Unit 12

Here we after a great journey!! I'll post my end of course thoughts below later.

I am fortunate to be part of this class with such a diverse and global classmates. It such a cool feeling to be reaching out and working with classmates in the virtual world. I didn't initial give it much thought, but it's a powerful feeling!!!

This is what I've learned in ILT 5660:

-The Typography subject gave me a Joshua tree moment or "ah-ha!!" after looking around the web for really fun pictures taken from others around the world.Typography also has me thinking about CIV's that are involved in the lesson (Active, Supportive).

- I have a understanding for learning by story telling, active reading and also being aware of when to incorporate technology into a lesson plan. Technology has given us opportunity to make learning fun (blended learning).

- Better understanding of Horton: "Absorb, Do, Connect"

-Enjoy a Joshua Tree moment: Williams

- Read and immediately apply knowledge to relevant life experiences

- Thanks to Web 2.0 tools, We are interconnected in a way that we've never had before.

- Forming, Storming and Performing- Stages of developing a Webinar with a great team. It's easier said than done.

- Online learning is not easier than the traditional method.

- Writing learning objectives based on criteria is no easy task!!

Unit 10 rants and raves

I would love to say I took this picture but I didn't!!
I really enjoyed the topic of Typography. The discussions threads were very rewarding in terms of learning something new and sharing this art with others. My last "art class was 9 years ago when I had an Italian Renaissance art class. That course was fantastic!!

The Typography subject gave me a Joshua tree moment or "ah-ha!!" after looking around the web for really fun pictures taken from others around the world.
Typography also has me thinking about CIV's that are involved in the lesson (Active, Supportive).
Rants
I think the disappointment I have with this course is sitting back and enjoying subjects from the previous units. Maybe it's a mindset or is it called reality??

Unit 9 Reflections and then some!!

To those who lost their homes. We pray for you!!!

Helvectica who?? Oh, Arial!! Now I get it!! The art of designing is new to me. The aesthetics of a web page is an art I'll define as I work on my project. After reading Williams( 123-178) I see how I can spice up my project by variation and contrast.

Our webinar was fun. Actually, It didn't run as perfect as I/we expected but the flow was good. Team Wiki's hard work really paid off!!

Technology isn't perfect(as we found out) but managed by proper planning(for the most part). We had a Plan B but not a Plan C. Plan C should have been if the host "fell out" we would pick up and move on. Lucky for us, she managed to find her way back after a very long minute of silence!!

I attended the Second Life webinar and really enjoyed it. I just don't know when or where I would use it. There are so many variations of tools to use today for networking, etc. I find myself taking what I can use at that moment.

Unit 8 Lessons learned

Wow!! Yet another business two weeks. I find the two weeks is well needed but I still manage to put off doing what I need to do till the second week. I need to work on that!

Team Wiki is really at the performing stage. I’m happy with the team I have and the flexibility among us. We realize how busy life is and our other priorities so we work together to make sure we can meet and connect at the same time. I’m glad we are working well together and have a much deeper respect for other adult learners out there!!

We are days away from performance of our webinar. There is the fear that technology will fail us but proper planning has made that less fearful. We’ve put hours of both individual and group work into making this happen. I also look forward to recording our webinar and revisiting to see how it all pieced together. This will be my first webinar that I have been part of!!

On the surface the Topic discussion in Horton (Chapter 6) was easy. Pick a topic and run with it. What I forgot about, until I read Chapter 6, is the anatomy of a topic and that is what I need to focus on. It’s too soon to elaborate on my edweb development. This chapter is a great place to read and revisit during my Edweb construction.

Speaking of my Edweb…… the analysis hasn’t been easy!! I really had to be away from everyone to manage my time in constructing something coherent. After some feedback, I’ll be able to see where my thinking is and adjust that accordingly.

Go Team Wiki !

In my opinion, my group is between the forming and storming stage. We’ve made great strides before our week off. We returned to find we are all in the middle of a busy week. It’s a great test of individual resolve and flexibility. Burning the midnight oil might be the right call for this first week back. The next two weeks will involve applying our ideas, developing our plan and on the 9th of November we will host our “Wiki in Wonderland” presentation.

Unit 7 Lessons learned, Part 2

After last year, I'm taking my team one week at a time. A great victory over Stanford and bad breaks with the Tar heels. The game against Pitt game is a must win. Go Irish!!!

Stephen Downes, http://www.downes.ca/ mentions in "Free Learning and Control Learning" that “A lot of learning, even traditional learning in the classroom, contains a large social dimension as you interact with the other people in your class”. My traditional thought of learning was read a book, test out and apply what you know. Well, that still happens but with Web 2.0 we enter a new paradigm of learning. We are interconnected in a way that we've never had before. I can list a dozen social/networking sites I wasn't exposed to before and now have signed up and currently trying to make sense of all that is available. Between Chapter 4 of Horton and the Downes assignment, we've become advanced social animals that brings us all into a pack of learners.

Unit 7 Lessons Learned

I almost forgot about this. Give me a week off and look what happens!! I attended my first webinar(for this course) and was very impressed. The topic was " OVERVIEW OF LEARNING 2.0: WHAT'S HOT, WHAT WORKS AND WHY YOU SHOULD CARE" by Lance Dublin. My first impression was how busy and intimidating a webinar can be. Between polling chats, and voice, I tried to focus on the topic. It seems other topics were going on in the chat so I tuned that out. Anyway, great overview of Web 2.0 tools and the genesis of web 1.0 and web 2.0. It's Fascinating to think where we are going and how inter generation this is for all!

I enjoyed features within Elluminate. It gave me a very good idea on the style, content and flow for our Wiki webinar.

Unit 6 lessons learned

So many lessons learned in Unit 6 but so little time. Chapter 4 was a great read. I related to either the methods I used to learn by or the methods I helped others to learn by. I do remember the famous, "stop and think" used during our practical application. There are many steps in treating a traumatic injury and one missed step could be grave. I used " stop and think" when I noticed a student skipping a critical step(they were all critical steps). Eventually and sometimes with some help, the student would remember that certain step. Additionally, we have several types of job aids for the students( list of terms, cheat sheet, checklists) they can be used during practice before being formally "tested out" at another time.

Horton also talks about other types of activities used. Currently, my group is in the infancy stage of developing certain activities for our Webinar. Like I would say in the Military, "It's on a need-to-know basis and you don't need to know that right now". I look forward to working with my group on those activities!!

Thanks for the memories!!

I was born and raised a Yankee fan. As a young kid in New York, I pretended to be a Yankee and had all their baseball cards. My favorite item from a Yankee game was a was a Bobby Murcer bat on "Bat Day". How sacred that bat was to me!!

Unit 5 lessons learned

This was a perfect week in the practice of multi-tasking. My Group(Group H) met for the first time over the phone in preparation of our Team agreement. The process of doing tasks online and over the phone is still new to me. It was a great test in patience and persistence. The end result of this week for my group was great communication, great feedback and even greater results from our phone conference, Wiki site and keeping up to date on out proposal.

My other group, E, had a very thought-provoking assignment. We discussed, dissected and put back together chapter two and our favorite quotes.The discussion was full of great examples and preferences in respect to Absorb activities. I now have a renewed understanding for learning by story telling, active reading and also being aware of when to incorporate technology into a lesson plan. Technology has given us opportunity to make learning fun (blended learning). I love the idea of online learning and reading a book. It keeps the boredom to a lesser degree and motivates me to learn more. Overall, this was a busy week!!

Lessons learned for Unit 4

What a good mix of learning and fun this week. In chapter two of Absorb activities, Horton talks about absorb activities and why they are used. What I learned in this chapter is that storytelling is a great connection with learning and creativity. Storytelling gives me a better picture based on my past experiences. It also takes me out of myself and into the story being told. Also, having a student open up and tell a story is really a great benefit to all involved.
What makes me rock. I tend to be a quiet person but I have certain triggers that fire me up. I shared that during my military days, I listened to Metallica during pre-jump preparation to fire me up. I'm a person who normally listens to the likes of Keller Williams, Jack Jackson, and the Dave Matthews Band. So you mix Metallica and jumping from several thousand feet and you have a party!!

Group E: Instructional Values

We came up with several strong Instructional values that are worth posting here to show the world: Social” Learning*Collaborate (w/peers, students, family, friends)
*Encourage creativity
*Ensure mutual respect*Create personalized experiences
*Provide a challenging and safe environment for learning
*Use video and audio to convey emotion
*Empower
*Emotional engagement
“Pragmatic and Relevant" Learning
*Hands-on activities connected to real-life experiences
*Differentiate instruction and include practice for real assimilation
*Allow learners to control their own experience by allowing time for exploration and practice
*Limit lectures to exactly what is necessary to ensure we don't exceed the normal adult attention span
*Read and immediately apply knowledge to relevant life experiences*Preparation and organization are imperative

I like them all and hope to continue to reflect on them and apply them when needed. These values are the blueprint for this course.

Unit 3 part 2

It was getting late which explains my part two. The lesson learn in unit 3 are many. I had the opportunity to play around with adobe connect and realized what a powerful tool that is. I mananged to watch a recorded Webinar from april 2008. I was amazed to see how all this technology was incorporated with a single Webinar. For example, The instructors used a live poll to check on experience with Web 2.0. The poll was going on in real time and you could automatically see the results. Anyway, I thought it was very cool. Simple things for simple minds. We've come a long way from a conference call!!

My blog is up and running. I found myself editorializing the Olympic Goal Medal Basketball game. I think I was having too much fun and have since removed it to focus on this class(except for Kobe's picture).

My wife mentioned that I should "journal". This blog may very well be that outlet for writing.

Unit 3 part 1

Utilizing Kolb's Reflective Observation, my group really came together to try and figure this out. Our backgrounds as a group are so different but I noticed how we came together to make sense of what I would consider a new topic for us.
To start with, we are social learners and find value in collaboration, encouragement and personalizing what we learn. In many ways, this is what works for us and how we want to carry on with our learning. I know my best work is created with others and not myself. Looking back, most of my success has come with the help of others. It's such a dynamic value that we thought out and a very important instructional value to remember. The cause and effect is we are influenced and go on to influence others, so do it right!!
Epiphanies this week?? Hmmm. didn't have one. But check back because my mind tends to race and something divine may hit me!

Group E talking points

Valerie Wood sent me an email with several good talking points we can go over as our course progresses The questions below are responses from our group's individual answers:

How about taking Jackie and Patrick's comments as starting points? Here are the questions they had put up:

* Would you say that all good learning experiences should be challenging?

* As instructional designers, how or should we integrate emotions into our instruction?

* Do you think feeling uncomfortable, fearful and/or out-of-control areimportant elements in a powerful learning experience? Is that something an instructional designer should attempt to integrate into the instruction?

* How do you think the "preparation and persistence" you refined during your three years at Great Lakes may transfer to developing online instruction?

* What do you think the role of memorization is in learning? Are there some fields, like law, where memorization is required? I wonder how many different memorization strategies we can list? I think these are interesting questions that we could explore further based on our experiences.

Thanks Valerie!!

In the Beginning, I created a blog

Here I am!!
The opportunity to work on my Master’s degree started when I received an email from Dr. Joni Dunlap to enroll and get started on IT 5660 in less than 6 days. I was excited to get this thing going after looking around at similar programs elsewhere. As fate would have it, I found what I needed and fast!
I’ve been in the process of looking for something I would enjoy doing. After 20 years in the military I owed it to myself to make my second career as fruitful as possible. Not that the Military wasn’t fruitful, it was! I had a blast but had to move on and try something else. I owe my experience, discipline and maturity to those that I served with.

So here I am. One week into this course and I have a great excuse to blog. It’s been on my list of things to do but not a priority. With this course I can give credit when needed, Praise when warranted and my “humble” yet freshman opinion of eLearning.