Final thoughts from 502 In the past 4 months, I have had an incredible learning journey so I wanted to create a post to record and remember how I felt at this time so I can support new teachers and students in their fears and apprehension in the future.
For me, 502 The Digital Continuum, could be more accurately named Foundational Building. After the program introduction from 501, I had the opportunity in 502 to experience the teachings and transfer understandings to build a solid platform to work from. Working with the theory and practice in a concrete way allowed me to view the learner in a new light with a deeper appreciation of how different students thrive with a variety of learning styles and environments. Involvement in group work demonstrated the imperative features collaboration provides as referenced to in my 502 reflection. Working with the framework Understanding by Design (UbD) and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) resulted in a major thinking shift weaving past readings and practice into a complete picture. My lesson critique reflection describes this in more detail. Working with the Community of Inquiry (COI) survey opened my eyes. Reflecting on my own involvement as an online student helped me to understand the importance of careful consideration when planning an online course regarding teacher presence, social and cognitive aspects. Incorporating principles from a Community of Learners gave insight and pause to reflect on how to integrate these lifelong skills when building an online community. The differences in social presence our class experienced using both Collaborate and Zoom platforms highlighted the necessity of connection. Making connections with colleagues is essential for building and maintaining a professional learning network. Twitter had played at focal role in constructing my network. I have also appreciated the opportunity to learn from and with my cohort colleagues as they share their insights and post comments about their learning journey and network opportunities. I have felt apprehensive about posting outside the comfort of my group but with encouragement and guidance, I'm building my confidence. Learning new organizational tools such as Evernote and Hootsuite for collecting the mass volume of information streaming in has been a welcome addition. Copy write laws have always been confusing to me. I’m excited by the establishment of Creative Commons and Open Education Resources. I believe it is a fundamental step, reflecting a Connectivist approach and will hopefully be the norm for the next generation. I appreciate the new age approach of being able to share work openly and build on each other’s knowledge and creativity. Randy’s final week synopsis on Leadership and Change supported one of my concluding thoughts from my final paper. We need strong leaders, able to model a new vision of learning and provide teachers the support and guidance to create sustainable positive structures. We need teacher’s willingness to embrace a new role from teacher to guide and take time to learn collaboratively from each other. Leadership is key and I believe all of the OLTD participants will contribute to that change in their own way. How do teachers provide students an authentic global education? I’ve never written a blog but I have read many. Although I do feel enormous hesitation, OLTD has opened my eyes to so many new thoughts and ideas that writing a blog is just one more of those experiences. Our instruction was to synthesize our thoughts around what we are currently learning. One of our choices was to watch a recorded presentations from the Global Education Conference. Because I have an interest in blended learning, the first session that caught my attention was called Blended Learning Using 3D Interactive Learning Environments by Gord Holden M.Ed - Director of Immersive Technology. During the introduction, everyone listening was asked to plot on a map where they were joining in from. I got an immediate sense of how incredibly global online conferences could be. I found the presentation very engaging. Gord set the stage by pointing out how unfortunate it is when technology is used as glorified flash cards and worksheet practice. He went on to discuss the importance of play as a learning tool and introduced us to an exciting virtual world of play with Quest Atlantis and Wolfquest. As he spoke about what the students had experienced through the games he mentioned The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi. The name alone intrigued me and I immediately found it on YouTube. For anyone who hasn’t heard about it, it’s a must see. The simple takeaway is that there is never a single story. If you have only one, it is incomplete and the imminent danger is the creation of stereotyping. As I reflected on this idea, I could see how easily this happens to everyone – especially students in a classroom given only one story from teachers. How do we provide a more global education? The next speaker I chose provided an immediate solution. Global Education Technology for an Inquiry-Based Classroom with Julia Coburn, WorldVuze Co-Founder. Julia spoke to the very nature of this topic. We all make assumptions about other countries, the people, the economy the government, and the current issues. Her recommendation to support student learning is through a 5 step inquiry process. Students begin with learning how to formulate powerful questions. From there, they need to be able to gather and organize information using appropriate searches and filters. Analysis and interpretation of the information is the third step followed by investigating with an authentic audience and finally communication. The authentic audience is key. Julia provided many examples of inquiry questions her students had with assumed stereotypical answers formed because of a single story. Using the Worldvuse website, students were able to connect to other students in other countries to ask their questions and were stunned how wrong their assumptions had been. What a significant global learning opportunity we could offer students all over the world if we could connect and ask each other directly! The brilliant part is, the website Worldvuze, http://blog.worldvuze.com/ provides teachers a free and safe environment to sign up their classes. To me, this is 21st Century learning at its best. |
AuthorK-7 Coordinator in SD68. Archives
January 2017
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