Teresa Alesch – Multimedia – Final Blog “Learning and PLN”
We know that this is never going to end, so the question is… where do I begin?
FIRST: Virtual learning has to be one of the first pieces of my professional/personal-learning-network. I had heard of Atomic Learning, but I never grasped its potential. So many questions I had throughout the year last year (for example regarding the Ning and GoogleDocs which I used for my English 9 students) could have been answered through a two-five minute tutorial!?! Also, I felt useless as the teacher librarian last year (which I realize this job takes time to build resources), but this year, I have so much to offer teachers, such as “how to use Atomic Learning” and explaining to them that they really did put it there for good reason. I can actually navigate the AEA Online website with confidence now – before I hesitated looking at it myself let alone referring my colleagues to it.
SECOND: My peers, my instructors, my mentor, and my colleagues… This summer, I have been forced to really lean on those around me. Collaboration. What a nice feeling when you learn how to do it effectively. I remember smiling when a few successes were had in English 9 with GoogleDocs this past year, but NOW – to not only experience it first hand, but also to pass this sort of learning on to my colleagues as well as my students – I am in seventh heaven. And to continue learning from those around me is certainly a top priority.
THIRD: My blog. I haven’t quite had time to explore this application like I would like to. I plan to follow my classmate Beth as thus far, she has one of the best blogs I have seen! I not only looked at her Multimedia blog, but I pranced around to her other blogs within her identity. She has an eye for design and the content within is intriguing. I haven’t had a chance to thank her for inspiring me, but in due time, I will.
FOURTH: I have been following and will continue to follow Will Richardson and David Warlick as the authors of our two books this semester through GoogleReader. Rather than overwhelm myself, I would like to stay with what is slightly familiar. I currently subscribe to their feeds and I plan to stay on top of their new literature whether that means blog postings, articles, conference materials, or books. One other person/site I will follow is Kathy Kaldenburg (and her collaborative multimedia show case site). She provides a multitude of examples to get me brainstorming about the possibilities. I have already been following Doug Johnson and Joyce Valenza, so this will continue.
FIFTH: I am creating a wealth of resources through my Diigo. I am very thankful to have been introduced to this application. I have been wanting a SANE way to organize all of the sites I visit or want to recall. Now they are at my fingertips and categorized with TAGS!
SIXTH: I am a forever and ever learner. I see myself attending technology and literacy conferences/trainings until they put me in a nursing home. I am certain that I will never be comfortable with the here and now, because in virtual land – there is no such thing. Technology and literacy as defined in education is ever changing.
SO WHAT NEXT: With this collection of resources and tools, I plan to create a website, a networking site for my students, colleagues, administration, community, and for myself. It is here all of my scattered thoughts will come together. As I type this message, it still seems a little abstract. I am not sure yet if it will be in the form of a blog, wiki, or an actual website, but through it, I will share the wealth.
This is where I will follow news, links, resources, and other information posted by my favorite people/organizations.
Wikispaces - teresaalesch - My
This is another website that I will continue using. I have used it before, but through SLIS-Multimedia, I have gained a new appreciation for what it can do. I have a teacher who wants to start a wiki (my first project)
VoiceThread - Group conversations around images, documents, and videos
This site allows me to present just about anything. It is also a resource to view other people's presentations. I am looking forward to sharing this at the beginning of the year with students and teachers.
Wordle - Beautiful Word Clouds
This is something I haven't played with much, but the end product of a combination of words is very effective. I will start by introducing this to our social studies teacher.
I didn't realize Google had a site like this. This would have been so helpful when I was teaching my students to use GoogleDocs.. I plan to incorporate this with library students first thing.
What I found interesting about this article initially was that I thought the student's first response (example) was good! When I read the second response I was astounded at the growth in analysis. This should reveal how much I need to learn, and how much teaching I need to do to improve my own students' reasoning and responding. This is definitely a skill that we need to work on at Graettinger-Terril Schools. I am excited to look further into the REED-LO model. I actually questioned my own analysis/reflection skills and as I looked through the stages, I know that going through this process would deeply improve my own responses as well as my students'.
As for the application WAIT, I am very enthusiastic about this tool. One very nice feature is that it requires students to publish their interpretations before taking a look at the expert's essay. This is helpful to promote independent thinking. If we don't push students out of their comfort zone, they will maintain at a level with little growth, will not learn to think for themselves, and will not gain confidence in their abilities to recognize evidence and produce quality responses.
Furthermore, this model and application together force students to research the content within a piece of art, looking deeper into the history of the photo and events and people involved. When responding students are combining different literacies to produce their responses.
Today, I received a most heartwarming baby gift from a group of my cohort peers (the Bettendorf gang)... It's a little jumper that says, "I (heart) Metadata!" ...It's a funny thing really, because last fall we were eating, sleeping, and drinking metadata in Cliff's class, Organization of Information (or maybe that was the book), but here I am reading more from Warlick and he says,
"Today, as information flows through a growing number of new applications, it tends to carry with it information about itself, enabling information to organize itself dynamically, as a function of its being and its flow."THAT'S METADATA! You have to understand the humor here... it took me a LONG time to grasp the concept of metadata, and now I must get it.
This was a pretty interesting night... As I was reading Warlick's Redefining Literacy 2.0, I was stuck on a quote: "For the first time in history, we are preparing our students for a future we cannot clearly describe." I decided to post it to my Facebook page and minutes later I had responses from people pondering it. I'm guessing it still has room to take shape; the conversation is just getting started. I'm hoping some of my students will jump in and offer their insights.
I see that my response was cut off... so here is the final post shown in this image - which if you click on it, it will open up in another window (larger).
Teresa's response, "Hey everyone! Yea, it does make you think.. that's why I had to post it. David Warlick is the person behind that... and yes, it's something I'm reading. It involves technology, communication, and literacy. Some people are afraid of educating students with their modern tools... facebook, blogs, chatting, and other online tools - for fear of them not... Read More being able to socialize in person, not learning the "BOOK," and for fear of the technology itself, BUT - that's where our world is going. In the mid 1990s, people started chatting on yahoo - look at what we have now (look at what we are doing right here) - and yet, our classrooms are still quite traditional (the way we were taught)... The youth have changed, but the schools have not. ... And Darci - You are right on Johnson I've read a lot of his material and have seen some of his Webinars - I would love to hear him in person!"
A few important concepts stood out to me, but first of all the 5-year-old podcast was adorable. I have several teachers who would –WITHOUT A DOUBT– run with this project! ... I would LOVE to have a gift like this from my daughter.
1) Need to give students different tasks to get them to share different content through different mediums
--This reminds me of a quick project I threw together last fall that was unsuccessful. I gave students a topic and told them they could choose their mode of presentation. I purposely gave them the freedom to do what they wanted, but unfortunately, they didn't have a toolbox to work from. I need to add "tasks" to prepare them for this type of thinking, planning, and creating.
2) Privacy is a concern when publishing, but it isn't what we think it is. Fryer helped me to see this in a different way. Statistically speaking, predators don't see a student's picture online then kidnap him/her. Generally, predators know the victim... or have been corresponding (which is more of the area we need to watch out for). But this is an area that we need to think through a little more and understand a little better.
3) After watching a Voicethread, we heard from Sara. She said the toughest part about creating her Voicethread was not uploading the pictures but was the content (what am I going to say). This is important because this starts with writing... so even though this product reveals little writing, students will have written their script and rehearsed their script (and rewritten and edited)... and so on.
4) In this same Voicethread project, we see that another critical component is the response from peers. This means that students are preparing their product for a larger audience than just the teacher - requiring a different line of thinking. We can even invite parents to the link which takes on a whole new perspective.
Blogging is growing on me and I'm wishing it wasn't in chunks that I've been doing my homework. I think with a reduction in reading and combination of various projects... (between the two classes), I will be able to spend more time in reading and reflection not only to my classmates new posts on various topics but also on some of the professionals or experienced bloggers' postings (insights and teachings) as well.
I think the difficult thing has been the number of new things to learn - which have been great but overwhelming. However, the blogging is helping me because as I venture out to read my classmates' blogs, I'm gaining new insights not only about the media and theory we are studying but also about myself and my learning as well. I appreciate this opportunity because it really is the learning style of today's generation.
As of right now, I don't really like Flickr, but to be fair - I haven't really given it a chance either. I think the layout seems dull and this distracts me from all it really has to offer...
But in addition to this, I realized that even though I haven't come to like these programs yet (and mind you, I haven't given them much chance yet either - this is about to change), I don't have much of a choice. These are the programs that will be available to my teachers and students. Right now we are mostly PC and only the few art computers are equipped with the wonderful "Photoshop."
I browsed around the links provided and wasn't really sure what I was looking for. I didn't understand many of the photos posted or the background for the photos - I think that's what bores me... I'd like some explanation to draw me in.
My plan to open my mind to Flickr begins with this link: http://jakespeak.blogspot.com/2006/03/classroom-uses-of-flickr.html - Jakesonline wiki led me to his blogger page which is full of great ideas.
I also found this wiki - http://web20-instruction.wikispaces.com/Using+Flickr+for+Instruction
Using Flickr for Instruction - this too, seems like a great resource.
So far, I don't like any freeware photo editors... I don't like them at all. I think it is because I prefer more complex editing with more options.
I am coming from a slightly different background and went to school for graphic design. Therefore, simple to me in this arena is useless. I learned Adobe Photoshop and have always used that for any editing and imaging. I have to confess that I haven't been able to do much photo editing for some time because I've been so busy with work and school. I love to work with images but I often get lost in the process. For a while, I created jackets for funeral announcements. I would superimpose the a picture of the person (who was deceased) into an image that the family said "represented" him or her... So if that person loved golfing, I would take a picture of a golf course (or the course he/she frequented) and mask the person into the scene...
Doing this is something I truly enjoy but need the time to do it. I am now inspired all over again to get back into photo editing and to find ways to integrate it into my work as a librarian. Marketing is one avenue for this and teaching students is another. We have a "digital" art teacher, so I am excited to rekindle my knowledge and see what we can come up with together to take Photoshop to knew levels at our school.
This Webinar was full of great project ideas... I took notes from beginning to end (even though he has a nice handout waiting on his website) and plan to give it to teachers. My goal is to provide them with these ideas and then tell them, "...these are ways I can collaborate with you. If anything interests you, let's get together!"
One tip I will take away from Abrams is the concept of student licenses. I think this is a great idea... It will be fun! And, I can create my own training manual (DIGITAL of course!) and test for students to prove their competence. In order to check out the equipment, students will have to show their license (or sticker, or whatever it is that I come up with).
This first feeling I had from this article was motivation... the second feeling, anxiety for project management.
I think I need some time to continue exploring and cleaning up my skills with all of these new forms of media before inviting another teacher to ride the wave with me. Although, this fascinating project provides the map for traveling along the same route.
After reading about the award Sanders and Pavelski won, I was inspired however. This is one way a teacher librarian can keep their job interesting. I'm a competitor even though that wouldn't be the purpose, one out to win awards, but I think now knowing there are awards like that out there - I will have more intention behind my planning and collaboration with my colleagues.
I am still in awe at all of the ways they were able to make this project cross-curricular. I don't think most of us truly understand cross curricular work until being able to read about an extensive project of this nature.
One other area that I appreciated was the way students were evaluated... I think it was Abrams who talked in his Digital Photography Webinar about students learning more from the process than what the product was worth as well as doing more writing as a result of the process (rather than just writing traditionally); therefore, he was encouraging teachers to evaluate the value of their process rather than the shine of their product. I agree!
My first Podcasting experience was fun and it came somewhat naturally. I felt like it was something I have done before even though I have never messed with MP3's much nor have I recorded my voice (which my speaking voice I really do not like; however, I do appreciate one of my classmate's kudos on the speaking voice... maybe it's just my own personal interpretation of my voice - somewhat like when we look in the mirror and some days it's like we're standing in front of a circus mirror that alters your reflection drastically!) The creativity part is what I really enjoy - I'm artistic and musical and this takes away some of the thinking and planning that sometimes hold other up.
Furthermore, I was lucky in class as everything went smoothly from recording to uploading to working without a hitch whereas many of my classmates had to take an extra step or ran into other obstacles that required a learning curve. I thank my graphic design school for making me a Mac person... I have very few troubles with the Mac. It seemed that mostly PCs were having troubles.
Needless to say, I'm looking forward to future podcasts and I'm betting that somewhere along the line, I will have to take an alternate path to get around a technology obstacle because... that's just the way it is.
This article was so exciting to me since I am the epitome of visual learners. I love exploring and responding to graphics... I often analyze deeper than necessary and have people around me saying, "I think you've done/said more than necessary..." or "I didn't see THAT?" ... as I continue to question the contents.
I appreciated the steps she provided... it's nice when authors include instructional methods with theory. I am starting to feel like I am creating a collection of resources to share with my colleagues when they ask me questions!
I am also realizing the lack of opportunities I give my own students to respond to visual images, which is strange considering this is the foundation for my learning style.
I had not thought of credibility in terms of photo literacy before now. This is very eye opening to me realizing how a photographer can be just as biased as a story teller, writer, news broadcaster, teacher, etc... anyone who is trying to CONVINCE or PERSUADE others of something whether the purpose is intentional or subliminal. In addition to this Abilock mentioned "A photographer is always tempted to arrange a scene for symbolic, aesthetic, or dramatic reasons." It just hit me again that we all do this whether we are trying to portray our family in the most positive light or just as writers or movie producers do to capture the audience's attention...
I think using visuals to start a lesson on ethics and credibility in the writing classroom would be motivating to students. They would essentially be getting two for one and I'm betting that the learning would be enhanced with greater success as compared to the traditional methods.
