Reflections on E-Learning for Educators
Module 1
The learning curve this week was great. Sometimes it was hard to absorb some of the materials because I was getting used to the new software. I got a lot of great ideas about methods and software to use in my classroom – delicious - I will try with the Educator's exchange. I will see how it goes. I was surprised to realize how much I dislike class discussions and how intimidated I was by them as a student. Online discussions work so much better for me. The critical reflection really hit home for me in a variety of ways. I have never thought to critically reflect on my job. I have done a lot of constructive criticism in other areas of my life, but never really on my job. The importance of student feedback also surprised me. I have sometimes taken student feedback, but feel they need to take it more seriously and reflect more. Perhaps the survey could be better. I felt like I contributed a lot this week, but it was very hard to keep up. This class is very motivated at communicating and there was an overabundance of posts – it seems like more than the others I have participated in, but perhaps that is the nature of the course.
Module 2
Another big learning curve while I learned how to wiki and how to moodle this week. I really love the wiki idea and can see a lot of uses for it in my professional community. I will have to give it a bit more reflection to think of ways to use it with students in my computer elective classes, but can see a lot of uses for team building, etc. I was a bit frustrated by the merging of the two groups. I feel like we worked so hard to develop our community in module one and ended up feeling annoyed by having to start over again in module two. This group is now too large for me to feel comfortable with. I hope we do not continue with the other group. I think I know why we merged – the other group seems more disjointed and less motivated than ours, but I am not sure that doubling our size is the answer. I am feeling a bit like we are going against what we learned about building communities and am hoping there is a purpose to this merge. I do not feel all that comfortable with the moodle environment yet, but hope it will come as we move on. It seems a little simple after using D2L, but it is free or inexpensive…
Module 3
I loved all of the reading this week – tone, voice, and critical thinking. Learning the moodle environment was challenging. It seems very foreign to me. I don’t feel like it is as straightforward as Blackboard and D2L. It seems a bit more random at this time. Perhaps it is because so many different people are participating. Going back and forth between the two environments is also confusing. I understand why we are doing it, but it is still challenging. I was hoping for more participation from my group. I really want to get a lot out of the class and many group members seem to want to pass and do the minimum. Not a lot of dialog was created. I thought I had a good question and my responses were meant to encourage continued discussion, but did not seem to do that with most members. I need to take a look at my wording and see if I can improve my comments. I gained a new respect for one member as he really seemed to participate and I made a connection there. I felt like I did not get to know some of the members as they did not participate much in the discussion. I am seeing how important it is to contribute to discussions so your classmates can get to know you better.
Module 4
I found this module extremely difficult. Maybe because the introduction said it would be more simple than the previous ones so I started with a different mindset. I did learn a lot, though and enjoyed the quiz and survey sites. It was fun to see what everyone had done. I agonized over a web site and then took one I was not completely thrilled with. The thing I liked about Quia was the types of questions that I could ask – I found there to be quite a large variety. I enjoyed everyone’s postings, but got frustrated with late postings and also with postings that were too deep and readings that were too long. I am learning to be concise in my words when participating in discussion. People are more wiling to read posts that are not too long or too short. Going through everyone’s quiz/survey took a lot of time.
Module 5
It was nice to get back to my original group, but still do a bit of this module in moodle with our old classmates. This was a difficult week for me, though, with illness, Halloween, grades and lots of commitments so I felt stretched a bit too thin. Each activity took a lot out of me. There was so much to look at as we learned to search, evaluate and properly use our information. I enjoyed the site we looked at and thought it contained some great information and activities, but I also felt like I got lost in it quite often. I could never seem to find my way back. The hoax activity was a good one and I liked the process we used to go through hoax sites. It was simple and straightforward. I am hoping to use this with my students. I am trying to narrow down my topic for module 6, but there are some good ones and I will spend this evening deciding what will work best.
Module 6
Once again, another slow start to realize what I was doing. I really struggled with searching – I am realizing I am not great at it and need to work on those skills. Once I found my sites, though, setting up the PSE was not that difficult and I could really see subject area teachers using this tool to get some good sites for kids to search and narrow down the field for them. I need to remember to bookmark all of the resources I have gained in this class. The reading this week were a bit difficult to get through, but I felt like my response was good. Other PSE’s had fewer sites, but more depth in the sites.
Module 7
I decided to do the pbwiki site for creating my e-portfolio. I think I like the look of it better than wikispaces. After looking at some of the sites in Google docs, though, I really like the look of that one, too. I may try to do both. It is much easier than I thought it would be to create. The readings this week were on e-portfolios and I had not thought of creating an e-portfolio as an end of class summary. What a great way to save your information and thoughts for the future. It will be nice to have this to go back to at another time when I need to refresh my mind about what I did in this course.
The learning curve this week was great. Sometimes it was hard to absorb some of the materials because I was getting used to the new software. I got a lot of great ideas about methods and software to use in my classroom – delicious - I will try with the Educator's exchange. I will see how it goes. I was surprised to realize how much I dislike class discussions and how intimidated I was by them as a student. Online discussions work so much better for me. The critical reflection really hit home for me in a variety of ways. I have never thought to critically reflect on my job. I have done a lot of constructive criticism in other areas of my life, but never really on my job. The importance of student feedback also surprised me. I have sometimes taken student feedback, but feel they need to take it more seriously and reflect more. Perhaps the survey could be better. I felt like I contributed a lot this week, but it was very hard to keep up. This class is very motivated at communicating and there was an overabundance of posts – it seems like more than the others I have participated in, but perhaps that is the nature of the course.
Module 2
Another big learning curve while I learned how to wiki and how to moodle this week. I really love the wiki idea and can see a lot of uses for it in my professional community. I will have to give it a bit more reflection to think of ways to use it with students in my computer elective classes, but can see a lot of uses for team building, etc. I was a bit frustrated by the merging of the two groups. I feel like we worked so hard to develop our community in module one and ended up feeling annoyed by having to start over again in module two. This group is now too large for me to feel comfortable with. I hope we do not continue with the other group. I think I know why we merged – the other group seems more disjointed and less motivated than ours, but I am not sure that doubling our size is the answer. I am feeling a bit like we are going against what we learned about building communities and am hoping there is a purpose to this merge. I do not feel all that comfortable with the moodle environment yet, but hope it will come as we move on. It seems a little simple after using D2L, but it is free or inexpensive…
Module 3
I loved all of the reading this week – tone, voice, and critical thinking. Learning the moodle environment was challenging. It seems very foreign to me. I don’t feel like it is as straightforward as Blackboard and D2L. It seems a bit more random at this time. Perhaps it is because so many different people are participating. Going back and forth between the two environments is also confusing. I understand why we are doing it, but it is still challenging. I was hoping for more participation from my group. I really want to get a lot out of the class and many group members seem to want to pass and do the minimum. Not a lot of dialog was created. I thought I had a good question and my responses were meant to encourage continued discussion, but did not seem to do that with most members. I need to take a look at my wording and see if I can improve my comments. I gained a new respect for one member as he really seemed to participate and I made a connection there. I felt like I did not get to know some of the members as they did not participate much in the discussion. I am seeing how important it is to contribute to discussions so your classmates can get to know you better.
Module 4
I found this module extremely difficult. Maybe because the introduction said it would be more simple than the previous ones so I started with a different mindset. I did learn a lot, though and enjoyed the quiz and survey sites. It was fun to see what everyone had done. I agonized over a web site and then took one I was not completely thrilled with. The thing I liked about Quia was the types of questions that I could ask – I found there to be quite a large variety. I enjoyed everyone’s postings, but got frustrated with late postings and also with postings that were too deep and readings that were too long. I am learning to be concise in my words when participating in discussion. People are more wiling to read posts that are not too long or too short. Going through everyone’s quiz/survey took a lot of time.
Module 5
It was nice to get back to my original group, but still do a bit of this module in moodle with our old classmates. This was a difficult week for me, though, with illness, Halloween, grades and lots of commitments so I felt stretched a bit too thin. Each activity took a lot out of me. There was so much to look at as we learned to search, evaluate and properly use our information. I enjoyed the site we looked at and thought it contained some great information and activities, but I also felt like I got lost in it quite often. I could never seem to find my way back. The hoax activity was a good one and I liked the process we used to go through hoax sites. It was simple and straightforward. I am hoping to use this with my students. I am trying to narrow down my topic for module 6, but there are some good ones and I will spend this evening deciding what will work best.
Module 6
Once again, another slow start to realize what I was doing. I really struggled with searching – I am realizing I am not great at it and need to work on those skills. Once I found my sites, though, setting up the PSE was not that difficult and I could really see subject area teachers using this tool to get some good sites for kids to search and narrow down the field for them. I need to remember to bookmark all of the resources I have gained in this class. The reading this week were a bit difficult to get through, but I felt like my response was good. Other PSE’s had fewer sites, but more depth in the sites.
Module 7
I decided to do the pbwiki site for creating my e-portfolio. I think I like the look of it better than wikispaces. After looking at some of the sites in Google docs, though, I really like the look of that one, too. I may try to do both. It is much easier than I thought it would be to create. The readings this week were on e-portfolios and I had not thought of creating an e-portfolio as an end of class summary. What a great way to save your information and thoughts for the future. It will be nice to have this to go back to at another time when I need to refresh my mind about what I did in this course.
Photo Source: flickr