I am glad to be on holidays, as there are so many blogs and intros and stuff to read…. Got the gmail/google+ thing sorted out so I am able to keep better track of what is coming into my mailbox.
Already I have picked up new followers on Twitter, and found many new and inspiring people to follow back on Twitter and in Google+, as well as adding blogs to my RSS feed. I am finding new apps and sites to explore… This is a great start!
It took a while to get into the blackboard session, but I guess when you have so many participants that will be a factor.
Two of the statements that resonated strongly with me were:
- How are you making learning visible
- How are you contributing to the learning of others
I would like to think that my blogging helps to show my learning, the reflection of learning something. I also try to work on with my students, getting them to develop portfolios physical and electronic. In this way students reflect on and demonstrate/show/make visible their learning not only to me, but to their peers and parents/carers.
Commenting on others blogs helps the discussions to expand and develop, and build stronger relationships within a PLN.
I like to create videos with my students which show what they have learned, and also what I have learned. These tools also contribute to the learning of others, when I add tags, share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, tumblr, Pinterest, YouTube it allows others to share the learning.
I run many face to face professional learning sessions with other teachers, and started to develop my YouTube vids as an alternative for those who were to able to make the f2f sessions.
It takes time to thin out the walls which surround us, but the more connections we make, the thinner the walls become, and the smaller the world!
Firing up Tweetdeck and Blackboard for the intro to tweeting session.so happy that they are in a good time zone for me at the moment…as that has often been an issue with MOOCs where they only run sessions in US or North American time zones, which end up being stupid o’clock in the morning here! And even though you can listen to the assynchronous sessions, it tends to lose the connection and connectivity of being a part of the discussion. The connections are an integral part of the learning for me!
I really liked this image, and I do see myself as a media Sherpa, although I always have lots to learn, and new paths to explore I do feel ale to support and guide others on their journeys…
As a part of my sharing the learning and guiding I created The Redback Project a self paced guide to some of the basic Web 2.0 tools…
The video showing a young child making her first ski jump really resonated with me, as I have a similar video! I decided to get my motor bike licence, and after having my new ride delivered I had my daughter video me taking off on my first ride!!! Hilarious…it took me over 5 minutes to get out of the driveway…but the absolute exhilaration as I master each new skill is exactly like the little girls squeals of delight as she made it down the slope. Learning can be a challenge, but taking the leap and trying new things can also be exhilarating and so much fun….
Well, the sun is shining, best I go for a ride!
The start of a new year and the start of a new adventure… #etmooc Educational Technology and Media Massive Open Online Course. A cMOOC (connectivist) where the connections are an important part of the learning journey. I am very much a people person, so I really enjoy the connections I make online, and love when I can meet face to face. Many of my PLN I can call friends, even though we may never have met, or they are on the other side of the world.
I began my Connectivist journey in 2009 when I was lucky enough to listen to Stephen Downes speak in Melbourne. His Connectivist theories gave what I had been doing a name, and it all made sense. It really was an “A Ha” moment for me. I had been tweeting and posting in online communities for a number of years… a member of yahoo groups etc in the late 1990s, educational lists and blogs in the early 21st C and joined Twitter in 2007, gradually developing my PLN.
I have a number of blogs, this is my personal professional blog, and where I will be posting my thoughts on the etmooc as we progress. I will also be sharing on Twitter @suzi_q, as well as in the G+ community.
Although I have a lot of experience using these connections (which I am always happy to share) I always find something new when delving into the world of the MOOC. The #Change11 MOOC was huge, and I flitted in and out, listened when I could, mostly assynchronously as time zones did not favour me! I was able to glean more understanding of a range of topics which were valuable for my leadership of eLearning at my school, strategies and ideas to assist others just starting a digital journey #Digifoot12 was fantastic in showing me even more connective tools to harness the immense amount of information we have available to us, as well as further expanding my PLN, and making some really great connections.
What I hope to get out of this etmooc? It’s an adventure, I hope to make new connections, revisit older connections, reflect on how I learn, and how I can help my students to learn and through the use of ed tech become a more effective teacher!
Well, at this stage next year looks like being a year with a change of focus for me. I have no leadership position, no formal role in eLearning, but will continue my informal learning, and embracing technology to flip my classroom, and create exciting learning opportunities for my students.
I am ready to embrace the change, focus on my teaching, move out of this lonely office. They say things happen for a reason… So I will focus on the positives…less meetings, hopefully home earlier, able to really develop my teaching area more.
Why has this happened? Not dwelling on it, but drop in student numbers across the college, change in leadership and positions, more Prin positions, less leading teacher positions. I may even end up in excess…I have applied for other leadership positions, closer to home….but I can write a good application, and crumble at interview….so no joy there….
Onward and upward…need some more relaxation in my life I think…
One of the great things about my job is sharing the excitement of those “ah ha” moments. Today I was able to spend some time at one of the campuses, and do some “just in time” PD with a couple of staff members. The squeals of delight when I showed her the “snipping tool” as an alternative to “printscreen” were just fantastic for me, and I think for all of my colleagues on this campus, which has had a rough trot over the past year.
I love being able to share those tools which make life easier. Many have been frustrated by infrastructure, the bane of 21stC teaching in an 18thC (well 1950s) school, where nothing seems to work as seamlessly as it should. It is great when things just work. As well as the “snipping tool” I suggested Jing which allows you to capture images and videos from your computer.
We then went on to the iPad, and had a look at a few augmented reality apps, and that will become a whole other story
DigiFoot12 is a new MOOC looking at our digital footprints, Digital Citizenship and Personal Learning Networks… many of these things I have used or know about…. so I am hoping to share as well as learn… already tried out Live Binders and found a few new resources… actually got around to highlighting and making notes on a Diigo bookmark, as well as making a new list to collect my resources together on in Diigo.
I like there is a bit more structure, with tasks to be completed etc in this MOOC. I think I got lost a bit in the Change11MOOC, although I lurked a bit more than I participated, because I could… so I am looking forward to a shorter MOOC that I can participate more in. The times are also more friendly for me… with 10am being much easier to do on a Friday morning than 3am. Anyway…on with the tasks
My digital footprint is quite big… I have accounts on many social networking and web2.0 sites…the amount I use them does vary. So this footprint is mine… many of my links, and as soon as I finished it I thought of others I use as well…
One of the images I found when searching for digital footprint images was this one. From: http://web1.broulee-p.schools.nsw.edu.au. The message is really clear, and something I try to instil in my own children, those I teach and my friends, that you do have to think before you post something, or someone could get hurt! Usually the person who has posted – as we see every week with one celebrity or another making the news. A comparison I like to make is giving someone a box of matches or a lighter, with no guidelines, and being surprised when they get burned.
As far as sites, when searching the term digital footprints, not surprisingly many of the sites refer to safety online, and be basics of realising that what you post can be seen by anyone, and this is not always a good or legal thing…. The faces on some of my senior students, who are under 18 when I talk quite candidly about the fact if they send a pic of themselves to a boyfriend etc, you know, one of those provocative shots, because they are under 18 it can be seen as child porn… this is news to many of them, something they had not thought of…. and there it is again… think!!!!
Kidsmart, has a great PDF exercise for children to list in a footprint, the sites they have visited in the past 24 hours, so they can actually SEE their footprint
Commonsense Media, has a range of videos and worksheets/exercises for students to get them to think about why it’s important to have a positive digital footprint.
EMC2 has a quick program where you can see your digital footprint as a “ticker” by answering a series of questions on how you use a range of digital technologies. That’s a lot of bytes!!
Now…. as for where I will make my home base…. hmmmmmmm probably my wiki… will have to think about that one…
Working my way through the information of the #Change11 MOOC, I guess my first task is to set out what I aim to get out of participating in this.
Well… I hope to immerse myself in connectivist ways of learning, sharing and exploring. I am someone who learns best by doing, and what better way to “do” than participating in a MOOC.
Helping students to learn how to deal with the massive amounts of information they have available to them will be easier when I have done it myself, and have a better idea of what works well.
Already the tweets and Google+, Facebook as well as emails are sending me so much information…. I am trying to take in what I can, share what interests me, focus on key elements and develop my understanding.
OK… looks like I may have missed the connective learning opportunities of my last post, but will continue to plod through when I can… however… further meandering and research I have found another MOOC by the same people… the amazing Stephen Downes, Dave Cormier and George Siemens, which only started in September, so am not that far behind… will try and catch up…Pity it’s the last week of our holidays and not the first … ahhh well… so much to do and learn.
Not sure what a MOOC is… check this out (Massive Open Online Course)
Already I have been able to follow some hashtags… and find many people I already follow on twitter are using the #change11 tag… I have added it to my Google+ feed too, so will see what comes up… I don’t much use FB for anything more than social friend stuff…
Connectivism and Connected Knowledge…2011. Just exploring a few links and thoughts on Google plus, and I stumbled across this site, which runs a course over 12 weeks, exploring the nature of connectivism. I have some reading to do… looking forward to exploring more and getting my head around the connectivist approach.
I had such big plans for 2010, I had found my feet pretty much across the 3 campuses, and I was ready to jump in and really hope to make a difference…
We had reliability issues being sorted out, infrastructure getting stronger, the Ultranet was on the way… staff were positive in looking at trying out new things… even Moodle had come onlline to external access… things were going well…
Then I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer during the term 1 break… and everything seems to have gone on hold…. except it can’t… life goes on… school goes on, the big wheels keep on turning. I may not be there, but positive changes have continued.
The infrastructure has definitely improved, even though there were issues from the Ultranet side on the Aug 9th training day, staff were able to be online most of the day, and get to where they needed to be (as long as it wasn’t the Ultranet). This was not possible 12 months ago, to have large online groups on wifi. So that is a positive. It was awesome that it was held on a “good” day for me, so I could go and visit each campus, and see how they were going. The day really tested their resilience, but I think most of them worked through it.
I think one of the biggest roles that ultimately comes down to me… and I don’t quite know how I will keep on top of it this year, is developing a college approach, rather than campus based. My being away has seen great people pop up to take the lead, but often, only for their campus… I guess this is a comfort zone thing, and hopefully both with my guidance, and the Ultranet design spaces we can work around these things. So there is follow up Ultranet training being developed on each campus, and hopefully will be shared on the eLearning Design Space I have set up on the Ultranet.
Was lucky to spend some time in an elluminate conference session with Greg Whitby – organised by Helen Otway this morning (love doing PD in my PJs) “It Takes a Village” . It related really well to how we can think about the spaces we will be designing to develop new learning structures across the college as part of the “masterplan”. Still concerns with how we ensure every student gets the most out of the structure. The open approach works really well for kids who want to learn… how do we foster this desire to learn in all of our students? There are still formal assessments with huge amounts of content which have to be “taught to” or “poured into” our students. Year 12 teachers have huge commitment to ensure their students have the best possible opportunities to do well in the exams, which ultimately decide their immediate tertiary learning future… when will this change to reflect current teaching ideology?
Finding a school who is really happy with how they structure their “open” learning at senior levels is going to be interesting… I may have to pop down to Langy and see how it is going in their open spaces.
Well I think that is all my head can cope with at the moment…. more of a twitter brain than a long blog post brain.
