Winding Down

1 Down and 1 and a half to go. The course is almost over and there is a sense of relief that is starting to come over me. I have finished just about the all o fthe online work with just putting the final pieces together for my leadership plan. One last section on my professional portfolio and that can be put to bed. The only thing left is the exit interview. We started to divide up the sections that we are going to cover. It was fun to look back at all of the work that we did for the cohort. Looking at some of the reflections from the first semester made it feel like it was so long ago. I remember getting the list of books for that semester and thinking this is going to be crazy. No way am I reading this much. Sure enough it all got read, and discussed, and analyzed. Have to be honest though, I don't miss having to read a book every other week. This entire journey has been such a learning experience. Not just the content from the class but also a lot about myself.

Learning Together

Tonight’s class was another learning experience. I really like the opportunity to sit there and try to figure out or work through some of the different things that we are learning. While at times I get frustrated it is usually for stupid things. Like hitting the backspace button in Angel and rather than having it delete the previous letter it takes you back a screen. I enjoy the experimenting with the new technology we are working with to figure out how to make something happen or work. I especially like the fact that everyone in the class is learning new things together. It is nice that Bill does not just sit there with all of the answers but learns right along with us and experiments and tests to see how some things work. That is something that many teachers are afraid to do with their classes.

In class tonight we finished out Podcast for our advocacy site (you can check it out at: http://standarizedtestingoverkill.pbwiki.com/FrontPage ). This was the first Podcast that I have ever done. It was relatively easy to create but difficult to stay in the 30 second time allotment. It was nice to get all of the advocacy wiki done so I can concentrate on finishing the portfolio, online class work, and preparing to for the exit interview.

Digital Video

On Thursday we created our Advocacy PSA . It was actually pretty fun to do. I am a big fan of digital video. It is amazing what can be done with a free program (moviemaker), a digital video camera, and just a little knowledge. I am really enjoying this course and not only learning new (to me) technologies but actually using them.

Next up will be the podcast which I am excited about learning. That has been a buzzword around the last year and I have not had the opportunity to create one. I am pretty familiar with the audio software that we are going to use.

Advocacy and Online

Working on the advocacy wiki has been fun. Just like many of the projects throughout the cohort working in groups is much more beneficial than working alone. This is soemthing that I have to continue pushing in my school as I work with teachers. I have noticed an improvement of staying on task as the semesters have worn on. There is not as much time spent off task now as there was in the beginning fo the cohort. I did find uploading a file tonight onto our wiki to be somewhat troublesome and frustrating. Last week it was no problem but tonight for som reason it wanted to be difficult. But we got it working late (thanks Bill).

THe online course is going along. I am doing a good job about staying ahead of where I want to be on it. There seems to be a lot more work for this particular online course in comparison to the previous courses. My goal is still to be done with the online course when the face to face is over.

Class 3

Set up my first Wikipedia page today. I think it is a cool concept and was fun to work through but not sure that it is something that I would have done if it were not for class. I am more of a "silent surfer" on the web. I will look and find the information that I want but very rarely post anything. I have been on wikipedia a few times prior to this class but never really felt the urge to add anything.

With two young sons I find it difficult to find the time to do these types of things. I am glad that we are being "forced" to use these for the course. I do see the benefit and could see them being used for classes in schools with students.

We really started working on the advocay website and that is coming along. I like working in groups (which we have throughout the cohort) becuase I learn so much form others. Not so sure that I would pay attention as much if these were done in all class discussions or if all of the assignments were done individually.

Working through Frustration

Everything we have done in the cohort so far has always revolved around authentic problems. I am really having a hard time with that and the most recent assignment that we need to create for this course. I am struggling with coming up with an authentic problem for blogging or wikis. I see the benefit of them and have ideas for uses of them but can not come up with a good authentic problem.

Class 2

The second class we saw some pretty cool tools. It was funny to listen (including me) about how overwhelming the course was going to be from the first week to everyone settling down and getting back in the flow the second week. Last week we starting talking about some of the tools and things we will be working on and this week really started using some of them. Dr. Warrick also showed us some cool tools that we can use to start to organize and keep up with psoting and changes to blogs. This reinforces what I saw last week that this is going to be a fun, interesting course.

I am also looking forward to getting the advocacy project rolling.

Graduation

Graduation was yesterday and I am really glad that I went and took part in both ceremonies. Going through those has really motivated me to get the course work done and finish up. It has really put the "end in site". It seems like there is still a lot to do (and there maybe) but it definitely put the end in perspective.

The Last Semester

As I sit in class and listen to Dr. Warrick talk about all of the things that we need to do this semester I can't help but wonder how is it all going to get done. It seems like there is a lot of material to cover and work to do without much time. I know it will get done (it always does) but for some reason this time it seems like a lot more. I think part of it is the time of year. Right now there are a lot of things going on and wrapping up and this just gets added to it. I have really enjoyed this cohort but am looking for the pressure and stress of the work and deadlines to get done, to be gone. I always add more of that to myself. I don't like to get behind and when things are due I like to have them in early. Because of this, there are many times I feel guilty when I am not doing some sort of work. In the back of my mind I can hear the voice telling me, "You really should be writing a reflection", or "Why aren't you doing the next module for the on-line course?" I can't wait to put that voice to bed!!!!! I really am looking forward to getting this last semester rolling.