, I have always appreciated a compartmentalized lifestyle, meaning that I like to keep the different groups of people in my life (social circle vs. work colleagues, family vs. friends) unofficially segregated from each other. I feel like it keeps my life organized and uncomplicated, with clearly defined boundaries of what belongs where. This makes me think of one of Dan’s past blog entries about Google+. If I’m going to build a professional learning network, I like the idea that I can keep it separately from my personal networking. Secondly, I’ve been automatically involved in a PLN in some way for the past year through my PSU classes. Moodle discussion forums might be more limited than global bookmarking or microblogging sites; however, ideas and resources are still being shared and questions are still being asked and answered. I think once I complete my degree and exit the academic community, I will be more likely to use more conventional sites and web tools in order to maintain my PLN and keep myself informed.

Week 7: Project-Based Learning: Imitation + Adaptation = Innovation

“That’s nice for them, but I couldn’t possibly do that given the constraints at my school.” How many times have I had this exact thought?! It's a pretty classic I-give-up excuse for educators in less than ideal teaching situations who can’t imagine themselves as capable of the same accomplishments and creativity of their more privileged peers. And it’s not as if they (I’m including myself in here) are totally off base. We’re not magicians! We can’t make something out of nothing, and grant writing, which so many people tout as the solution to all of our funding and resource problems, can only get us so much and, even then, only under certain circumstances.

I don’t mean to argue against a learning network. We each have our own strengths and weaknesses, our own creative abilities, which we can augment by observing others putting theirs into action. If we consider ourselves to be only as good as our best ideas, then we are limiting our potential, both personally and professionally. If we allow ourselves to be influenced by the work and ideas of others, learning from their mistakes as well as their successes, then the possibilities multiply.

The key, then, is to be realistic. Work with what we have instead of wallowing in professional jealousy by wishing for things that just aren’t possible for us. We might not be on level playing fields as far as resources, finances and peer support are concerned, but this doesn’t mean we’re imaginatively segregated or limited to a pre-determined set of creative ideas. We can adapt lesson plans and activity ideas, redesigning them to fit our specific teaching situations instead of attempting to imitate directly. The question should be how can I do that here? not why can't I do that here?

Week 7, Brian Crosby: I Schema, You Schema, We All Schema

Anyone with a language arts background out there? If you’ve ever taken a course or attended a professional development seminar on literacy, you know plenty about schema. It’s all about background knowledge. We have to activate the background knowledge that students already have by helping them make connections between that which they already know and that which they’re learning. Boom: schema. For students lacking background knowledge or for those coming from environments where their experiences differ greatly from each other (ESOL students, for example, or those from nonmainstream cultural or ethnic backgrounds), it is our job to help them build it within a motivational, meaningful context. Say it with me: schema.

This is what I love so much about project-based learning--the instant schema. Everyone is starting from nothing, working towards a common end point either as individuals or as a group. The students share in the background knowledge-building experience as the parameters for the project are introduced and the terms and concepts for carrying it out are examined. They all have access to the same information and resources, which means that they’re starting out on an even playing field. Where they go from there, then, is up to them.

And look at the kinds of things they can accomplish! Access to schema not only provides students with a deeper understanding of the material covered in class, but it also prepares them to make connections and apply what they’ve learned within other contexts or experiences. This is project-based learning, as Brian Crosby would like us to understand it.

Podcast, Podcast, Podcast! (And Webinar Reflection)

Week 6 Webinar Reflection: Two Birds, One Stone

So I've done my webinar reflection in the form of a podcast (see above)...pretty dry stuff, but I figured it might be more pleasant to listen to as opposed to read. It's an entirely "um"-free podcast (in 5 minutes, I said um 23 times!), thanks to Audacity's handy editing tools...although I didn't experiment with the features much beyond that. Baby steps.

Also, a ridiculous (and totally hilarious) oversight: the creator of Faces of America, which is the documentary series upon which this webinar was based, is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. NOT Henry Rollins. OOPS! I'm not even sure that I know anything about Rollins except for his name...but apparently that was enough. Sorry about that.

Finally, here are some useful links from the webinar:

PBS Webinar Archives
Faces of America
Episode 1
Episode 2
Teacher Resources
Faces of America Blog