Module 5 Blog

I will try anything once.  Sometimes even twice if I am not sure.  This applies to the classroom too.  Almost five years ago I started working for an online for profit university.  This was not my first time teaching online and I had been teaching for about fourteen years at that point.  I felt very confident in my abilities.  Then I got the curve ball.  Professional development and technology.  WHAT?!  I could barely wrap my brain around all of it.  So, I jumped in with both feet.  Whatever training was offered, I took it.  I started noticing that my students responded when I tried some of the tricks I was learning.

Early on, I used a visual approach in sending information to my students – pictures, 14 point font, etc.  Then I took a training called Super Charge Your Announcement’s.  The founder of the school’s Innovation lab taught this.  I learned a new way to take my static text with an awkwardly placed picture announcement and make it into JPEG awesomeness.  To this day, whenever someone asks me to show them what I do, we start with the PPT to JPEG tutorial.

Integrating technology is not easy.  Currently, I use a Twitter feed in my classroom and I link out to Diigo and Blogger (we have a class topic blog).  This is the second term I have used this.  When I first started using these tools, I had to justify the visual design of my class to my chair.  Because he would have to embed the Twitter feed, I had to explain why I needed to use Twitter.  Luckily, my chair believed in my vision.  Diggo and Blogger are easy sales.  They are not changing the design of the course and students can use them if they want to or not – it’s their choice.  Twitter is a little different.  At first, students were freaked out that I would be sending them tweets of what I was eating and things of that nature.  In class, we talked about the types of alerts I would post to Twitter – due dates, when I posted something of note to the class site, reminders, etc.  Students were hesitant but deiced to try it.  I had three students start following me and the remainder of the class followed on the class site.  Then the inevitable happened.  Our portal was changed and crashed.  Students were locked out of the class site.  One, then three, then ten students emailed, IMed and called me “TWEET US WHAT TO DO!”  That wasn’t even grammatically correct but I started hitting the tweet waves.  My students stayed on top of what was going on.  They all came back to class once the portal was us (fourteen agonizing days later).  I did not lose one student while many of my cohort colleagues lost students in the portal shuffle. To me, I had hit the big time.  This technology that I had been hesitant with was rocking and keeping my students informed.

Then, IT happened.  I went from teaching our four/fifth term students to our second/third term students.  This term my students hate Twitter.  No one is following the class tweets and they report that they don’t like the feed in the class.

I had an exceptional instructor last term that challenged me to learn more about the ARCS model and really thing about the design aspect.  As a result, I recently did a professional development training on motivation and ARCS (if you are interested in the PPT, let me know and I will happily share).

As I was thinking about my current students’ resistance to Twitter and how I could change that resistance, I thought back to Keller.  What would Keller do?!  RELEVANCE!  How is Twitter relevant to my students’ experience and to their goals? 

This made me refer to TED:

Stanley McChrystal

Dan Pink

The light bulb popped on!  TIME.  My students’ time is their motivational factor.  To make Twitter relevant to my students, I have to show them how it relates to their time management strategies and maintaining their goals.

Last Sunday in our weekly seminar, I said “Hey has anyone checked out the Twitter link today?”  Of course students started typing that Twitter was lame and they were anti-Twitter.  I said “Cool.  I just wanted you all to know that if you are pinched for time, every day the Twitter feed tells you what is the urgent task for the day is.”  A student asked “you mean you tell us what to do on Twitter?”  I affirmed that and encouraged them to look at the class site.  A student typed in “WOW!  You remind of what time seminar is and yesterday you posted a help sheet.”  The light bulb came on again!  I am not sure that I have a devoted following like I did last term but we will see how the rest of the term goes and if students consider it a worthwhile investment of their time.

Works consulted:

Ellsworth, E. (2011).  Motivating Adult Learners. Presentation for CTL Live Event, Kaplan Univerity.

Keller, J. M. (1987a). Development and use of the ARCS model of motivational design. Journal of Instructional Development, 10(3), 2 – 10.

Keller, J. M. (1987b). Strategies for stimulating the motivation to learn. Performance & Instruction, 26(8), 1-7.

Keller, J. M. (1999). Motivation in cyber learning environments. Educational Technology International, 1(1), 7 – 30.

Keller’s Website:

http://www.arcsmodel.com/home.htm

Module 4 Blog

My MindMap

After doing this map, I realized that a lot of what I do is intuitive.  I don't realize everything I use.

Years ago, I taught for the Navy onboard deployed naval vessels.  Until that time, I never gave thought to my network and PLN was not a concept used!  Once I started teaching solo, away from colleagues, I learned how important PLNs are.  At the time, I had email as the way to connect to colleagues.  Today, I use a variety of tools to connect within my network.

My network has changed the way I learn.  I am more apt to try new technologies especially since I know that many in my network are working with technologies.  I have also started to use PLN recommendations for trying new technologies.  My knowledge base on overall, non-technical topics, however, has grown the most.  Because of the networks I have created, I have found relevant and time worthy professional development opportunities.  I find that with these opportunities, I am stepping outside my comfort zone more.

I tinker.  That means I use a lot of different tools until I find what works best for me.  I am easily agitated when someone goofs a technology they are using to teach something.  I think for any technology to be effective and useful, the presenter/teacher needs to be comfortable with the technology.  If they aren’t, the whole experience is painful.  Power Point and narrated PPTs are hideous in my opinion.  I learn nothing from these.  Seeing the same information published in a video from Voice Thread or similar is superior in my opinion.  I learn more even though it is the same information.  Videos, podcasts, and vodcasts are the top technologies in what I find useful.  Blogging is a low-tech tool that I also find useful when I am learning new information.  I find these super helpful, especially when they link out.

When I have questions or need resources, I have two starters.  The first is Google.  The second is my PLN.  I really can’t say why I choose Google as my search engine.  I just do because it rarely disappoints.  I can also switch to Google Scholar with one click.  This saves time because I am not stopping and then starting a new search.  In the last couple of years, I have spent time cultivating my PLN.  This is also a philosophy I preach to my students.  The more people you know, the more you know. 

Because I tinker and explore, I think that I have found real gems both virtually and in real life.  I think the key is to be open to exploring and playing around with new technologies.  More important, I think it’s important to network and make connections with people we may never know.

I am a huge fan of Clay Shirky and his thoughts on networks:

This is a new find from Steven Johnson on how connections are what really make those AH HA! moments.

This is a cool TED link on collaboration:

http://www.ted.com/themes/the_rise_of_collaboration.html