I initially made a number of many half-hearted attempts at blogging about seven years ago but didn’t seriously start using blogging tools until I was awarded an opportunity to become an online “community blogger” as “Curious David” for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It was during that year that I discovered the seminal technology tool dissemination work of my “virtual” mentor the indefatigable, never seems to sleep Jane Hart. Thank you, Jane, for your idealism, generosity, and persistence. I value your collegiality.
I was also blessed to have a supportive editor who gave me free license to explore Web tools and to write about whatever I cared to. Given freedom to explore I rediscovered the joys and challenges of writing. The following year I was given the opportunity to teach a semester-long course on Web learning tools to 25 Carroll (then) College freshmen. Blogging was one tool I introduced to them.
I have investigated the relative strengths and weaknesses of WordPress, TypePad, Edublogs, Blogger, and Tumblr. In part because of the beautiful and lucid book Teach Yourself Visually WordPress by Janet Majure —I find I prefer the printed copy to the Kindle version— I have decided to invest a good deal of time exploring what WordPress blogging tools allow me to do. WordPress.com itself provides so many rich learning resources.
As Suzanne Stefanac points out, some blogs are linkfests, others diaries, some serve as club houses, others as news rooms, still others as soapboxes. I blog when I feel I have something to say that might be of interest to others. I have an enduring interest in life-long learning and enjoy sharing what I learn. I have no particular interest in having a large number of followers, but do I cross-post to Linked-in, Twitter, and Facebook because those are venues that allow me to stay in touch with friends, former students, and people I learn so much from. I welcome comments and feedback. In the past few years I’ve corresponded with a large number of interesting individuals from acoss the world who have enriched my life and informed my teaching and learning.
Here are some topics I am thinking of exploring in the new future:
Time
Popularizing (psychological) science with integrity
Favorite Books–or bookmarks!
On the strangulating limits of (over) efficiency
Ten psychological findings that have impacted my life
Robin is counting the days until Christmas. Maybe an IPad Air is in her future? If so, she needs apps.
What Ipad Apps should all college and university students be familiar with? I posed that question to my student research team and here are the responses they shared with me on Google Drive.
What MUST-HAVE apps are they missing? Which apps in your experience are most useful for College/University students? What makes them useful to enhancing student success? Are these tools equally useful to faculty?
This semester has been especially challenging with my teaching three consecutive 70 minute courses three days a week. I have found it quite difficult to make a smooth transition from the past 35-years of teaching in 50 minute blocks. In the past I have often had an hour between classes for regrouping, reflection, meeting with students and gathering my thoughts. I have missed very much the usual abundance of in person quality time with my student assistants. whichg is vital to my happiness.
We have often had to coordinate their work efforts for me via electronic communication. I am most fortunate to have highly skilled, patient, playful student research assistants who can respond to a hurried, fly-by query from me “learn how to use Movenote and report back to me its potential value”with a quality response like this. Thank you for your most able and cheerful support!
My work day begins at 5:30 a.m. I confess that I check my email and assorted social media accounts (especially Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin) upon arising, far too many times across the course of the work day, and again before bed-time. Thursdays is my research day. There are so many technological learning enhancement tools that promise me increased efficiency and enhanced opportunity to collaborate. I notice that Jane Hart have created a slide-share presentation of technology learning trends. I review them to make sure that I am familiar with their promise. I visit Profhacker. I try and make a substantive, constructive contribution to the creative work that some of my fellow educators across the globe are involved in. I have a wonderful 45 minute Skype session with an international colleague. Sometimes I get the most done by avoiding the Internet the whole day. I want to avoid the life described in the clever infographic below.
Many thanks to student readers who have shared their thoughts about the technology learning tools from Jane Hart’s survey (identified as favorites by 500+ learning professionals from 48 countries worldwide). I found your responses thoughtful and helpful in informing my reflections about which tools to teach, which to further investigate, and which to use in my own personal learning plans. I found especially interesting your sharing which apps help you become a more effective learner. Keep those insights coming.
Continuing my ruminations from Part 1, I have mixed reactions about Tool #14, Wikipedia. I do use it as a starting point when I explore topics about which I know little. I am amazed at how current its articles often are. Moreover, I am intrigued by the Association for Psychological Science’s Wikipedia Inititiative to improve it. However, I can’t convince myself of its credibility nor can I motivate myself to dedicate time to joining others in making it better.
I have played with Prezi (Tool #15) as an alternative to PowerPoint, but find it too “jazzy” a presentation tool for my purposes. I can see how it might readily engage and entertain an audience youngerthan I ordinarily interact with. I have found Tool # 16 (Slideshare) more useful as a personal learning tool than as a teaching tool. I am fascinated with the potential of Tool # 99, Learnist.
I can’t image NOT using Tool # 17 (Word). Though I presently prefer blogging tool WordPress (Tool # 8) over Tumblr (Tool # 65), and Blogger (Tool #18) and Typepad , that is more a personal preference that has evolved over time. Here is a recent comparison of some of the elements of several blogging tools. And here are some “scoops” about technology learning tools as my top tool preferences evolve.
Which of these tools allude to above serve your learning needs best? Why? What tools like this do you use most often?
Time to revisit Jane Hart’s Top Learning Tools list (7th edition) and her invaluable, newly updated Practical Guide—well worth purchasing, studying and using. I regularly consult it, especially the web-based version, when I am interested in trying to find a “right” tool for the particular type of learning experience I am seeking for me or for my students. In concert with Michelle Pacansky-Brock’s Best Practices for Teaching with Emergency Technologies, Susan Manning and Kevin E. Johnson’s The Technology Toolbelt for Teaching, Steve Johnson’s Digital Tools for Teaching, and Alec Couros’ Becoming a Networked Learner, these resources have demonstrably changed how I teach, how I learn, and how I “reach out” to others via social media. Clearly, as Curtis J. Bonk has evangelized, my world has been opened and expanded. The challenge is to find balance between tool use and the tools controlling me. For a horrific example of such a dystopia I recommend your reading Dave Eggers novel The Circle.
Though I have explored every year each of the 100 learning tools, I have no “favorite” tool. Which tool I use most is very much a function of the learning/teaching task I am engaged in, the discretionary time I allow myself for being online, the audience I am working with, and the particular computer/operating system I am using. All these factors change very quickly.
This year I am using the #1 tool Twitter much less often than last year (when I was an active Carroll Technology Fellow) I could see my use of Twitter increasing suddenly if I decide upon it as a tool of choice for communicating with my newly acquired and rapidly increasing global fellow-teachers. Since English for them is their strategic language of choice, limiting communication to 140 characters or less makes some sense.
Because of an increased need for collaborative work with on campus committees, cross-national collaborations, and with my student research group and because across the course of a day I move between a desktop PC, a desk top Mac, a laptop PC, a laptop Mac, and IPads, I am now using to a greater degree Tool # 2 Google Docs/Drive . Without Google Docs or a similar sharing capacity I would be plagued by not remembering upon which machine I stored information needed to be shared.
Clearly my International colleagues (and my students) are more facile with the use of YouTube, Tool #3 and have much to teach me about its value (or lack of value) as a learning tool. Jane’s Practical Guide often includes YouTube links which I have found quite useful as an additional modality of learning how to use technology learning tools.
Tool # 4 Google search is my search engine of choice though I grossly under-use the sophisticated and nuanced search capabilities it provides.
I intentionally under use Tool # 5 PowerPoint (see the preceding link about the evils of PowerPoint!). Tool # 6, Evernote, is one I keep intending to master and yet, the Kindle book version about it and Quick Guides about it remain neglected pixels on my screens. I even am using some Skype-recording apps which can export into Evernote—and I have found a number of occasions where I need to use Skitch to annotate a web page . Maybe I need to read and heed this link.
I have the same usage problems with Tool # 7, Dropbox. I have it—it exists in the background of all my machines, but I have failed to devote the time to master it. So many tools; which ones deserve my time?
Tools # 8 (WordPress), # 9 Facebook, #12 (LinkedIn), and #13 (Skype) now play an integral role in my teaching, learning, promulgating, networking modus operandi. I’m still struggling with finding additional value from further investigating Tool # 10 Google+ and Hangouts (they just are too informal or duplicative in function with other tools) for my present perceived needs. I have ignored learning Tool # 11. Moodle since I find such LMS structures constraining
Help me out. Help me learn. Which of these tools have you used? What am I missing in discovering their utility for teaching and learning? Which would be most useful in advancing my interests in cross-national cross-generational teaching and learning?
Which develop skills that all global citizens should be familiar with?
One of the many joys of being a professor is being afforded many opportunities to learn and discovering new ways of learning and teaching. My Thursdays this semester are especially devoted to research, learning, and reflection. Among today’s learning activities I engaged in were
studying a successful Comenius grant kindly shared with me by a fellow teacher from Turkey. Thank you, present and former fellow teachers Inci Aslan (Turkey) and Irma Milevičiūtė (Lithuania)!
further exploration of the curating learning tool, scoop.it. Here is some background information I “scooped” today to better know Turkey.
having a simultaneous Skype sessions with three of my undergraduate students and a graduate student where we test the usefulness of two Skype recording applications Pamela and Callnote. Skype is becoming an increasingly useful teaching and tool for me.
rediscovering an old neglected audio recording “app” Tapedeck and finding that it worked with the new Mavericks operating system OSX 10.9 and seamlessly interfaces with YouTube and Itunes
providing feedback to a blog post of a teacher in Spain. I continue to learn so much from etwinning elementary and secondary school global colleagues who are far more adept than I in using learning technology
Last Tuesday I updated my MacBook Pro to MAC OSX 10.9 . Now I have the challenge of updating my far-too-many applications (I just received notice within the past five seconds of the need to update 8 of them!) . So much to learn…so little time. Yet what fun to have so many learning opportunities and new teachers of all ages and from all over the globe!
Perhaps it is my age. Perhaps it’s my approaching retirement. However, I like to think it is because of my values. I no longer yield to the increasing Carroll peer and institutional pressure (and financial incentives) to be on campus teaching, writing grants, doing research, and mentoring students over the summer. Summer for me is a time to be away from campus and from campus emails— a time for reflection, for recharging, for redirection, for play and for rejuvenation. I never stop learning (amusingly my Mac DayOne App just eerily intruded to ask what I learned today!).
I’ve hardly been academically or intellectually stagnant since I left campus in May. Among the books that I have enjoyed reading this summer are
Adam Johnson’s The Orphan Master’s Son
Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo
Ben Fontain’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
Khaled Hosseni’s The Kite Runner
Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life andher Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Connie Willis’s The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories
Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Unnatural Creatures: Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman
Marisha Pessl’s Night Film (thank you, Susan Gusho, for the treasured autographed copy!)
Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus
Robert Galbraith’s (aka J. K. Rowling) The Cuckoo’s Calling
I have written almost every day (blogging, developing international contacts, Twitter, Facebook, book reviews, manuscript reviews) though what I write and where I write seems not to be highly valued by my institution’s reward system. C’est la vie.
I continue to develop expertise to bring into the classroom technology learning tool applications (e.g. Ning, WordPress, Paper.li, Scoopit, and Animoto) based upon the path-breaking contributions of Jane Hart and others I have “met” virtually this past academic year and this summer. I have created a Sandbox for International Educators whom I have come to know and respect and experimented with BlogTalkRadio.
[An earlier version of this appeared in my Ning Sandbox for Global Educators and on my Mightybell.com account, which I shall be using in my classes.]
I am an experimental social psychologist by my graduate school training. Tonight I am in the process of preparing for my fall semester PSY303A “Experimental Social Psychology Class.” This year I am interested in giving it a more international/ global focus while at the same time preserving the course’s emphasis on the value in using the scientific method. I also want to imbue the course with technology learning tools that I have come to value.
I am entertaining beginning the class by having all students carefully read the article Coping with Chaos: How Disordered Contexts Promote Stereotyping and Discrimination
Science-2011-Stapel-251-3%20copy.pdf. After we have carefully studied the experimental design, elegance of the the thinking, data analysis, and conclusions and practical implications I will have the students read the full report of the investigation of Stapel’s fraudulent data collection here and his explanations of why he falsified data.
The challenge is how to avoid undermining students’ belief in the validity of psychological science while at the same time confronting the reality that science is a human endeavor. I found the Stapel malfeasance most disruptive to my own professional identity (and I am not alone.) How can I make that disruption a positive thing, especially for my students?
This course is designed to provide an interactive cultural immersion experience through the extensive use of Web 2.0 technology learning tools. The course emphasizes the significance of a cultural understanding in a technological and culturally connected world. Global connections provided will increase students’ understanding of European culture through studying social norms, history, and the impact of European culture and language on American political decisions. Drawing upon local and global resources students will interact with new cultures and practice world-wide communication.
Phoumany, Catrina, and AmyRyan, Liz, and Maxine
Ryan Waters:
When I first saw the e-mail sent from Carroll about developing a class using technology, my first reaction was receiving two credits along with a piece of technology. Soon after Dr. Simpson approving to be the teacher of this technology centered CCE immersion, the six of us started to brainstorm some ideas for the course. I clearly remember deciding Europe was the way to go because we tried to determine what would be the place most students from Carroll would like to visit? This was affirmed by Dr. Simpson showing us an article that most Americans still want to visit Europe more than other countries. This set in motion the course developing process and how we were going to go about giving a European immersion experience.
This pilot course has been a great blessing in which I have been able to learn so much more about our neighbors across the Atlantic, not only through research but also the interaction with the people who live there. I have been able to broaden my horizon on how the rest of the world lives their lives in comparison to how our American culture lives. This experience would not have been possible without not only technology, but also how to use technology to its full effectiveness. I learned so many new forms of technology tools through Dr. Simpson or Jane Hart’s Top 100 tools for technology. These tools have been extremely useful in creating and experiencing a European virtual immersion. Such tools have been translators and movie makers to help translating information in different languages as well as editing movies filmed on this iPad. I have also used tools that I was completely ignorant about before this class such as Haiku deck and how to use Google drive and Twitter to their full potential. The Ipad I received for creating the class has been a small learning experiencing within itself. I previously have had an IPhone 4 and 5, and have learned how to use Apple devices, except MacBooks those are still a work in progress. Although iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches are all very similar there are still some minor differences that I learned while using the iPad. These tips were learned through experience and fumbling along with reading a book about 100 iPad tricks which refreshed my memory on some of the great uses of the iPad.
Technology has become such an intertwined part of our culture that we sometimes forget how such tools are taken for granted. The ability for me to write this reflection on this iPad uses an operating system which is somewhat 7 years old on an app, Evernote, which allows information sharing through social media or e-mail. I await the new technology that will bring all cultures closer together in the near future, and hope to see where this course goes in the future. This semester truly has been a creative, fun, and humbling experience to how the world operates and how it is rapidly changing.
Phoumany Phouybanhdyt:
Through the course of this semester, I had the honor of creating a pilot CCE course with my fellow STEAM members. It was quite the journey. We had our ups and downs. We had times we laughed and times we were just plain frustrated. No matter what, we trucked through it all and did what we could. For a group that was fairly on the bigger end, I think we did a great job. I think, now, we are all ready to return to normal activities in Dr. Simpson’s office and are ready to wrap this up. Maybe an opportunity will pop up in the future for us in relation to this, but for now, here is what I learned this semester.
I think one of the key words of the semester was “technology”. We learned about various forms of technology and learned how to utilize them to our advantage. We discovered what worked and what did not. Through this all, I think we can all agree that the university truly wants to embrace technology and emerge it more on campus. But, the reality of it is that this school is not yet ready for the shift! We did not even have the appropriate adapter for the presentation. Several times a year, major Internet issues arise. Carroll still has a long way to go. Aside from this, I learned of new forms of presenting and other tools that I was not knowledgeable or really understood before. Because of this project, I definitely am a huge fan of Google Drive. It is one of the greatest things ever in forms of collaboration. Also, being more knowledgeable of Learnist and Haiku Deck, convinced me to possibly use these in the future.
The other big thing I learned is that creating a class is hard! In one sense we did not meet our expectations because I think we expected to have every single detailed figured out and everything would be great. In reality, it is not the case. These types of projects, we learned, are constantly a work in process. You are going to come across complications and areas that had a bit of improvement needed. For example, we would have fared better knowing more foreign contacts, but we settled with what we had. Whoever wishes to maybe take this on in the future would be better off than we were in this area. We had multiple discussions about how we could provide the framework for this class but whoever decided to use our idea, might not like half the things we prepared and would just alter it to what they want. So, moral of the story is, creating a class is hard! I suppose, one day I may be in the position of creating lesson plans and exams and such, but it requires a lot of work. Your expectations need to be reasonable. Also, being all full time students on top of it, we were busy balancing the rest of our lives this semester.
Overall, this was an enriching project and a tremendous learning experience about everything. I could not have asked for a better crew to share this with. I am incredibly proud of what we had accomplished this semester. I cannot wait to see what projects we have in store in my final year in Dr. Simpson’s Office. I think we all deserve a well- rested, enjoyable summer now!
Throughout the development of this course we have encountered many challenges or difficulties, discovered new tools, and learned how to collaborate and compromise collectively as a group. I think one of the key elements I did learn from this course (or creating it) was time management. Every week I needed to make sure I produce some work to add to the course and I had to continue doing research that could be useful for everyone in our group. I not only learned about time management while working on the project on my own, as a group we had to compromise and find a time that would work out best for everyone. Other than time management I got the chance to learn about a lot of new technology tools, some that I have heard of through looking at Jane Hart’s Top 100 Tools while others I had never heard of before. Tools such as Learnist, Haiku Deck, Ning, and Google Drive were very beneficial to this course. I think it was great to find key tools that would be the most effective to creating this course, but these tools can even be useful for me outside of this project. I have also learned more about the utility of the iPad and how much I can really do with it. Sure many people know that there are lots of applications that one can download, but it is also about spending the time to look into those applications. I found a lot of background information on Switzerland through applications that covered current news, history, and cultural norms. It was very helpful to learn that there are many different applications and iBooks available to give background information and history about something before I even got onto the Internet and did a Google Search. This just let me know that there are a number of ways to do research, besides the library and the Internet, right on the iPad.
While I was doing research on Switzerland I learned a lot of information about the history, currently news, and most importantly the Swiss culture. I personally do not know a lot about Europe at all, besides what I have learned from various history courses since I have been in school. It was interesting to focus more on the culture and be able to compare it to American culture. This course idea is to help get students immersed into another country’s culture and I feel that I learned a lot about the country, and other countries from other group members, by taking the time to research and by trying to connect with the country, their culture, and the people of that country.
Overall I have learned about many different technology tools that not only helped me while working to develop this course, but these are tools that I can use for personal use or on other school projects. I have learned much more about Europe, especially Switzerland. I also learned from the challenges we faced while developing this course and researching, such as conflicting ideas and determining which tools would be beneficial to use. From those challenges I learned to compromise with one another and to choose solutions that would be best for the overall group and project, because we can not use every tool or website we come across.
Amy Peterson:
The opportunity to design a cultural immersion experience through the use of technology tools was a completely unique and rewarding experience. I formed new connections with two alumnae, Amy Williams and Jenrette Nowacznski as well as Dr. Paul Rempe, an emeritus Professor of History and learned a great deal from these individuals. I was exposed to a variety of technology tools, including Google Docs, Ning, Learnist, Haiku Deck, Wikispaces, and became familiar with the use of these tools and learned the practical application in a course format. I have developed an improved set of research skills as well as interviewing abilities. I was fortunate enough to be a part of this project from the beginning and create a unique course for students in the future. Our work went beyond that of a typical classroom and I was able to interact closely with technology, my team and my contacts. I have learned a great deal about British history, social norms, and other aspects of culture like food and clothing as well as social etiquette. This course challenged me to think both critically and creatively to overcome potential obstacles and encourage students in the future to have as comparable travel experience to those who have the means or time to travel abroad. I have learned how to work closely in a team and collaborate. My team and I learned to help each other, to give support to ideas, work out problems together and above all, respect the contributions of all to create a multifaceted perspective on our project. Through this project, I have gained many skills with the support of my team and Dr. Simpson.
I was fortunate enough to speak with very well-travelled and well-versed individuals. I gained a great deal of insight through my many conversations with Amy Williams. She added a realistic perspective to the variety of information I was bombarded with via travel guides and videos like Rick Steve’s Best of Europe, BBC news and history, social etiquette guides, and other information on regional differences, clothing and food. I learned the difference between pubs and clubs, the practice of tipping, the social strength of afternoon tea, the effect of American influence, and even how English weather affects the daily lives of the people. Jenrette Nowcznski’s contributions further supported my understanding of British culture and social norms including the role of transportation and British style. Technology made these communications significantly easier and while we experienced problems with campus wide Wi-Fi, and adapters for our iPads, among others, they could be easily remedied by campus administrative support. Both as a team and individually, we were exposed to and later mastered several technology tools including our collaborative work area and communication boards, Google Docs and our Ning. I personally enjoyed the challenge of finding a new presentation tool, Haiku Deck which limits the number of bullet points on a slide show presentation to 5 and a title and shrinks the size of the text to fit on one line of the slide. I created a Haiku deck to experiment with its effectiveness of showcasing several key points in British history and shared the information with Dr. Rempe who gave me some very helpful feedback. I enjoyed working with Learnist as a space to present the information I collected through the course of the semester. It was very helpful to find a tool that will automatically embed videos, show the live site as well as allow commentary from both the presenter and viewers. I have worked with other presentation tools like Voicethread in the past but was limited because I could not embed videos or links to the presentation effectively.
Throughout this project, we encountered potential problems due to physical distance between our students and potential contacts as well as the barriers of time with a full time student’s schedule. I have developed the fortitude to balance many projects and complete them. This course has taught me that perfection cannot always be reached but that it needn’t always be. I have also learned to constructively apply honest criticism to my work which has enabled me to become a much better student and vastly increased my understanding on a number of topics. A major part of this course was testing our ideas in the context of a course and I firmly believe that this course can significantly expand student’s cultural understanding and expose them to new experiences and new people as effectively as physically traveling to that country.
Elizabeth Firkus:
Is it possible to substitute a course that is looking to achieve immersion with one that doesn’t actually have an immersion component, but is virtual? Since taking on this pilot program, this question has continued to come up for me. I have continued to ask myself if the course that we have designed has realistic and achievable expectations without the immersion component. After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that, I do believe there is nothing like being fully immersed in a country and a culture, but I do find this course to be a practical idea.
This course is practical and realistic because by design, it looks at all of the same things that one would learn and encounter when immersed in a culture. The course may not have an immersion factor, but it does include interaction with a native. Something to point out as well, is just because one is immersed in a culture does not ensure communication with natives. The student has to want to interact with the natives, and I’m sure not all students are entirely comfortable with their language skills to do so depending on the country that they are visiting.
Piloting this course allowed each of us to study a country of our choosing, which I feel was extremely beneficial because the more you are interested in something, the more time you are going to spend researching. For me, I have always wanted to go to Italy, so researching Italy was the perfect choice for me. Not only has this course taught me more about Italy, but also it has increased my desire to travel both to Italy and elsewhere abroad and gave me a chance to learn different technology tools.
The technology component for this course was extremely important. With all of the new technology advancements it is crucial to stay update with technology. The course development consisted of many different technology tools, including Ning, Google Drive, Haiku Deck, and Learnist. Prior to this course I had not even heard of Haiku Deck or Learnist. After completing the course, I would now use both in my academics. Haiku Deck is such a nice alternative to a PowerPoint, that I know I will use it for presentations in the future.
Overall, this course was very beneficial. I learned a lot, from technology tools to about Italy in general. In addition, my desire to travel has also increased. Putting what we learned aside, it was a great way to collaborate with the rest of the team before we lose one of our team members this fall.
Maxine Venturelli
First, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Maxine Venturelli and I am currently a sophomore at Carroll University and majoring in Elementary Education. This is my second year working for Dr. Simpson as a research assistant. This year when the cultural immersion pilot project was first proposed by Carroll University I was unaware until it came up in a discussion at work with the rest of Dr. Simpson’s research assistants. I realized that only two groups of students would have the opportunity to participate in this opportunity and me being the worrisome person that I am did not know if we would actually get one of these two spots. As a team we crafted a proposal and submitted it for consideration. It turns out that we were granted a chance to create our own pilot course. Along with the project, we got to choose a piece of technology that each of us would be able to use to enhance the course, so we decided on the iPad. And so our journey began.
Personally, I was very excited to be given the opportunity to craft a course. Being an Education major, I took this as an experience that I could learn from in the future. Since I am early in the Education Program, I had some tools at my disposable and some knowledge from previous courses. I am really interested in how to best teach students and engage them in the learning process. Since I am so passionate about education, I set up an idea in my head about how I would like the course to look; however I had to compromise with the rest of my peers in creating the course. I offered my ideas and debated the prevalence of some of my ideas. A realization that I came to is that this is not my course, but our course. I learned that even once I enter the teaching profession I will have to work with my colleagues. Throughout the process, my peers and I faced some drawbacks, such as the Wi-Fi connections and a lack of materials that would make the iPads work throughout the campus, but we worked together to make the best of the situation. We only were able to meet together once a week because of our busy schedules, but we made sure to keep each other informed. I think that a large part of this project was learning how to work as a group and produce a product in the end showcasing our work. We ran into difficulties, but the important part is that we used our problem-solving skills to work out the situation. I have learned many things that I can carry with me into my future career.
Collectively, we decided to focus on Europe and delve into the cultures of individual countries. Individually, I chose to research France. I have been interested in France since taking a French language course in 6th grade and continued my French language learning throughout high school. I really wanted to try to branch off into all aspects of French culture in order to give students a taste of what life may be like in France. With the help of my iPad I explored apps that would help expose students to the French language, French news, and French music among others. Also, I took advantage of the technology resources that were introduced to me through Dr. Simpson as well as some other devices that I was familiar with. To display my research I chose to use Prezi and Learnist because I believed that they really were able to capture my research information into one place. I used other resources too, such as videos from YouTube, and a plethora of websites to find my information, and even had the opportunity to interview some French exchange students. The gathering of information was enjoyable for me and I was able to broaden my knowledge of France as well as presentation tools.
I would like to take this time to say thank you to everyone who made this possible. I am so thankful to be given this opportunity and to work with some amazing individuals.
