Month: March 2010

Part II:

Well yesterday I complained about the fact that I am not a big fan of creating on the wiki – the whole notion of writing code.  I do have to admit that I did like the fact that there was some basic edit keys that we could use (ie: Bold, Italics, Underline, etc.) without having to actually write using the code.  I did notice that at first glance it appeared that some others had similar concerns.

Today I will add some more complaints but don’t mistake this as me be unhappy with the course or progress.  On the contrary I think this exercise was a good one because I have decided that creating on a wiki is not the easiest way to communicate.  I much prefer the discussion forums that we use in class site (LMS).  Conversations can stay more focused and replying to what one writes doesn’t extend the entire length of the document like it does through a wiki.

I am really not a fan of group work.  It is not because I think I am better than anyone else – far from it.  It is more of the feeling that I am letting others down if I don’t contribute enough or as often as they do.  I would much prefer to have to worry about my own effort and being responsible for what I can control.  But, I do like having the safety net of being able to bounce ideas of group-mates in a safe environment.  The irony of this is I do as a teacher assign several group projects for my courses.  However, I think I do it for different reasons.  I HAVE TO assign group projects because materials and resources are at a premium.  I wouldn’t be able to run some of my projects or even classes if every student did their own project.  One because of budget reasons, the second because I don’t have enough tools to go around for an entire class of individual projects.  I wonder what my students would say if I asked them if they like group work?  I suspect that the “slackers” would say they love it because they rely heavily on their partners to do the majority of the work, and the “keeners” would say they hate it because they end up doing the majority of the work while the “slackers” get credit.  Can you say, “Do as I say not as I do”?

Oh well, enough negatives.  Until next time…

~ Ryan

I think I will post my thoughts and experiences for writing a wiki in two parts.

PART I:

First, I have to say I don’t like it.  I am not a big fan of writing using code.  To be honest, rather than trying to learn it (because I don’t think at this time in my course and life I can afford the time) I merely copy from others.  If I am trying to BOLD something, use ITALICS,  change colour or add lines I find examples of others, look at what they did (ie: the code for it) , and copy the format.  It is a short-cut I know but the whole idea of learning code for some reason is both foreign and laborious.  I know I have to change my attitude but right now learning by imitating works best for me.  What I have started to do though is I keep a note book beside my keyboard and I add codes and descriptions in it when I come across something new.   I had to do a wiki assignment recently in my ETEC 510 course and as I was composing I found it helpful to do this.  I suspect that if I did it often enough I wouldn’t have to refer to it but since my instances are few and far between I definitely refer to it (perhaps more than I should?)  I just hope I don’t loose it – perhaps I should input it into my computer or just print off a “cheat sheet” for code writing that is already available on the web.

~ Ryan

So the course went dark for 2 weeks during the Olympics and I figured I would use that time to “catch-up” or “get ahead”.  Boy was I wrong.  Either I couldn’t remove myself from the couch as I was captivated by everything Olympics or I was done town soaking up the atmosphere.

I went downtown 5 times – twice with the kids; twice with my wife (sans kids); and once right after Sidney Crosby scored the overtime winner.  The thing that impressed me the most was how well-behaved everyone was.  Every year we have the fireworks downtown and it always seems to get out of hand.  I stopped going years ago because I no longer felt safe.  My personal safety never became an issue during the Olympics.

As far as events went I had a couple of cool experiences.  First there was the men’s downhill and Super-G.  I teach at Argyle Secondary in North Vancouver and Robbie Dixon’s mom teaches at our school.  Almost the entire school was in the large gym to watch him race.  It got so loud when he entered the start gate and unfortunately got so quiet a few seconds later when he crashed (both events).  I personally felt so bad when they showed Tracy (my colleague and Robbie’s mom) at the bottom of the hill – she looked so crushed!  That being said the energy and excitement in the school was nothing short of awesome!!

The second event that I got to experience was in mens hockey.  Team Canada vs Team USA (round robin not the final).  My buddy phoned me up a few hours before the game to say he got VIP tix to Molson house.  We got to watch the game in style!  White leather sofas, 50″ plasma TV’s, free drinks, free “gourmet” meals, Wayne Gretzky, Yvone Cournier, Pat Quinn, Tiger Williams, Maelle Ricker, Women’s Team Canada, Cam Neely, the celebs went on and on.  The game was an obvious downer but after the game we got to go over to the “club” side of the building for more VIP treatment.   Needless to say it was an experience I will never forget.

Now I am one that is a huge sports enthusiast.  I was all for the Olympics no matter what it will cost me, my kids, my grandkids, etc.  But I had no idea what I was in store for.  To see the passion, the support, the love, the pride, etc. was just amazing.

So thank you UBC for the extended break.  I am having a hard enough time balancing my life and keeping up.  I definitely would be lost if this course hadn’t gone dark for 2 weeks.

Go Canada!

~ Ryan

My objective this week was to create a “first draft” of an activity that I could use either a synchronous or asynchronous tool to support student interaction in your Moodle site.

A major reason for me taking the MET Program is that I want to be able to create meaningful and practical works that I will be able to incorporate into my daily teachings.  So, not unlike most I am sure, I have to decided to create a Moodle site for one of my courses – Engineering Technology 10.  I figure I will be able to transfer existing works as well as create new works for my class.  I think the site will allow me to build stronger teacher-student, student-student as well as teacher-parent relationships.

This first activity is one of my “new works” that I have created.  Working with Moodle has come with some mixed feelings so far.  At times I have been quite happy but sometimes I have had to log-off and walk away before my frustration level gets too high.  I experienced both emotions when creating this assignment.  The walking away feeling came when I couldn’t easily transfer what I had just created in a word document to my Moodle site.  I wasn’t interested in re-typing it word for word so there are a few minor formatting issues but in time I am sure I can work those out.  To compensate, I uploaded the activity in Word format so those using the Moodle site can see the Moodle activity (with its glitches) as well as the “original” document.  The goal, however, would be to eliminate the need for the paper copy but as the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.

Description of the activity
Basically, I have created a Wiki Activity for the Bridge Unit of my Engineering class. In groups of two, students are to select both a term and a type of bridge and define/explain what they are (in context of Engineering).  The two parts of this activity have slightly different criteria which is laid out in the assignment.  After collaboration, each team is to post their solution to the wiki page of the class Moodle site.

Rationale for selecting this type of activity
I chose this activity for a couple of reasons.  First or all, I have found in the past (and present) that my students often have a poor grasp of terminology.  Many just want to “do” – they don’t want to “learn”.  I figure that if I can create a place (the wiki) where students can refer to it will increase their retention.  Also, by making them the “authors” of the definitions they will also be more likely to remember the terms and their meanings.  Secondly, I had them work in pairs because I believe this now becomes both  a synchronous and asynchronous tool.  The Synchronous communication will take place when the two partners work together (f2f) during class-time.  It becomes asynchronous communication when either they send each other emails and updates during non f2f time and/or when they finally submit their work to the wiki and other students read their postings.

How do I see students working within the tool I have set up?
Essentially I see this is one big collaborative class assignment where each group of two will be responsible for the learning that takes place in the class.  I can already envision a secondary assignment to this one where each student or group would then be responsible to posting their thoughts and comments to 2 -5 wiki entries (ie: what was good and what can be improved) in a discussion .  This way, students would get feedback from their peers and would be able to increase the accuracy of their submissions.

What tools are available to you to help you to track or record student activity within the LMS?
This part I am still working on.  Rather than asking for help I am trying to work through this.  I believe that I can go to the wiki page and look at the history to see when changes were made as well as who made them.  So if I wanted to do progress checks I could.

All-in-all this was a good activity for a newbie like me.  In the past I have always struggled with technology on the first attempt but I like to think that my learning curve is steep.  I hope this will be the case with Moodle!

~ Ryan