Author Archives: Phil

Concluding Reflections

I wanted to take a moment to thank you for all your good work this semester. I’ve enjoyed reading, and of course engaging in 🙂 the many thought-provoking, respectful discussions that you all have raised regarding the wide spectrum of questions and issues raised by these emerging learning technologies. I’ve also witnessed some inspiring creativity in your podcasts, design blueprints, and tool reviews. Bravo! I’ve also been impressed by your enthusiasm for experimenting with these new technologies. To be sure, whenever trying new tools and approaches, it can sometimes cause a bit of stress, anxiety, or general frustration, but of course, all this tends to get counter-balanced when we experience those rejuvenating “a-ha” moments and sense new opportunities for applying this in whatever context we happen to be working in (Right? 😉 ) . So hopefully, you’ve developed some ideas, or the seeds for some initial ideas that you can take with you.

Enjoy the rest of your summer and best of luck in all your future endeavors!

Week 12

Welcome to Week 12! Well, we’re coming down the home stretch of the course and for this week you have your last major project, namely the video project in which you convey your learning philosophy in video/multimedia form. Part of the video should include and describe how your learning philosophy has evolved since the beginning of the course. The other thing you need to do for this week is share your thoughts impressions on the Design Blueprints of the groups you weren’t involved in.

  • Reading: n/a
  • Blog post: n/a
  • Video: Learning Philosophy 2.0
  • Peer feedback on Design Blueprint

If you have any questions, let me know. Have a good week!

Week 11

Welcome to Week 11! This week we’re going to look at some of what has been written on youth networks.

  • Reading: Brennan, et al. Making projects, making friends; Recuero, Brazil: Kids using digital media to teach each other; Zywica, et al. Affordances of a scaffolded-social learning network
  • Blog post + two comments

Note: Since some you have requested more time to work on the Design Blueprints, I have moved back the peer feedback phase to Week 12. If you have any questions, let me know. Have a good week!

Week 10

Welcome to Week 10! Here’s what we’ve got coming up for this week.

  • Reading – Young, Badges earned online; Richardson, Personal Learning Networks; HASTAC, Badges for lifelong learning
  • Blog post + two comments
  • Diigo: comment on Young or Richardson
  • Design Blueprint

If you have any questions, let me know. Have a good week!

Week 8

calendar

Welcome to Week 8! Here’s what we’ve got coming up for this week.

  • Reading: Dede, Seismic shift in epistemology; Siemens’ Connectivism
  • Blog post + two comments
  • Group Blog Leader/Curator: Group 1-Jordan; Group 3-Karen

As always, if you have any questions, let me know. Have a good week!

Will Richardson Video

Here’s a TEDx video by Will Ricahrdson, one of our authors from last week, in which he shares a couple examples of young people benefitting from learning networks that exist beyond their formal classroom environments. (If you’re not familiar with TED talks, they’re essentially short poignant talks about complex, challenging issues. You can learn more about them here.) He uses this as a springboard for sharing his perceptions of how he sees the changing roles of teachers and the difference between learning and test prep (e.g., high stakes testing). Probably one of the most compelling points in his talk is when he points to the difficulty associated with adapting to this changing educational environment because this is the system that we have had for the last 100+ years and therefore, the system that most parents and teachers have known growing up. Thoughts? What about his talk resonates with you the most?

Week 7

Welcome to Week 7! Here’s what we’ve got coming up for this week.

  • Project – Tech Tool Review

  • Reading – Richardson & Mancabelli; danah boyd
  • Blog post – e.g., Reactions to RM’s definition of Learning Networks or New Literacies (see also Angel>Week 7 Lesson page for other possible ideas)
  • Blog comments

We will do the Technology Tool Review in our course wiki. As you will see after logging in, it has both an individual and collaborative component. Essentially for the individual phase, you find five tools that you think would be most helpful towards supporting teaching and learning processes in your classroom or learning environment, and for the collaborative phase, you work with your blogging team to select two of the most promising tools among all of those identified by your group members.

Week 6

Welcome to Week 6! Here’s what we’ve got coming up for this week.

  • Reading: Davis; Schweder & Wissick; McCrea
  • Blog post: (see Lessons>Week 6 in Angel for suggested questions or topics to consider)
  • Blog comments: comment on at least two other students’ posts

While I’m on the subject of wikis, please be sure to navigate over to our course wiki to make sure that you can login. If you can’t, please email me asap. While you’re there, I highly encourage you to play around with it – e.g., create new pages, add content, revise, etc. so you’re familiar with it once you start using it for projects directly related to the course.

As always, if you have any questions, let me know.

Friendly Reminder: Week 5

Welcome to Week 5! Here’s what we’ve got coming up for this week.

  • Reading: Balsley, Ten good reasons to start a blog; Bartholomew, et al., Educational blog management
  • Blog post (see Lessons>Week 5 in Angel for suggested questions or topics to consider
  • Blog comments: comment on at least two other students’ posts
  • Group Blog Leaders/Curators: Cheryl (Group 1); Erika (Group 2); Eun Sung (Group 3)
  • Podcast: interview with a teacher or learning professional about her or his experiences using technology in the classroom, training session, workshop, etc.

I’ve also posted some tips and tutorials on podcasting in the resources section of our class wiki, especially as it relates to two commonly used tools, namely Audacity and GarageBand. Feel free to add any that you think others might find helpful.