Power point

I am getting frustrated about my assignments.  I usually put together power point presentations together with no problems.  However, for this class, I am struggling.  I was finally able to put my video into the presentation.  I am having a little trouble trying to cite my work and where I got it from.  I am just trying to make it through this class.  I never imagined having trouble in this level.  Anyone know the exact format...I see we are to integrate a video, a photo from flickr and audio is optional.  Help

Reflections

I am reflecting on the completion of this group project.  I am not sure, but it seems collaboration is out of the comfort zone of most individuals.  Working together is not the most desirable thing to do, yet when doing so, it can be rewarding.  Seeing other peoples' perspectives is quite interesting.  I am trying to collect my thoughts for the upcoming assignment for next week:  Power Point presentations.  Yeah!

How do I add Reactions to my blog?

How do I add Reactions to my blog?

webinar

I attended the Webinar: “Social Media for Teachers” by Jane Bozarth as the presenter today.  It was hosted on https://ncbionetworkevents.webex.com .  Jane is also the author of “E-learning on a shoestring”.  She discussed several of the social media such as facebook, twitter, pbworks, delicious, wiki, etc.  She defined social media as “content that invites and allows others to contribute.”  She spent a lot of time during the webinar polling us about various uses that we thought we could use this technology for in the classroom.  She asked us to list some benefits and among them were social learning, informal learning, relationship building, community knowledge management, etc.  She also asked us what our organizations would not allow us to do concerning social media.  She discussed how sometimes IT legal or HR finance have concerns with the use of social media.  HR particularly doesn’t want to pay someone who is using social media on company time.  She also polled us as to what the social media can do in terms of what the learner wants.  She discussed how it can move from the traditional view of training and learning.  Case studies, videos, role plays, games, book clubs and discussions can all be conducted in a non-traditional way via social media.  She asked how many were using blogs and wikis.  She explained that blogs are reflective and wikis are collaborative.  She explained how she has used facebook to teach a whole class.  She said she had more participation and more logged in and out of it daily to use it for the discussions and live chats.  She even used it for quizzes.  She said the collaborative activities that are unique to the virtual world are that you can have guest speakers and even realistic practice via this technology.  She asked us how we are inviting interaction with our learners.  She discussed how wikis are more editable by anyone with access as opposed to blogging.  It was very informative and I think I want to learn more from the website:  www.ncbionetwork.org/iet

Zoho writer versus Google documents

This was an interesting web discovery exercise.  The text formatting and page set up are a little different from the traditional MS Word.  However, both are very useful in that they can both be used to collaborate on.  They are great in that it will eliminate so many email attachments. Its simple to import and export from within these applications.  I also believe this can be a great tool to use for group projects.  If someone is challenged with technology, they may have a time participating and that is one disadvantage.  Overall, I think these web-based applications are very helpful for the learning process.

Doing the teaching and learning resources wiki exercise

I had an interesting experience with the Teaching and learning resources wiki exercise.  I kept editing the Social Networking part on the site, but it was giving me an error of "error on page".  I was getting frustrated to keep going in circles.  I had an epiphany and slowed down to edit each section and save it as I went along.  That worked and I was relieved.  I think this can be an excellent tool for classrooms.  I can see how a class in France could collaborate with a class in the US and come up with a nice newspaper.  It was fun (after the fact).  Without pain, there is no growth. (my philosophical moment)

synthesis learning using technology

I am being amazed at how one piece of this learning technology is building on the other.  The use of the rss feeds and blogging has prepped me for the wiki or collaborative forums.  Its a little tasking to keep up with it only because of the workload of all my other classes.  Outside of a full-time schedule, I can see how this would be much more efficient when do a group project.  The use of multimedia is growing and I understand now that some students used this webquest to do a project from here along with other students in other foreign countries.  I thought this was absolutely amazing.  No longer do they have to have "pen-pals" but they can now do a joint class project in separate countries. I am looking forward to implementing this in my classroom when I do finally become a teacher.