Week 8 F-I-N-A-L

I am glad to have had a group for more than a couple of weeks.  We have had weekly chats that have been not only productive, but helped me to feel like I truly have some peers that I can talk to. 

As we are all getting busier and busier with classes, work, and our lives, I think we are all becoming more flexible in trusting in the group and trusting that the work will all get done.  Right now, Chris is editing and putting it all together.  I feel anxious when I'm not able to help out with a certain part, but I'm also excited to see what he comes up with.  I am thankful for this group because they are willing to work, but don't get easily stressed out or overwhelmed.  And we have learned a few things along the way...

Week 7 Learning

I love when learning converges in various parts of my life.  This week it happened to be work and online classes.  I got to go to a conference in New York at Columbia's Teachers College.  It focused on content area (social studies and science) workshops.  The concepts taught there are simple, yet profound.  These concepts often go against the grain of test based learning and politically based educational methods. 

The readings this week, also brought into question the educational status quo.  Along with Papert, I agree that we need to change our teaching to fit the times and the technology available to us.  I am glad to have the opportunity to be trained in both online teaching and face to face teaching.  The more I am learning, the more I am realizing how in this day and age they connect.  In online courses, I often think about a face to face activity that can be re-created online, and vice versa for my face to face classroom.  Connections, connections, connections.

Week 6 Updates

This week was an interesting path towards a better understanding of our group final.  AIG has a weekly chat and we went back to square 1 and decided on a new topic, "From Cohorts to Cliques to Community." We split up some of the roles and worked on unraveling what our topic and paper would look like.

I have really enjoyed my group.  They have been so positive, despite how busy everyone has been.  We try to be open and honest in our discussions, so that we have a project we think we all can carry out well.  I think we have a great topic and think that we are now moving in the right direction.

Week 4 Progress

Week 4 was a mix of individual research on my midterm topic and more group discussions on how to facilitate our collaboration for our final.

My individual research is a mix of positives and negatives.  Online research is continuing to improve and be more user friendly.  I was disappointed when I found an abstract for an article that would be very useful, but I couldn't get ahold of a librarian either by phone or chat.  We'll see if they respond by email if there's a way to get the full article.

The group collaboration proves to be tricky.  I had set up a Google site, which everyone has used at my work, virtually without a hitch, but 2 of the 3 other group members couldn't edit it.  So, Mark found a different collaborative tool that we can use.  We all just feel so overwhelmed by the amount of discussion boards, chats, emails, wikis, blogs, and other sites that we have to keep track of. 

Community Building Across Cultural Divides

Our group has varied interests, and decided upon the topic of Community Building across Cultural Divides.  We each will take a different angle to research.  Mine is still in the beginning stages, but will deal with how online classes can bridge the socio-economic divide. 

Our group is making progress.  We were all quite fuzzy on the direction of the papers.  Anne and I met for dinner, which was fun to see a fellow online student in person.  We were able to begin our discussions, and then moved to a variety of other mediums to discuss with Chris and Mark.  We are finding that there are too many blogs, wikis, emails, discussion boards, etc. and that we can't find one that works for us and our needs.  We had a group chat Sat. night, which helped move us along, but we are still struggling with finding a medium to collaborate through where we can collect all of our information and communication. 

So, that's where we stand at this point.

Who is George Schultz?

I hadn't heard that name for a long time. Regan's Sec. of State. I wasn't in the US then, so I heard his name a lot.  The other Schultz was more fun.

“All the loves in the strip are unrequited;

all the baseball games are lost;

all the test scores are D-minuses;

the Great Pumpkin never comes;

and the football is always pulled away.”

EMVERGEONING

Good communication tonight

Thanks for a very good conversation this evening on the development of our group project. I am really glad we have such a good group. Look forward to seeing you again in person