Well, I began composing my reflection yesterday and thought that either a.) blogger used autosave or b.) I had clicked 'save'. At any rate, neither occurred. This has not been my best or my most favorite week, due to my emerging skills with the technology we were asked to use.
In Chapter 9, Johnson & Johnson discuss the importance of offering our students opportunities to work collaboratively and through opportunities of collaboration students will also gain skills needed to work through conflict. I see the importance of providing such opportunities for my students and although students on my caseload struggle with open-ended projects, I will include more opportunities for collaboration within my classroom. I need to stop for a moment and mention technology once again. I don't have a hardcopy of our class book and depend on the electronic copy for our reading assignments. I struggle using the electronic copy: I couldn't seem to determine where chapter 9 ended and where chapter 10 began and had difficulty scrolling through text. I am certain the difficulty is with my preference of hardcopy over electronic.
I enjoyed collaborating with a colleague to create an Explain Everything video. In fact, I was quite proud of myself for actually figuring out how to embed a live browser to explain Quizlet. Sure I had to review several how-to videos and it may have taken me two hours to create a 2+ minute slide. But, I did it and I plan on using this app with my classes. There were a few snags that I encountered while using Explain Everything. I had difficulty using the pen feature to bring student attention to two areas of Quizlet in that when I wanted to move on to the next feature in Quizlet there was a lengthy lag making it necessary to "stall" while narrating and waiting for Explain Everything to respond. Additionally, when demonstrating the flash card option in Quizlet, on the iPad it appeared that I was flipping the card over but on re-play the card does not flip over. I don't know if this is typical when using a live website or if I simply was doing something incorrectly.
I struggled using Google Docs to create a plan for a collaboration project; it has been a year or so since I last used a Google Doc so once again I googled how to use a Google Doc! It took me an hour to remember how to imbed a link in the document and then I forgot to click "share". I struggled with determining how I could create a project that would allow my students to collaborate using a Google Doc, given the personalities and skills of my students along.
I didn't feel confident with the skills needed to participate in this week's assignments. This week provided me with a good idea of how some of my students might feel when presented with assignments.
But you worked through the tough stuff, Julie. That struggle in the process is something our kids need to learn to deal with, since it is so very typical for so many. We really are trying to cram quite a bit into this short course, so you don't have time to refine some of those tech skills. Still, you are getting a look at some topics that are important to our students today. Thanks for keeping at it despite the struggle.
ReplyDeletespk
><>