Well, this course is coming to a close, and what a learning journey it has been! As I said in my Synthesis, I have been walking a steep learning curve during the past three months and I am so excited by what I’ve learned. Bring on September….well, maybe give me a few weeks of camping to recoup first, then I’ll be ready to go!
I have to say, I started out rather scared approaching this activity, but very quickly got totally excited and loved creating my story! There are so many different tools available, and in the end, I chose Animoto.
When selecting my Web 2.0 tool, I thought about Bates’ and Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS model. I loved that the online tools was accessible and didn’t need to be downloaded (one more thing for my students to NOT think about!). It was incredibly easy to use, and the cost was free for a short production, or very reasonable if you wanted to purchase a one-year license to create longer productions. Very few prerequisite skills were needed to use Animoto, and issues of copyright were avoided because free access audio options were provided within the program. It was easy to add text, organize images, and create the flow I wanted. It’s a program I can see myself using over and over again!
For my story, I wanted to create an introduction piece for my online courses. I wanted to make something that would show students more about me, and the things I cherish. My hope is that by giving students a glimpse into my life outside of work, I am able to establish and build deeper relationships with students faster. By putting a bit of “me” out there, I hope to create more trust, and by doing so, enable students to be more confident sharing with me and with the community of learners we are building. Using Animoto, I was able to share images of my life in a way that expressed the things I value most…..my family, our traditions, my music, etc. The music I chose really fit well with the feeling I was attempting to convey.
I can see myself using Animoto at an instructor level, and as a tool for my students to use. In one of my courses, students create a presentation to reflect the cultural diversity present in our class, and this would be a great tool for them. I think students would find it very meaningful and motivating. I really liked that I was able to “show” my students something, with limited words (but carefully chosen ones. The images, text, and music worked together really effectively, and I’m looking forward to trying something totally different with it next time. So much fun!
For those who missed my earlier post with my digital story, you can click on the link below to view it.
This week we used a class wiki to discuss challenges and strategies in using social media in classrooms. The experience of creating a wiki compared using the threaded discussions in our LMS was rather enlightening. Some of the things I really liked about the wiki were:
Some of the challenges in the wiki format were:
I really enjoyed a change from discussions this week, and I appreciated how we could grow each others’ ideas more fluidly in the wiki context. For example, under the “challenges”, I simply wrote “Copyright”, as I didn’t have time right then to expand my thoughts, but I wanted to get the idea down. The next time I came back, others had expanded the topic wonderfully! It was easy to come back and edit throughout the week, and I particularly liked the sense of group ownership that was established. A great activity!
Boris wants to create a stand alone self-directed review tool for his students for learning the Periodic Table, preferably with formative instant feedback. One option for Boris is to create a “lesson” in Moodle. The lesson activity allows teachers to set up and scaffold learning, providing instant feedback for students. Information is presented/reviewed, and then a question is asked. Depending on how the student answers the question, s/he is moved forward if correct, or if incorrect s/he is sent down another path for more review or is forced to stay at the same question until it is answered correctly. If developed well, the lesson activity would provide Boris’s students with great review, instant feedback, and as much detailed assessment as he wants to provide.
Here is a 3 part tutorial for using the lesson activity in Moodle:
Moodle is not new to me, so the initial steps in the eTool-Kit were not too challenging. I added a graphic, and moved things around a little bit. After getting the introduction and ice breaker set up, I watched several Youtube clips on Moodle, and looked through a few sections of the Moodle support resources. I have several things I want to learn how to do, including using the lesson and wiki features and investigating what some of the options are in “advanced uploading of files” for assignments. I was doing some reading on the latter, and am intrigued and excited about what this might mean for some of the courses I’m currently teaching using Moodle. There is a lot here that I have never explored, so building a course for ETEC 565 is going to be a great learning opportunity for me.
I decided I needed a boost of confidence, so I chose to look at synchronous communication tools today. I haven’t been chatting long, but have used several synchronous tools, including options in Moodle, MSN, Skype, Vista, Facebook, and iChat. For a group project, this week I was introduced to Elluminate that worked well, but I found it difficult trying to follow the audio chat, read the written chat, and watch the whiteboard for participant contributions. Multi-tasking required! Last night the same group of us met using Web Ex (my first time using this) for a project in ETEC 510. It seemed to be a better option for our group, but required that one person control the screen and do the typing. I liked that we could all talk at the same time, whereas in Elluminate we had to click on the “chat” button to turn it on and off each time we wanted to speak. I’m up and running in Pronto now, so another new program to investigate. I’m learning that many programs provide similar services, and once you know what it’s capable of, it’s not too difficult to figure out how to use them. Some have better affordances than other, and I’m withholding judgment as to my favourites until I’ve played a little bit more!
Overwhelmed and ready to cry at this point. Will be back to relook at this once I’m able to get myself out of the fetal position and out from underneath the kitchen table. Let’s just say I’m totally lost. HTML was designed to terrify me. And there’s definitely no mental block happening here….
Here’s my first attempt…..
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Kaitlin at the Sam Steele Days Parade (June 1010)
I found it quite challenging to get this video here. Thanks to my amazing mother who helped me work through some issues, it’s now here. I’ve started a resource file to keep notes and hints about the things I’m learning. I think I’ll use it a lot!
So this is where I have to stand up and admit I own no mobile devices. Actually, that’s not quite true. I have an eight year old cell phone that I have a “pay as you go” plan for, and I use once every two or three months. I have it just for emergencies. It doesn’t take pictures, can’t access the internet, and I don’t have chat or message options. I’ve never texted on a hand held device. Actually, I’ve never texted–period. I don’t have digital day book. I’ve never used a tablet. Isn’t a blackberry a kind of fruit??? I’ve seen an iPhone…from a distance. I don’t have an iPod. Do they even still make pagers? I did use my 81 year old mother-in-law’s iPad once. That counts, right? Oh, but I have used a calculator many times.
Hmmm. It appears I’m somewhat lacking in experience in this department. I’m off to the college where I work to borrow a tablet or iPad. Stay tuned for mLearning Part 2!
Today I played with iDVD. I imported a video of my daughter dancing at a parade (yes, she was priceless!) and in mere moments my DVD was done. It was SO easy.
What took longer was when I decided to try to edit my clip. I searched and searched and could not do it. So I ventured over to iMovie. I watched the intro tutorial and created my movie, with a theme, transitions, and titles. Yes, this took me quite a while.
Back to iDVD, I reviewed how to create a slideshow using still pictures. I had done this a couple times before, but it took me a while to relearn the basics.
Both of this application are quite user friendly and offer good help tools. Next on my list to learn in this area….more about exporting and importing these works of arts into different places!