Ok, so I can't really say I have a lot to add that will be efficient for the group so I'm not even going to pretend like I can. I've had some issues in my personal life that have added road blocks that have prevented me from staying up to date with my work. I am working as hard as I can to find the time necessary to get caught up and back up to speed but that is tough in it's own right given the time constraints of my full time job.
I will say, that in looking at this weeks work, it certainly looks interesting. I won't lie and say that it looks in any way shape or form easy but it does look valuable at least. I'm looking forward to finally getting my Animoto account and getting that completed and really looking forward to delving into Prezi. The Pecha Kucha doesn't necessarily excite me in the same way as the others but I'm hoping that as I get into the storyboarding it will review a greater efficiency for me.
At some point, I will actually be caught up and will be able to provide the rest of the group with the inferences and insights that you all so deserve but until then, I apologize. So without further ado, I'm off to regain my place along that path to realingment so so-long to you all for now.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
CEDO 530 Week 3
It has been a hectic week so far but now that the wife's surgery is over and all turned out OK I'm looking forward to things getting back to some normalcy and getting some time to work on not only this weeks assignments but a couple that I was not able to get to last week. I can't wait to get caught back up and back on task because I can't stand being behind in anything.
With that being said, I took a little time to look at the animoto site and I have to say I love the possibilities. I'm always looking for ways to pimp my classes and my softball program and I see great things ahead for the use of this program. I think this will allow me to put together an awesome highlight video of both my classes and my softball program and link them to our websites. If the students see that I will highlight their work in an intriguing way I think they will be way more apt to take my classes. In addition, my girls have accomplished so much in our program and work so hard that I think it will be a nice treat for them to get to view some of their highlights in a fun fashion.
I also loved the pecha kucha video as this is something I really need to work on in my own presentations. I really need to limit my slides and the amount of intormation on each slide and I hope in delving deaper into this site I will improve my own presentations. It was also nice to finally learn how to accurately pronounce this name but I too have to agree with one of the responses on the video that this video truly does demonstrate just how important it is to have your slides match what you are talking about. If your timing is off it throws everything out of whack and makes what ever you wanted to get across become secondary because it totally throws the veiwer out of kilter.
With that being said, I took a little time to look at the animoto site and I have to say I love the possibilities. I'm always looking for ways to pimp my classes and my softball program and I see great things ahead for the use of this program. I think this will allow me to put together an awesome highlight video of both my classes and my softball program and link them to our websites. If the students see that I will highlight their work in an intriguing way I think they will be way more apt to take my classes. In addition, my girls have accomplished so much in our program and work so hard that I think it will be a nice treat for them to get to view some of their highlights in a fun fashion.
I also loved the pecha kucha video as this is something I really need to work on in my own presentations. I really need to limit my slides and the amount of intormation on each slide and I hope in delving deaper into this site I will improve my own presentations. It was also nice to finally learn how to accurately pronounce this name but I too have to agree with one of the responses on the video that this video truly does demonstrate just how important it is to have your slides match what you are talking about. If your timing is off it throws everything out of whack and makes what ever you wanted to get across become secondary because it totally throws the veiwer out of kilter.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
CEDO 530 Week 2
Well I am definately one of those people that are not very creative. I'm fine as long as I have some framework to work with, then I will run all day long as far as creativity goes but when asked to just begin creating something, I am terrible. I'm pretty positive that I have adult on-set ADHD and when asked to start searching my brain for something creative it becomes a real ugly sight real quickly. My brain goes in about 100 different directions all at once and nothing of substance comes out.
Because of this issue, I hope that this weeks work will help me better organize my creativity and utilize my random thoughts to create ideas rather than create chaos. In addition, I am definately looking forward to reading and reviewing the six key principles as I am absolutely terrible with the powerpoints. It is not going to be about me determining which one I'm bad at and correcting that but more so determining if I do anything right that I don't have to correct.
In all this weeks work should provide me with a lot of assistance towards becoming a better instructor so I look forward to finding some time to get it accomplished.
Because of this issue, I hope that this weeks work will help me better organize my creativity and utilize my random thoughts to create ideas rather than create chaos. In addition, I am definately looking forward to reading and reviewing the six key principles as I am absolutely terrible with the powerpoints. It is not going to be about me determining which one I'm bad at and correcting that but more so determining if I do anything right that I don't have to correct.
In all this weeks work should provide me with a lot of assistance towards becoming a better instructor so I look forward to finding some time to get it accomplished.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
CEDO 530 - Week One
What a week! Ok so not so much for my masters work but otherwise it was exceptional. I spent the week in Green Bay learning advanced usage of Solidworks, ArchiCad, Google Sketchup Pro and a little A+Cad. The downer of the week was the 790 question, 5 hour test on Friday for ADDA certification. I actually spent 16 hours studying for this test. If I don't pass I'll be pissed.
The beauty of the week was that I got to see what a school is capable of when it has stupid money. Bay Port High School is a gorgeous school with loads of beautiful toys to play with. What most other schools can only dream of, they had. The sad part was that much of it was not used to the extent in which it should have been. That is a story best left for another day though.
As for the work we will be doing and have done. I'm not good at presentations and have actually spent a lot of my career so far avoiding them and finding ways in which I am good at to present information to my students. I have seen how effective quality presentations can be and have always been envious of people who were able to create quality presentations. It is my supreme hope and desire that with the teachings of this class that I will be able to at least get into the serviceable range and can then continue to learn and improve to the point where someday I will actually consider myself good at these. The scary part is that by the time I'm good at these they will likely be outdated and it won't matter anyways.
I think that the idea of Presentation Zen is a great idea and it is a method by which I can logically make sense of the instruction and apply it to my own presentations. I am excited to delve into this curriculum and become a true "Zen" like presentor. In addition, I have often heard of people completing the picture a day task and have often thought about how I wished I would be better at taking pictures as it is always neat to look back and see where I had been over the last month. I'm always so busy that it is easy for me to forget what I did and when I did it and pictures are such a great way of adding a visual stimuli that will spur those memories. I look forward to the conclussion of this task and looking back at not only what I've done over the last month but also to look back and see my growth as a photographer over that span.
The beauty of the week was that I got to see what a school is capable of when it has stupid money. Bay Port High School is a gorgeous school with loads of beautiful toys to play with. What most other schools can only dream of, they had. The sad part was that much of it was not used to the extent in which it should have been. That is a story best left for another day though.
As for the work we will be doing and have done. I'm not good at presentations and have actually spent a lot of my career so far avoiding them and finding ways in which I am good at to present information to my students. I have seen how effective quality presentations can be and have always been envious of people who were able to create quality presentations. It is my supreme hope and desire that with the teachings of this class that I will be able to at least get into the serviceable range and can then continue to learn and improve to the point where someday I will actually consider myself good at these. The scary part is that by the time I'm good at these they will likely be outdated and it won't matter anyways.
I think that the idea of Presentation Zen is a great idea and it is a method by which I can logically make sense of the instruction and apply it to my own presentations. I am excited to delve into this curriculum and become a true "Zen" like presentor. In addition, I have often heard of people completing the picture a day task and have often thought about how I wished I would be better at taking pictures as it is always neat to look back and see where I had been over the last month. I'm always so busy that it is easy for me to forget what I did and when I did it and pictures are such a great way of adding a visual stimuli that will spur those memories. I look forward to the conclussion of this task and looking back at not only what I've done over the last month but also to look back and see my growth as a photographer over that span.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
CEDO 525 Week 6
I have to admit that I was relatively surprised to see that I actually did a lot of the strategies we've discussed in this class in the lesson I reviewed. I am not someone who has spent a lot of time focusing on applying given strategies to my curriculum but rather focused on just trying to do what I thought was right and would work. The two areas I felt I was really lacking though were reinforcing effort and utilizing advanced organizers. I think that by providing my students with advanced organizers and implementing them into my lesson will keep the students excited to begin the lesson and create a smoother transition into the project. I'm a firm believer that how a student starts an assignment sets the tone for how the project will go and what better way to start the assignment than by modeling organization and efficiency. In addition, I currently put only a little emphasis on effort but I can see after reviewing this lesson that I need to do a lot more of this. I will create a rubric specifically for rewarding effort and will emplement a blog where I will ask the students to post twice/week on what they have done on the project as well as what their partners have done. I think that not only will I get an idea of any extra-curricular work, but this will also allow the parents to see what the students are doing in class and out. In the long run, these two additions will make my students maintain a strong interest in this assignment and will hopefully generate higher quality projects.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
CEDO 525 Week three
In this week we were asked to review several sites containing note taking and data documentation tools or organizers. We had a list of Bubbl.us, CMAP, Inspiration or Kidspiration, Education Oasis, and Explora Tree. I chose to review Bubbl.us, Inspiration, and Education Oasis.
The first I reviewed was Bubbl.us as this was the first on the list. I thought that Bubbl.us was a neat tool to use and it was visually pleasing. I thought the commands and tools were very easy to use and the procedure certainly lended itself to focusing on learning and organizing the information provided versus learning the software itself. I think the less time a student needs to spend learning the software, the more time they can spend learning the curriculum. I can see how using this mapping feature would help students organize the information in a manner that is meaningful to them and that is what we are all striving for. I did not necessarily like the fact that it was pretty much solely a mapping program were as some of the other programs I reviewed had some additional possibilities as well but we will get to that in those reviews.
The second tool I reviewed was Inspiration. I had been hearing of people using Inspiration but had never actually used it myself. I signed up for a free trial and after finally getting it loaded, I was off and running through the beginning tutorials. This was an extremely easy program to use and very visually appealing. I thought the pictures included were awesome and I could see where students would really enjoy making maps using this program. I also liked the ease of use in creating these maps and the quick learning curve that went along with this software. In addition to the maps, I really liked the fact that you could also use the software to create outlines. I think that this additional feature seperates this program from Bubbl.us and therefore I would use this program before using that.
The final tool I reviewed was Education Oasis. This program wasn't nearly as visually appealing as either of the previous two programs I reviewed, however, what it lacks in aesthetics, I felt it more than made up for in functionality. I really liked the idea that you could select from a wide array of map templates, documentation templates, and data collection templates. I think this provides the instructor with some great tools to administer to the students for procurring information and assisting in the retention of that information. I didn't necessarily like the fact that these templates were done in a non-writable pdf format which requires printing them off to utilize them, however, I think I could copy the image and create a writeable format from these documents and then paste them into my shared folder where the students could digitally complete these documents and then store them in their own folders. I think that this would greatly enhance the students ability to stay organized as well as be able to rapidly recall the information when needed.
In all, I think a combination of Inspiration and Education Oasis would be very beneficial to bring into the classroom. I have always been a big proponent of taking the extra time to provide students with a means of organizing their information as I think in the long run, the organization makes what I do more effective and it saves time over the long haul.
The first I reviewed was Bubbl.us as this was the first on the list. I thought that Bubbl.us was a neat tool to use and it was visually pleasing. I thought the commands and tools were very easy to use and the procedure certainly lended itself to focusing on learning and organizing the information provided versus learning the software itself. I think the less time a student needs to spend learning the software, the more time they can spend learning the curriculum. I can see how using this mapping feature would help students organize the information in a manner that is meaningful to them and that is what we are all striving for. I did not necessarily like the fact that it was pretty much solely a mapping program were as some of the other programs I reviewed had some additional possibilities as well but we will get to that in those reviews.
The second tool I reviewed was Inspiration. I had been hearing of people using Inspiration but had never actually used it myself. I signed up for a free trial and after finally getting it loaded, I was off and running through the beginning tutorials. This was an extremely easy program to use and very visually appealing. I thought the pictures included were awesome and I could see where students would really enjoy making maps using this program. I also liked the ease of use in creating these maps and the quick learning curve that went along with this software. In addition to the maps, I really liked the fact that you could also use the software to create outlines. I think that this additional feature seperates this program from Bubbl.us and therefore I would use this program before using that.
The final tool I reviewed was Education Oasis. This program wasn't nearly as visually appealing as either of the previous two programs I reviewed, however, what it lacks in aesthetics, I felt it more than made up for in functionality. I really liked the idea that you could select from a wide array of map templates, documentation templates, and data collection templates. I think this provides the instructor with some great tools to administer to the students for procurring information and assisting in the retention of that information. I didn't necessarily like the fact that these templates were done in a non-writable pdf format which requires printing them off to utilize them, however, I think I could copy the image and create a writeable format from these documents and then paste them into my shared folder where the students could digitally complete these documents and then store them in their own folders. I think that this would greatly enhance the students ability to stay organized as well as be able to rapidly recall the information when needed.
In all, I think a combination of Inspiration and Education Oasis would be very beneficial to bring into the classroom. I have always been a big proponent of taking the extra time to provide students with a means of organizing their information as I think in the long run, the organization makes what I do more effective and it saves time over the long haul.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
CEDO 525 Week Two
I thought the article on feedback contained a lot of truths and a lot of very good information. I think our ability to provide feedback to our students is absolutely essential to their learning and the better we can do this, the better they will learn. I like the articles idea that positive feedback is critical, yet artificial responses aren't valuable either. I agree with this assertion full-heartedly. I am a firm believer that students know immediately when a teacher is being genuine or fake and they will lose respect for that teacher much quicker when they are giving false positve feedback than they would if that teacher was giving negative genuine feedback. It is my belief that a combination of positive feedback mixed with some cold hard facts feedback keeps the students on task and in tune to what you are trying to achieve while giving them the carrot in front of their nose that will keep them going and striving for better.
Though nice, I do not find the electronic forms of feedback to be sufficient for my curriculum. As an Architecture and Engineering teacher, so much of my work is done through drawings that I grade, critique and return to the students. How I control my feedback is by asking that all the students hand in their work through a digital dropbox. Once I have this in my dropbox, I then grade this online as this allows me to do so in a non-printable text so as not to destroy the students time and effort on the work. The students can then make the changes and print off their work for an improved grade. I've found that by offering the students a "second chance", they take the critique more seriously and trully attempt to internalize it which is what we all strive for. I guess to me, with these electronic programs, the feedback is too concrete and to final. I would like to use these some more and play around more to see how I could manipulate these to fit my style but for not I don't really see utilizing them much. In addition, I was not real pleased with Rubistar as it does not contain anything regarding technology curriculum.
Though nice, I do not find the electronic forms of feedback to be sufficient for my curriculum. As an Architecture and Engineering teacher, so much of my work is done through drawings that I grade, critique and return to the students. How I control my feedback is by asking that all the students hand in their work through a digital dropbox. Once I have this in my dropbox, I then grade this online as this allows me to do so in a non-printable text so as not to destroy the students time and effort on the work. The students can then make the changes and print off their work for an improved grade. I've found that by offering the students a "second chance", they take the critique more seriously and trully attempt to internalize it which is what we all strive for. I guess to me, with these electronic programs, the feedback is too concrete and to final. I would like to use these some more and play around more to see how I could manipulate these to fit my style but for not I don't really see utilizing them much. In addition, I was not real pleased with Rubistar as it does not contain anything regarding technology curriculum.
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