L+Callis

Laura Callis

Wiki Assignment #3

Communication:

I used asynchronous communication this week when I viewed the Flat Connections Global Project Fuze meeting because I watched the recording of the meeting, as opposed to the live meeting itself. However, Fuze, and other online meeting spaces, are mostly intended for synchronous communication. The record and playback options are helpful to those who were unable to be online at the actual time the meeting took place. I used synchronous communication this week when I used BlackBoard IM to "chat" in real time with another one of my professors about an assignment. He was able to give me some direct links to help me in my research that night, and I was able to move on in my project, as opposed to having to wait for his email reply the next day to my question.

Go Mobile: I downloaded and installed the Feedly Reader onto my iphone. While at first I enjoy browsing articles, my time spent on my laptop is "work-time" and there never seems to be enough of it as is. My "free-time" usually comes in about 10 minute spurts per day and it is much easier for me to scroll through the app while I wait in line at the drug store or whatever than to try to squeeze an extra 15 minutes into my sit down time to keep updated.

Wiki Assignment #4 Laura Callis 3/1/14

For this assignment, I interviewed my own son Corbin, age 8, in second grade at Endeavor Elementary School in Madison County. Last week in my ED 407 class, we had a guest speaker who gave a very in depth lesson on interactive whiteboards in the classroom. I knew my son's classroom has one, so I took the opporotunity to find out more about how it actually works in practice. Sometimes, technologies sound awesome in theory, but in practice is another story.

I am excited to report that Corbin LOVES the SmartBoard in his class, and they use it frequently. He said that whenever Mrs. Turner (his teacher) announces that they will be working on the board, everyone gets "really excited". He told me his favorite part was "being able to get out of my seat to go to the board and do stuff". I asked him if Mrs. Turner ever has had any trouble getting anything to work the way it is supposed to, and he told me that yes, once they had a problem, but she called the teacher next door and "she came right over and helped her out." I know these boards are expensive and that Madison County has a rather large investment in them (every school in the county has them installed), so as a parent and tax payer, I am glad that they are being put to use.

Wiki Chapter 6 Collaborate & Communicate Assignment:

Course Outline Assignment, Engagement, Module 6, Blog 4.

Summary:

This week's lesson was about engagement and relevance in online learning. I, for one, HATE busywork. I remember sitting in class, bored to tears, wondering just how my teachers thought up all that stuff for us to do. In my opinion, word searches and crossword puzzles don't teach anyone anything. My son, who is in second grade, is having a hard time concentrating and coming home with a lot of incomplete work. While I know it is part of maturing, being able to focus and concentrate, I had the notion to tell his teacher I wouldn't want to do 15 different "worksheets" every day either!! In this way, I fell discouraged; everything I learn about in MY courses about PBL and student centered learning is really a lot harder to implement (especially in younger grades) than it appears in the textbook!

In regaurds to my Course Outline, I think I did a pretty good job incorporating relevance and encouraging engagement in my course. Some examples:

Week One: Writing assignment is an introductory, "personal" assignment. It is easiest to write what you know, and you know yourself best!

Week Two: Persuasive writing: This assignment is multi-disciplinary, as students will have to research an outside topic and then apply the writing skills taught in the lesson.

Week Three: Professional Writing: This is the module I will be developing for the next assignment, and I chose it mainly because of it's relevance and application. This is the type of writing assignment that obviously has real-world applications as students will be writing a professional resume.

Week Four: Journalism: This assignment has real world connections, as students will use actual newspaper articles in their editing assignment.

Week Six: Dialouge: Writing scripts for TV shows may seem far-fetched in real world application, but by making this a collaborative project the engagement factor is upped.

Blog Assignments: Give students an audience outside the classroom.

Introductory/Reflective goals: Set and reviewed by students to actively engage them in their own learning process. Item of Interest:

Some things are really hard to make applicable to real world experiences!! No matter how I brainstorm, I can not think of a good way to tie a Fiction writing assignment into everyday life for my students. I included a discussion board topic discussing career options for writers, which may engage some of my students, as my creative writing course is an elective and I am assuming that some of my students already have an interest in writing and this is their "thing". Overall though, I did a pretty good job with student engagement and relevance in this assignment!