CEP 810 Reflection

As I finish the first course of my MAET degree, I feel like I’ve had the perfect opportunity to get my feet wet.  Even though I have regularly relied on the internet for help, I’ve never considered it as a tool to develop professionally.  I’ve always viewed the internet as a resource in which you can find anything and everything, but for whatever reason, I never used it as a purposeful tool to expand my learning network.  I have never been a big believer in social media platforms, however, this course illuminated new possibilities to use social media like Twitter to seek help and to communicate with others that I will never meet in person.  This area still needs much improvement because I still tend to rely on my own searches to find the “perfect” lesson or tool, when I should just rely on others’ expertise much sooner.

From: McCormack (2012)

I’m excited to apply some of the technologies that I’ve been practicing with in my own lessons.  I really like how the assignments were open ended and allowed for creative exploration of a technology.  I’m planning on using the same strategy for my own students.  Like me, giving students the opportunity to learn by using/doing, is so much more rewarding.  As far as teaching goes, allowing students “free reign” on a piece of technology will create work that I could not even image or they might find uses of the same piece of technology that I would not have thought of.

References:

McCormack, Anne (2012). [Image file]. Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mccormacka/6821670702/in/photolist-a2QrZk-6poMoM-boNR37-a9iJox

Cooking with TPACK

In the embedded video below, you can view a “quickfire” challenge in which I was given three unknown kitchen tools: a bowl, a plate, and a plastic cooking fork.  I was tasked with cutting cheese that would be served at a dinner party.  Though the cheese ultimately does not look all that appetizing, a cheese knife would have worked much better, it still involved a few trial and error processes to get the best cut of cheese.  I started out with the side of my fork, which I was surprised worked as well as it did at the start, though it didn’t finish all that great.  I next used the brim of my bowl to get a different style cut with little success.  I then went back to the fork and just stabbed right through the cheese.  This last method worked the best, though it still did not work great.  Overall, it was a fun mental exercise, particularly since the objects were a surprise to me.  I probably would have preferred making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I’m certainly thankful I didn’t have to cut fruit or vegetables with that plastic fork.

This task is very similar to using technology for education, not all pieces of technology are geared for education, but some can certainly be repurposed to promote better learning.  Some tech definitely works great in the class room because it is built for that purpose, however, there is so much more available for classroom use if you take some time and reconsider a new way to use it.  Much like the fork, it didn’t work all that well to begin with, but upon another visit to that same tool, using it in a new way, achieved my goal a little bit better.  I think a lot of times when introduced to something new, if I don’t see an immediate way of using a new strategy or tool, I am too quick to dismiss it as useful.  I definitely need to be more open in the future to repurposing ideas and tools.

Learning Calligraphy: Post 3

I’ve come to realize that teaching yourself a skill using only online tools is not as difficult as it first sounds.  There really isn’t much difference when you consider it is basically the same process when you use the internet to learn a new fact.  Having access to YouTube and help forms can give you access to dozens, or even hundreds, of skilled instructors for any given task.  As I highlight in the embedded video below, I only used technology resources to learn calligraphy over the last few weeks.  I’m so glad that all I had to do was purchase about $10 worth of materials and did not have to buy any books.  The instructors I found on YouTube more than adequately explained the process needed to start and fashion my own alphabet in a modern calligraphy style.

Because of this project, I’ve used the idea of networked learning almost every week during these courses, including how to save in different video formats, how to create 3D models, as well as other classroom software like Piktochart and Evernote.  I’ve already continued this procedure of online learning to become more acquainted with my online biology class that I will be teaching this fall.

Special thanks to Carter Sams (2015) and Walmir Medeiros (2012) for the straight forward and well-made calligraphy instructional videos.

Sams, C. (2015) “How to DIY Modern Calligraphy” [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18EZ9Dq1HII

Medeiros, W. (2012) “Calligraphy Exercises – Constructing the Alphabet – Walmir Medeiros” [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJKMceXl1pk

21st Century Lesson Plan

Instead of the plain old poster board as the go to for students to display information, I decided to take a look at Piktochart to see how it may be adapted for classroom use.  Piktochart is a free online tool that allows users to create interactive infographics, posters, and reports.  It is very user friendly in that it gives you a template and you can populate it with your own text, videos, charts, and maps.  It has a wide selection of graphics to use, or you can upload your own.  This resource seems like it could fit perfectly into any educational program, particularly high school science as described below, to present experiment data or information on a given topic.

I designed this lesson as an end of year project that would touch upon the critical thinking analysis learned in a science classroom.  It gives learners the opportunity to research a topic and create a display that supports their learning based off of their own analysis of data and sources.  I also designed it to include an emphasis on digital literacies and objectives.  Since the lesson is an end of year project, I didn’t design it with a focus on any one science standard, I wanted it to focus on a few digital literacy standards outlined by Common Core and emphasized by Renee Hobbs (2011) as well as Douglas Thomas and John Brown (2011).  This lesson allows for students to analyze digital resources, create a digital display that holds a message, and work collaboratively to refine work so that communication competencies may be developed (Hobbs, 2011).

If you have any suggestions or another digital resource to create poster boards, leave one in the comment section!

References:

Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand, Oaks, CA: Corwin/Sage.

Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world of constant change. Lexington, Ky: CreateSpace?.

Learning Calligraphy: Post 2

To start, I have to comment on how much more difficult writing calligraphy is than I initially thought it was going to be.  I expected that once I picked up my pen that I would write these marvelous swooping letters.  Now that I’ve been working on this for a few weeks, I realize how ignorant of an idea that was.  Calligraphy truly is an art form, and I’ve never considered myself an artist.  However, if you notice the before and after photos, you can tell the difference between my normal writing and my calligraphy writing. I’m not pressing so hard on the paper which allows for a nice even flow, letters are spaced better, and there aren’t apparent abrupt stops.  It still takes me a long time to write, about 40 seconds to write my name that is only 12 letters long.

Original Handwriting

Practiced Writing

 

 

 

 

 

What is nice about calligraphy is that there isn’t any one set type of letter to write.  Since it is an art form, it feels as though whatever letter style you want to write is acceptable.  Once I practiced writing the alphabet in a new style, which just entailed writing a letter over and over until I found a style I liked, it was just a matter of memorizing that letter.  Now, even though it still takes me a long time to write a word, I do not have to constantly look back at my reference page of how I want to write a particular letter.  One of the issues I keep running into is since I have practiced a new way of creating letters, they do not always want to flow into one another when connecting them in a word.  How I’ve figured to get around that is to break the letters up into several strokes.  By breaking the letters up, I am able to prepare how I want to end a particular letter so that it flows nicely into the next one.  Notice that I am doing just that in the video.  I don’t make the letters “m” or “n” in a continuous humping motion, I pick up the stylus and adjust how I want to continue.  Connecting letters still needs work, but I have my style alphabet down.

Another thing I have noticed about my writing is that I usually write very tense and hunched over.  I find that if I write like that while doing calligraphy, my forms go back to my original style of chunky and sloppy.  I find that calligraphy is rather relaxing, I just have to remember to practice what I’ve been learning online.  Holding the stylus a certain way is tantamount for success.  The pen needs to be angled a certain direction, not too much pressure can be used, pressure on down strokes needs to be more than on upstrokes, don’t hold the pen too high or too low, sit up straight, don’t move from the wrist, and oddly enough breath.  I still have to be mindful of what some sources call these the basics, but if I am, I do notice a significant difference in my writing.

To find all my favorite resources I’ve been using the browser extension StumbleUpon.  What it does is add a button to your browser and will bring you to websites that fall under the categories of the interests you have set up for your profile.

When beginning I really appreciated these three sites because it gave a basic primer on how to start:

http://www.discoverahobby.com/learn/Calligraphy

http://www.oheverythinghandmade.com/calligraphy-for-beginners/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJKMceXl1pk

I also gained a better appreciation for how calligraphy is an art form and that I shouldn’t be so worried about replicating someone else’s perfect letters but to experiment and create my own.

When I was practicing my alphabet I found Carter Sams YouTube videos very helpful in how she explains the creation of your own letter types:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18EZ9Dq1HII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6CycgclkxI

What I need to continue to practice is varying my pressure in my letters.  I’ve noticed that the more professional calligraphers are really able to exaggerate the difference between down and up strokes.  My letters tend to only feature a slight difference between the two strokes because of the natural tendency to apply more pressure on a down stroke than on an up.  I think this feature, more than any of the others, is what separates good calligraphy from basic and calligraphy in general from handwriting.  If I can apply this feature to my regularly writing, I hope it will improve.

Stay tuned for future updates!

 

 

Collecting Tech

While exploring some of the various resources this week to better support different aspects of the GTD workflow, I decided to experiment with Evernote further.  My students have Evernote built into their online text so I want to integrate that into my freshmen biology course.  There seems to be a lot of available uses to Evernote, but I decided to start with the “collection” aspect of the GTD workflow.  My current system for collecting online resources is a bit haphazard.  As you can see in the image below, I tend to bookmark useful websites without any sort of organization, I have quite the list going.In the next image, I have collected the resources supplied through d2l so that I can explore them further later on.  Using Evernote, I created a notebook that will house all of the resources that I gather through the MAET program.  Using the “Evernote Web Clipper” extension in Google Chrome makes collecting websites easy.  It gives you the option of how and where you want to save the webpage you are on, I recommend saving sites as bookmarks because it keeps Evernote cleaner looking.If you have used Evernote and would like to leave a comment how you utilize it, please share!

Social Media/PLN Reflection

I’ve always kind of felt to be apart of the group of people, due to age and when technologies have been coming out, that I’m “young enough” to be apart of social media, but I’m “too old” to really see the purpose of it.  However, I’ve quickly come to realize what a bunch of hooey that previous statement is!  I’ve never considered using social media platforms (Twitter and RSS aggregates) for professional purposes.  It is such an easy way to extend your network and get new resources to use.

I am really excited to repurpose some of the technology that is out there for my classroom that I’ve learned about from colleagues and graduate classes.  I’ve already fallen in love with popplet, a site that simplifies making concept maps.  I’ve signed up for evernote , an app that complies notes.  My students have evernote built into their digital textbooks, so I’m brainstorming ideas of how to use it effectively; if you have experience, please share.  I have always been apart of the USB key and Microsoft Office system, so I’m still trying to navigate Google Drive.  Trying to keep things organized and figuring out sharing options is a little unusual.

Due to all these new, to me anyway, technologies, my original PLN that I created earlier already needs to be updated.  I’m excited to be part of a community that is continually trying to achieve more and figure out ways to connect, purposefully, to each other.

I encourage you to share any of the tech you use to connect or teach, I’m interested to know what’s out there!

 

PLN: Personal Learning Network

I’ve been brainstorming this week to gather some of the various resources I use to inform myself about teaching and my subject areas.  These combined resources are referred to as my personal learning network (PLN).  My PLN is an ever evolving resource, this is just a snapshot of where I am currently.  Some of these resources I rely upon more than others, however, they are all useful each in their own way.  I used Popplet to organize the diagram below.  As shown in the diagram, it is a very intuitive way that saves time to organize a mind map, I highly recommend giving Popplet a try.  Please comment if you have used Popplet or if you have sources from your own PLN that you would like to share.

 

Learning Calligraphy: Post 1

For my network learning project in CEP 810, I have decided to learn how to write in calligraphy.  There are a few motivating factors for me to learn this skill.  The first being, I have terrible penmanship.  Hopefully, by learning calligraphy I will improve my regular writing skills.  The second reason I would like to learn calligraphy is because my wife works on scrapbooks.  She will usually use stickers or premade titles for her categories, but I think it would be a nice hobby for us if we could work on a project together.  I would like for my final outcome to be a “masterfully” written letter to my wife.

From pixabay.com

Here are some of the resources I’ve started to gather to get a basic understanding of what is needed and how to go about practicing a new style of writing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18EZ9Dq1HII

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJKMceXl1pk

In future updates, I will be practicing mostly with a pen and ink well, but I would also like to move into other mediums like fountain pens, markers, and colored pencils if at all possible.  Based off of the resources I’ve been finding, it is best to start as a new writer starts, I’ll be practicing my alphabets all over again (capital and lower case).  Once I’ve become used to the new style of writing, different pressure and hand movements, I will practice copying quotes from books, movies, and history that could be used in a scrapbook or bookmark.  I would also like to create a fancy new signature for the letters of recommendation that I write.  Eventually, I hope to be able to write “freestyle” in calligraphy.  That is to say, writing a random idea, thought, or sentence that I’ve come up with or someone has given to me.

Stay tuned and wish me luck!

Learning, Understanding, and Conceptual Change

In the first week of CEP 810, I read a few chapters from Bransford, Brown, and Cocking’s (2000) How People Learn.  Afterwards, I was tasked with writing a reflection on what learning, understanding, and conceptual change mean in education.  The essay can be found here.  The essay begins with updating the definition of what learning means in a contemporary classroom.  I proceed to highlight three methods that can be used to accomplish true learning and conceptual change: ID preexisting knowledge, get more in depth with material after introductory courses, and some basic benefits and challenges of using technology.  The examples used come from my own experiences as a secondary science teacher.  Please leave any feedback in the comments section.