Weekly Reflection 5 - What's the difference between a Hashbrown and a Hashtag?

Copyright by me!

Last night my Sister was at my home and I was discussing or maybe telling her about my new found technical genius. I think she was humouring me or it may have been the lovely Niagara wine we were drinking, but she listened to all my technical stories. 

 I may not be Jane Jetson, but I was showing her my new toy I bought this week, a garbage can (picture included using my photographic genius for your viewing pleasure)  that you wave your hand over and it opens for you. This, coupled with my handsoap dispenser that does the same caused quite a bit of excitement... She was very in awe, mouth dropping and everything...  Now, my garbage can may not be part of my PLN, however the fact thit is part of our new fanagled world of technology just shows the emergence of technology in my life....

I have used Learning Management Systems in varied roles over the last 14 years, School, Work etc. as they develop I have found that very few instructors use all the tools available to develop a course into a learning series outside the classroom.  I developed my PLN with the use of Evernote, Google Scholar, Google Presentations and a few other sources this week while looking for articles on Digital Literacy.  These new tools are very useful to being part of a group projet.  It would be great to all combine to one Evernote notebook, which I guess we could do if we paid more money or used the same email and login.. However, so far it works just the same.

What's the difference between a Hashbrown and a Hashtag? This week my new Twitter friend Pam, okay I am one of the 200,000 of her friends (and she has no idea who I am)... She reposted this blog post from two years ago.  Our Group is focusing on Digital Literacy. The Language of technology is important to consider, verbage and words can deter people to avoid technology, now I don't have any proven research yet, despite the fact that I suffered from this, being afraid to try tech if I didn't know what people were talking about.  While our groups topic is digital literacy, I have noticed that others may be put off or feel stupid when others discuss technology they are not aware of.  We plan to incorporate language into digital literacy.  Eg. Making someone understand what a hashtag is...

Happy Family Day!  Kathryn

Should Universities change their teaching style to mirror that at the College level?

 I often have thought that many of my colleagues who teach or work at a University do not understand how people actually learn!  Bold statement, maybe? We have so many trained and doctored professionals around us everyday invoking great thoughts on young minds, but have these professionals been trained to teach this material in a way that students actually learn or enjoy learning it? This week someone suggested I was coddling students by holding seminars to discuss a topic as opposed to a large classroom with 240 people. It made me wonder, are we or are we just giving students what they want?

This week Steve Wheeler posted a blog post relating to reverting to the way people learned as a child. Based on the research in the February 2013 edition of The Psychologist. In an article entitled 'Learning from Learners', Rachel Wu (Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester, New York).  She recommends that schools and universities adopt 'immersive' approaches to learning where little structure is imposed upon new learning in much the same way that infants perceive no boundaries to their exploration. She advocates doing and making, rather than receiving instruction as the best way for students to excel, especially in creative areas of learning.

Having worked in a College and University and having seen feedback cards from students at both after a course saying they don't want to be continuously lectured at, they want things interactive it leads me to wonder that based on these immersive approaches should we incorporate more exploratory teaching into a University?   I work in co-operative education and have seen the first hand impacts of students applying knowledge in the workplace, but what about a little more exploration in the classroom?

Week 5 - 4th Reflection: Kathryn meets the world!

I am suddenly not so boring... Adult learning is about being collaborative, learning from eachother and usually, learning by doing. I viewed and started to comment on many of my classmates blogs this week. I challenge others to do the same...

Well, with that in mind and seeing other's blogs, I am making this blog a little more fun, trumpets please new title "Kate gets technical" very engaging (end trumpets)

Twitter, who would have thought, maybe I have been in the dark ages.. I am a young Gen Y, and yet the step into Twitter terrified me.  Giggle nervously as I admit I actually had a racing heart creating this new account. My basic thoughts were, who cares about me... Who wants to hear what I have to say.... I am proud to say that last night someone chose to follow me, oh yes, they are from Spain but I am very excited for this development.  Somewhere in the world someone said, wow, here is this person in Jordan, Ontario and I think they have something interesting to say.  Well the rest is history I am officially a followed...This will greatly aid in my learning, allowing me to read and connect with theorists and educators around the world will help me to stay up to date and involved.

 This week I realized that I have been growing all the areas of my PLN, last week I began to take stock of the 4 areas of my PLN and add new things to this.  I am proud to have added Twitter to CONNECT and I bought a Blackberry Playbook to add to my AGGEGATE allowing me to use all my tools no matter where I am.  I find my COLLABORATE section is still only at three items and I plan to investigate this further to see what I can add to this section.

OH GEEZ!  So, here I am doing so well in my whole new found world of technology when this pops into my reader today! How hackers use social media to destroy your on-line life. I know how important it is to be safe, but still it's like someone threw a pie in my face! Reading Element 9 in our text Self-protection is important, this article is a great and useful tool to aid in this topic.  

See you on Twitter... Techie Savvy Kate, oka.. @kathrynleistner

Arguing for social media to become part of my job...

On February 12, I am proposing to my Director that social media become part of our daily work.  As part of this I am asking that time in the work day be dedicated to this by members of our team.  Right now we have a pretty ineffective facebook page, a Linked In account and Twitter account for our University department.  However, we rarely do anything with them, wait hold that.. I think we posted a picture of Brock students in John Deere hats this week, woo hoo! 

Reading Steve Wheeler's blog this week he said that their ar three things we need to know about learning for this generation, it needs to be personalised, social and globalized.

With that in mind, I think the impact of allowing students to interact with our staff while away from the University could have a profound impact on their co-op experiences.  We are currently the only staff on campus that interact with over 1200 - 2000 students per year who leave to go on placements, some ending their studies and throughout.  As the link to this I think they need to hear from us to still remain a part of the University.

It would be great to hear from other's who have made social media part of their worklife to know how much time is needed per day to use technology to aid learning.  I love taking on new things, but I don't want it to become a chore that impacts my other work.. Any thoughts?

Week 4 - Reflection 3... My exploding brain..

Like so many others this week, I am on information overload... I made the mistake of starting this weeks session early in the week at 3:00 a.m. when I was up and couldn't sleep... Yikes, not even the chammoile tea I was drinking could calm my brain down as I started to learn..This week I had my A-ha moment.  I found through this course something I was lacking, I realized that you could work and research topics of interest, mine being elearning and the importance of teaching the Gen X generation (the group of us that were just getting computers into our classes when leaving high school, but are not really sure what a smartboard is..) about current technology and you can possibly make it your career path....

This week I decided to back and list everything I could add to my PLE from week 1.  I was amazed I have at least 20 things now listed that I have tried and had no idea existed a week ago.  I do have some concerns on the impact on my digital footprint as I constantly sign up for sites etc. to try out these tools.  Prior to this course I would't have given too much thought on this and so I now myst ponder whether to go back and delete accounts etc. and remember what I have joined.

Diigo was a valuable tool to learn about this week, an app to take my bookmarking sites with me is fantastic.  I constantly am emailing home saying can you send me the link to this and that that is bookmarked on the computer. This will greatly aid in not only organizing myself, my work life and my learning environment.

For the past week, I have been reading blog posts by Steve Wheeler, an Associate Professor in England focusing his research on elearning,  The irony of finding Steve's blog while completing the lessons this week, learning about his profession and research has opened my eyes to something lacking, a sense of direction in my own career path... Steve talks about the importance of educating in elearning which is something I am completely interested in, I found myself going back and reading all of his past blog posts, linking on my diigo to others he referenced and getting excited about his own research to the point that I started to research the University he works at.  This week Steve posted on value of blogging. Check him out and see what he has to say, you will find valuable tips to help you with your own PLE.