Lauren C's EME 6414 Blog

So here I am; last blog post of the semester. What an exciting and challenging semester its been. This course has taught me so much and perhaps more importantly, I've pushed myself to step far out of my digital comfort zone. Am I an expert now? Absolutely not, but I do have a better understanding and appreciation for web 2.0 concepts and tools - and perhaps that's a good starting point. I would like to thank Vanessa and Omer for being incredibly helpful and accommodating throughout the semester. There were definitely times when I felt lost, but they always provided prompt and helpful advice. I really appreciated the renewable credit option also! Also, thank you to my classmates who posted consistently interesting blogs that were super fun to read and respond to. I hope I got to everyone! Take care everyone!

For the second in my trilogy of reflective posts this week, I'd like to explore ways in which I could have gotten more out of this course. First, although I'm typically very good at time management, for some reason, this semester got away from me. I did start a Summer C course midway through that greatly increased my workload, but I think that was only part of it. One thing I know I will change in the future is making sure I read the entire syllabus very early on in the semester. Usually, I only refer to the syllabus if there is specific information I need, and I don't typically look ahead to assignments until it's the next one on the list. Many times this strategy is helpful because it keeps me from feeling overwhelmed and helps me focus on one assignment at a time. Unfortunately, when there are projects that require pre-planning and a longitudinal effort, this strategy falls flat. So, lesson from this semester  - make sure you explore all the assignments early on!

Although we explored many tools this semester, I feel that one of the main learning goals was to discover integrate them into our epistemological philosophies to make us better educators. I'm not certain that we must have our students engage with the tools in the same way we have, though what we can learn through our interaction with other individuals through the use of Web 2.0 tools certainly can. For example, if we're looking for lesson plan ideas, there are several platforms available that allow us to connect with other educators who may have helpful suggestions. We've discovered much of this through our examination of personal learning networks and its definitely something I'm excited about taking further in the future.

As I've been working through my produsage assignment, I realized that the tool I was creating could actually be used to inform my dissertation work. To that end, I've sort of been planning in my mind how I could keep track of various efforts at censorship throughout Florida by using the annotation feature of Google My Maps. I could even use the layering feature to account for different genres of books, temporal considerations, disposition, and many more. How about you, can you see yourself expanding your produsage assignment into a resource to assist you in furthering your education or work?

So, I'm knee-deep in my produsage project at the moment and despite early misgivings it seems to be coming along really well. The social media tool I'm using is Google My Maps. Initially, I was wondering if this tool would have all the features I needed to complete the project I envisioned. After exploring for a bit, however, I found it had even more than I needed, which allowed me to expand the proposed project, making it more detailed and in-depth. Discoveries like these are one of the main things I've gotten out of this course - moving beyond my comfort zone, and getting a better feel for what the various tools we've explored have to offer. How about you? Are there any functionalities you've discovered since the beginning of this course? Have you discovered any new features of the tools you've chosen to utilize for your produsage project?

For my reflective post this week, I've been thinking quite a bit about this process of blogging that we've undertaken throughout this semester. Personally, I had never blogged before this class - it always felt kind of awkward putting yourself out there like that. But honestly, I've come to enjoy it, it's cathartic in a way, and given the tools available to protect anonymity, it can be done in a way that people feel comfortable with.  One thing I struggled with early on, is the feeling that I don't really have much to say. Sure, I can talk about the readings and assignments for this course, but apart from school or work-related topics, there is little that I'm interested in that hasn't been said before by others, and better. So, I began thinking. Surely, I'm not the only one that feels this way, yet there are still many people out there who blog on the regular, always with something new and seemingly interesting to say about whatever they're interest...

For my reflective post this week, I would just say I CANNOT believe this semester is nearly over. From the standpoint of coursework, what I've learned most is that although I'm relatively disciplined with time management on a micro-level, I clearly need to put more thought into planning out the entire semester as a whole. One habit of mine that I need to work on is not looking ahead to other assignments until the one I'm working on is complete. This practice does help me stay focused on my current task and avoid feeling overwhelmed - assignments that require longitudinal planning tend to suffer. Nevertheless, progress is being made and not too much longer to go ya'll!

So, in preparing my produsage assignment, I've been thinking quite a bit about this week's topic - assessment and evaluation - and how to construct assignment directions to address what I'd like students to get out of the assignment. To that end, what I've found helpful is to put together a preliminary rubric that has concepts, a description of each task, and point calculations based on the importance of each descriptor. I've actually never designed a rubric myself (I've used plenty of them though!). I'm not sure if I'm going to attach it to the lesson plan because its quite simplistic at the moment, but it certainly has been helpful to me in thinking about how I want to approach the exercise, how I should explain it to students, and what elements are most important; it's also helped me to refine the learning objectives I'm interested in teaching. How about you, are there any 'early-stage' exercises that help you determine how to best app...

Reflecting on the article "Assessing the Effects of Interactive Blogging on Student Attitudes towards Peer Interaction, Learning Motivation, and Academic Achievements" by Yang and Chang, I was struck and honestly, both surprised and not surprised by the findings. According to the authors, use of blog commenting was associated with both positive attitudes towards peer interaction and subject matter achievement. I was unsurprised given my experience over the course of this semester with blogging. I do feel like it gives me the chance to articulate thoughts on weekly topics in a way that I may feel inhibited from doing in a strictly lecture-based environment. What was surprising were the results in light of the fact that the sample was comprised of a 5:1 male to female ratio in STEM courses. I feel this really goes against the traditional belief that males, particularly those who are technologically or mathematically inclined prefer less interaction or participation in learning ...

And for the final blog of this week, I'd like to ask how everyone is doing - how did the knowledge-sharing assignment go? As I stated earlier this week, I found parts challenging (mostly due to my own technological limitations) but the actual project itself was quite helpful in learning how to approach knowledge sharing - what works, what doesn't, what I could have done better, and where I need to improve in terms of reaching the largest audience. Personally, I felt the most fascinating part of the project was analyzing and tracking views. I used Twitter to conduct the project and I did not even realize Twitter afforded you that ability - I'm checking all the time now lol! 

Since there were no readings this week and in recognition of our pause before the final sprint to the finish line, I thought I'd share some news: I'm getting married next month! We're looking for a local honeymoon and have considered Disney World, but if anyone has any Florida-based recommendations, I'd love to hear them!

Back to blogging! For this week, I'd like to begin by reflecting/venting on the knowledge-sharing assignment. First, as I noted in my presentation, I learned quite a bit from the assignment, specifically about how Twitter analytics work and why they are useful. I also learned that while I come a long way technology-wise, there is still much to learn. For example, when I tried to add voice narration via Voicethread it produced separate audio files that were not in sync with the slides. Very frustrating! I consulted several sources to locate a solution but was ultimately unsuccessful. In the end, I decided that the best thing to do was to forgo Voicethread's audio features, and instead use PowerPoint's audio function. However, I had already recorded the audio files and didn't really want to repeat the narration, so I downloaded each audio file from Voicethread, renamed them so they would correspond to the appropriate slides, and used an online file converter to ensure com...