And just what does she mean by cite external sources? And other final paper concerns.....

I am seeing a lot of action around final paper work. This is a great sign that most of the papers are now in progress and I am pleased about this.

Several students have asked about citing outside sources and what is acceptable. Since this is a paper for teachers, I am not looking for extensive literature reviews. I am looking to see that you have knowledge of what others are doing in your topic area. Thus, if you are writing on implementing Moodle in your school, you would want to check out what other K-12 schools are doing with Moodle. Your sources will probably be from the web and will be based on practical experience and they will broaden the effect of your paper. Web citations are fine for this assignment. My interest is that you show an awareness of the work of others around your topic---a typical 505 final paper might have 2-6 references. Use APA format for the references---Evrim's paper illustrates this format.

Evrim's paper seems to have created some anxiety-----her paper was beyond expectations for 505 and she has continued to work on it for publication. A typical 505 paper is 8-12 double spaced pages and can't be much longer for publication in most practitioners' journals.

I remain available to read your drafts, if you wish. You can email your draft to me and I will try to comment asap.

I will work to keep up with the outlines as they are turned in this week and to make sure your idea is on the right track.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

A full night with Web 2.0 and Social Networking technologies and Missing Dr. Thompson

We had a very informative and fun class last night. I was very nervous at the beginning, missing Dr. Thompson in the class, I wasn't sure how the night was going to move but I think it turned out to be an interesting night. Now when I listened the recording from the class, because it was a full night with the guests and different presentations, I noticed that I didn't give enough time for answers after I asked questions to the class. This is something I need to learn and practice as a teacher.

At the beginning, we clarified the assignment due dates. We gave one more week for wiki and paper outline assignments. You can also resubmit the assignments you already submitted by sending an e-mail to Dr. Thompson and I. We also talked about couple examples for the final paper outlines and wiki assignment. I understand, finding a topic and coming up with an outline for the final papers have always been the most challenging tasks. However I think this phase is the most rewarding one, as you are searching for different directions and covering variety of resources. Working on an outline is a good practice as it helps you to progress in a more organized way.

After clarifying housekeeping issues, our two guest speakers of the night, Aliye and Quinn, talked about their experiences on using web 2.0 and social networking technologies in their own teaching settings. I enjoyed Aliye's presentation because I believe that Ning has a lot to offer to educators who are interested in using a social networking platform in their classes. Her points on the pros and cons of the system were also very helpful and eye opening. Quinn's presentation was a perfect follow up after the Ning discussion. I personally enjoyed and learned a lot of things from his presentation: "Against the LMS, Why (and How) You Should Abandon Your Learning Management System". His points were provocative. He helped us to think about the limitations of the current systems and search for other alternatives that might open new ways for interaction and collaboration in our educational settings. I think in this class we do not prefer the comfort of "walled gardens" but searching more possibilities out in "wild prairies" and trying to use technology in a critical way. Using facebook, blogger and webct was a decision we made at the beginning for the purpose of experiencing the challenges, limitations and affordances of these technologies for our educational purposes. Therefore Quinn's question "How can we develop systems that are pedagogically sound, technologically innovative, and sustainable?" is something we always need to ask to ourselves. I think this aligns well with the TPACK idea. Quinn later shared some examples from his classes and I was intrigued by the idea of using delicious as a social networking and collaboration tool in the classes.

After Quinn's presentation,Kaye did her resource review on Skyp, one of my favorite technologies. Her examples on the use of skyp in their classes were interesting. Ni's presentation on quizmakers were also interesting. I particularly liked the handout she prepared which included the online quizmaker sites and their features. We ended the night with my presentation on social networking. I wanted to point out some critical issues related to social networking use in the classes especially privacy, security and copywriting issues. Yesterday night was full of presentations, but I think all of them were very educating and inspiring.

Once I start writing this blog post, I can't stop myself. It is a nice way of reflecting on class experiences as a teacher.

Hope to see you all online this week.

Sara and Tammy Podcast

Rebecca and Cennet Podcast

Laurel and Amanda Podcast

Kaye and Bridget Podcast

Jon and Ni Podcast

Dave and Teresa Podcast

Ashley and Carmen's Podcast

Final papers, flexbooks, wikis and missing Evrim!

We began Part II of our class tonight as we are now focusing on the final papers for the class. We assigned partners or threesomes for working together on these papers: Carmen and Sara, Amanda and Molly, Laurel and Rebecca, Ashley and Tammy, Kaye and Bridget and Julie, Teresa and Cenet and Ni. And Jon will be seeking help from peers as needed. This next week the groups will provide feedback to each other for their emerging outlines (due Nov. 10).

Laurel reviewed a program called Flexbooks which provided a good transition for our evening's work with wikis.

We are all hoping Evrim is feeling better soon and we definitely missed her tonight. The only good thing about having Evrim gone is that it forced me to be a bit better prepared to use the technology, and I think this is a good thing for me. And thanks to Carmen for taking the pictures tonight!

We ended our evening together by viewing Sara's digital story, a beautifully prepared story of becoming a big sister told through the voice of Sara's three year old. The point of view, scripting and images in the story were outstanding.

Next week, Evrim will be working with social networking and I will get to listen to the podcast from Bahrain.!

Lena + Midterm!

Molly reviewed an interesting program called Language Environment Analysis from the LENA Foundation, a program that is designed to capture very young children's language environments. Her description of the program was exceptionally clear and well-organized and introduced the class to an innovative technology use for young children.

We spent the rest of the evening taking the midterm quiz---three questions asking students to integrate theory and practice for classroom technology use.

For this week, students will begin to think about the topic for their final paper and post their idea(s) for the paper on our wall in Facebook. Each student will also comment on one or two of their colleagues' ideas.

A Rather Eclectic Evening........

Our face to face reunion after two weeks online featured a variety of activities: digital story awards, midterm review ideas, Stefan and the Promethean Board, Board Maker from David, and the creation of podcasts. The thread that connects all these activities may involve teaching for understanding, metacognition, creating learning environments that include learner, knowledge, assessment and community centeredness, constructivism and even TPACK. Each of our evening's activities could be analyzed using these big ideas......

I enjoyed the creativity and enthusiasm that students brought to the podcasting activity. Given that we were all at the end of a long day, it would have been easy for students to say, "You want us to do What in 10 minutes?" Instead, each duo created an interesting, informative and fun interview. I thought that Evrim's idea of introducing Garage Band after students had their initial podcast recordings worked well. Be sure to listen to your colleagues creations.

Nest week is midterm week. The midterm will include three questions that will ask students to bring together the learning theory and technology applications that have characterized the course. Chapter 9 in Bransford will be useful in thinking about categories of technology use as they relate to learning theory. Students should also review big ideas from Papert, Facebook posts, WebCT discussions and work to tie together big ideas from the class. Evrim and I are available for questions as you review and I will place a review question on Facebook.

Both Evrim and I are enjoying 505 this semester. We have a lively, intelligent group of students who embrace innovation and some of the ambiguity that goes along with innovation in education. The diversity of backgrounds in our 505 community also adds to the learning in the class.

We are Moving Online......

We will be trying our first online experience for class next week, with students participating in two discussions: podcasts and technology supported learning environments. I am also hoping that students will share "delicious" pieces of the readings on our Facebook page. Taken together, all of these activities will help prepare and review for the midterm on Oct. 27. The midterm will focus upon integrating the course readings and the course technology activities.

We viewed some effective and powerful digital stories in class this week and each story provided new insights into the experiences that class members bring to our community. We are asking all students to view and evaluate the remaining digital stories (Dave, Sarah and Julia) online as part of our online week.

Bridget provided a useful overview of resources offered by Adobe and a comprehensive list of Adobe products for different educational levels.

Using the "setup" from Julia's resource review on podcasting from a few weeks back, Evrim introduced the idea of podcast and provided ideas for how to search for podcasts for next week.

I am eager to see how our online adventures turn out over the next couple weeks.

A New Challenge: Digital Stores

Our topics for the evening included sorting out our social networking sites (Facebook, Class Blog and WebCT), Julia's resource review introducing podcasting, and an introduction to digital story telling in education. Looking at these topics together, out focus upon creating interactive, authentic learning environments for students is quite clear, even if the topics may seem somewhat disparate. In one sense, the video that Evrim shared about digital kids provides a connector for our evening's activities.

For the second time (Rebecca's review on blogging was the first time), the student resource review introduced a topic that we will soon be exploring in the class. Julia provided a thorough introduction to using podcasts in education and provided some useful resources.

Once again, we shared a topic (digital images) with 501 this week, and I imagine that the difference in approach to a similar application in the two courses is clear. Our emphasis in 505 is on the learning and teaching applications of the technology and thus our work with digital story telling. Most of our students should have taken 501 previously, and I am interested in student feedback on the issue of overlap in the two courses.

Evrim's introduction to iMovie was clear and well-sequenced, and I think having Raidel there to help with individual questions helped. I like the idea of beginning with the story boarding ideas and then moving to the images and Imovie. Next week's lab will provide more detailed iMovie capabilities and we will use Raidel once again. Raidel is one of our undergraduate teacher education students who has developed a strong expertise in technology, and I also like to have 505 class members see some of the work we are doing to educate new teachers who bring technology expertise to the classroom. I may ask Raidel to talk a little about her undergraduate technology experiences next week.

With the exception of one student who was ill last week, all students turned in their blogging assignments successfully in WebCT! A few students still need to work on making the goals of their assignments clear----in general, I do not see technology expertise as a goal for these assignments as I am more interesting in having students design methods to use the affordances of the technology to improve student content learning.

I need to make sure that all students have an opportunity to participate in our class discussions. We will continue to use small groups to help us work toward this goal and I also appreciate other suggestions for making this happen.

Blogs, Facebook, WebCT: An overkill?

I need to begin my weekly post by saying that I am really enjoying this 505 class. We have a diverse mix of students: classroom teachers, psychologists, a variety of subject matter experts, technology specialists and more. The various areas of expertise seem to be coming together in interesting ways as we create knowledge about technology and human learning together. With this particular group, I was certain than I was the one who has the mistake about the commenting on the blog assignment and I was right!

Our evening began with discussions on transfer of learning and then we ventured into virtual reality environments in schools (thanks to Teresa) and using technology to support the teaching of writing. "Evrim's" webspiration is a powerful concept mapping tool and the class produced some interesting products in the few minutes we spent on the Life in Iowa concept map.

We discussed our use of Facebook in the class and my sense was that most students are positive about this environment and feel quite comfortable in Facebook. And I learned how to stop the chat function---thanks! We do have three Web environments currently active for 505 (Facebook, WebCT, and the class blog) and I am interested in students' reactions and suggestions for dealing with these three environments.

Let the Blogging Begin!

Our major topic for the evening, blogging in the classroom, is well-connected with our discussions of Web 2.0, metacognition and constructivism. I did not feel, however, that I transitioned from the discussions into blogging very effectively. I immediately moved to the "how to" and the assignment for next week without relating this work to the earlier part of the evening. I will work on addressing this mistake next week.

Once again, the student resource presentation was a highlight of our evening. Ashley presented a very complete and thoughtful description of the use of clickers in the classroom, complete with some useful resource references. Now Evrim and I will work to create a lesson that uses the clickers in a discussion format in our class,

Building on Rebecca's presentation from last week, Evrim shared information about possible blogging sites (Blogger, Word Press, Edublogs, Blogmeister and Epals. It will be fun to see which sites are used in the assignment for next week.

After a quick glance, I am impressed with the Logo assignments----mind-sized bites and all!

Blogger does not seem to want me to upload images right now---so images from our evening together will follow. Note: Blogger did let me upload my pictures this afternoon, but I decided to keep this comment in my blog in case any of you have problems loading pictures in Blogger. My experience with this issue is that waiting a few hours seems to solve the problem!

A Song, Wordle, Blogging and Logo!

We began our evening with a song from YouTube entitled "Teachers Must Become Learners" (or something similar!) and then moved into a variety of activities. Our reading discussion groups started a little slow (at least mine did), but students warmed up as the discussion progressed. We used Woordle to summarize the discussions and ended up with some interesting featured words to explain. Rebecca began our resource reviews with a very complete and well-organized presentation on her use of blogging in her teaching. I am always pleased when the first resource review is strong as it creates a good model for others in the class. Thanks, Rebecca! Although we did not see Rebecca's examples, they will be available for viewing this week and Evrim and I will use them in class next week. Our Logo time was slightly rushed, but students seemed to connect with the powerful ideas of procedure and super-procedures. Evrim has posted the Logo resources on Facebook for students who want to do their assignments at home. Students using the free resources will need to copy their procedures and super-procedure into a word file and either copy their project graphic or sketch it. The projects (procedures and graphic) will be turned in as hard copy next week. All in all, I think we are off to a good start and I look forward to feedback from students.

Our First Night Together!

We successfully completed our first class together and I hope that the purpose, topics and procedures in the class are clear to all. I don't like all the talking (from me) on the first night, but I also want to be sure that expectations for the course are clear to all. There may be a way to do this without the talking---but I haven't found this way yet.
Our group is enthusiastic, diverse and each class member will bring different experiences to our work together. I am very pleased with the composition and chemistry of the class.
Rebecca will do our first resource review next week. I am pleased that we will be starting these reviews so soon.
And I am hoping Facebook will help me in my quest to learn everyone's name!