We came, we saw, we conquered! Where were you?

We even had cake. Lesley learned learned how to reduce the cake from 700kb to 37kb!!! Very cool. Using Word 2010 compression tool only!

We had lots of discussions about assignments. Clarified quite a bit of stuff.

Lesley and Katana

Update

It is a couple of weeks later and we are still going strong. We discuss progress on assignments and new tools. This has been great support for me. Thanks, guys.

Adie had done a great job greating her first(!) website with Webs. Yesterday we spent time with Adie on Webs and found out how to add forums and files. Amazing what colloborative learning can do. Adie is busy overcoming her technophobia.

Afterwards it was my turn to get help with Voicethread. It is really easy but some support is always great.

I thought this was funny. I needed instructions to find the delete button. Guess where it is.

Katana

Anyone keen for tomorrow 17th?
Text me if you are 0274339107
Cheers Adie

Adie took to second life like a duck to water ......Yee not. Technophobe on Vampire Island.

Tuesday 3rd April Cool Tools

We discussed our position statements and the reflection which was due yesterday.
The reflections sure vary!
We also dicussed the great list of tools that Jo put up on a forum.
Another site we looked at was cool tools for school.
A great discussion amd lots of collegial work
Adie, Lesley, and Katana.

Morning all, I made a wordle based on our chatting yesterday. Because you can't cut and paste a wordle, and I couldnt screen grab it (I did try, lots of times - and even swearing doesn't help!) I printed it out and scanned it back onto my computer- where there's a will, there's a way! Lesley

Voki

I just had fun creating the voki and add it to my website. Thanks to Lesley who got us onto it.

Katana

Week 6- Study Group

Hi everyone,

We had a productive study group this morning. We talked again about our position paper statements and made sure we all knew what we were doing for the assignment. We can now all get on to our research wiki pages and can work them.
Lesley has been looking at vokis (talking animations) and shared this with us, we all went onto www.voki.com and created a voki. SO MUCH FUN and we are adults, imagine the kids.
Click on the link to have a wee sneak peek......

Katana will be there tomorrow

I will definately be there tomorrow. Maybe a few minutes late. Have a dentist appointment.

I have decided to cut back on relieve. Too much to do.....

Katana

Tuesday evening update from Katie and Lesley. We came, we saw (each other), we shared, and we left. I think we need a better system of letting each other know when we are going to attend, and when we are off tilting at the windmills of academia. Maybe we need to be brave and swap emails or cell ph numbers or carrier pigeon details.

Anyway, I think that we were both feeling a bit frazzled this morning, the enormity of what we have bitten off for this year is beginning to dawn on us. We talked about the "question" and whether or not we had begun to formalize one, whether we were on track with our articles, how clever some other people seem, when they use big words and/or code language. The difference between primary and secondary experiences was also discussed. Hope to see you all next week.

Katana relieving today

Hi guys

School just phoned. I have done the review for one article. Feedback is appreciated.

I have spent quite a bit of time on Second Life. It keeps logging me out but hopefully I can sort it out. Next step would be to create a class room but so far that seems like lots of time. And we have so much time. ;-)

Cheers
Katana

13/3 - Assignment 1 Discussion

And I was here but forgot the password (Which I had in my diary but needed Adie to remind me) :-(

Adie and I met at lunchtime and talked about assigment 1. We need to make our statement clear and then find articles that support the statement. A reminder to use Google Scholar through the library portal. The library subscribes to many resources and therefore we don't have to pay. We also spent a bit of time looking at the exemplar and examples for this assignment here.

For next week can we please each bring one article we have reviewed/completed for the research findings to discuss.

Katana and Adie

Hey guys,

Are we at uni today meeting??? I dont have anyones nums and cant seem to find anyone??? Can someone please text me 0277535031. Its Alice by the way :-)

Loved looking at the comments etc, virtual morning tea is not that yummy? Do we need to add our name so we know who is contributing or am I missing something obvious?
Will try very hard to get ther next week or if anyone is still around at about 12 today I coud come and meet you. text me if you are on 0274339107
I would like to discuss how everyone is sourcing their articles, I have had some success but think there may be a better way.
Cheers Adie

Hi guys ever so sorry I won't make it, am relieving today! It's a shame because there is a lot I am trying to wrap my head around this week! I didn't forget the virtual snacks though, happy studies, Kate :)

After wearing wet neoprene, polyprop and wool all weekend, and repeatedly dunking myself like a teabag in the cold sea at Wainui (National Sea Kayak forum weekend) I am now a fully fledged germ factory. So, in the interests of not being mobbed by you all when you catch the lurgy off me, I am reluctantly staying at home this week.

Hi everyone,

I decided to try bubbl.us as it was free and I didn't need to sign up to a free trial or anything. I found it reasonably easy to use once I had been playing around with it for a bit. I feel this could be a good tool to use in the classroom for students to arrange their thinking and then to later on go back and critically think about and reflect on what they have put down. However, I feel students could spend a long time on this playing around with colour of bubbles, where to connect lines, font etc, I think this would need to be something you addressed in your class. Maybe get all ideas down and then spend some time at the end making it look presentable if that is the desired outcome.
So I'm hoping this download is going to work with a copy of my brainstorm I created. (Fingers crossed) :-)

Kia ora! Well I was starting to look into my assignment when I found this!!


Flower doodles 

Web tools are a fantastic time waster on a rainy day ha ha, assignment work is on it's way...

Kate :)

In the interests of getting tasks out of the way........

This was created yesterday in Bubbl.us as a way of starting to think about a unit of work for my online students.

Lesley

We have all decided to post at least once to this blog this week, illustrating/describing/practicing one of the practical things Donna has listed for us to try.

Unleashing Potential with Emerging Technologies by Kajder

 "Podcasts and blogs are providing a way for students to read in a voluntary and generative way, the same as adults do.

 "the thing is my reading and writing doesn't happen in here. Anywhere I'd really want to write is blocked, or the stuff teachers ask us to do is so much the same thing again and again that it isn't really writing"

A good blog- 3 principles of effective online pedagogy - you have to have presence, students have to do most of the work, interactivity. (Bill Pals journal of asynchronous learning. Vol 14 issue 1)

 A blog can give quiet students a voice that they wouldn't have in class. Also mentioned in voice thread.

 Side discussion on giving a speech, talking aloud in class- is this another place where 'online' can facilitate greater confidence? We all agreed with the writer of the article that the given technology classroom, was in actuality not a savvy technological environment.

Reporting on our second study group get-together:
We have been having an animated discussion about the first assignment, taking a position, and finding 10 to 15 research articles relating to this.
 Some of us have a beginning idea or position, but articulating and refining this is proving more problematic. Topics/interests/areas range from robotics to technology, the gap between lower decile and upper decile funding and access to resources, cyber safety, literacy............... So, much discussion, swapping of ideas, offering suggestions has ensued.

And we have discovered a common dislike of the word "pedagogy".

I am looking forward to meeting again tomorrow morning. I have more questions than last week, if that is possible! In the interests of good neighbourliness (is there such a word?) I offer nibbles (virtual) for tomorrow.

Hi guys. Not sure if this is the place to do so.... but sending my apologies for tomorrow. I am away for work. Can you guess where I will be? See you next week. :-)

Who is the teacher here? Amazing, watch this!

This is a wonderful example of children knowing how to think,make meaning and use technology.  Just watch Thomas Suarez and be amazed! The true meaning of ako.

Hi there. We (Alice, Kate, Adie, Katana, and Lesley) are having our very first study group. We have decided to create a blog instead of multiple posts to the forum. This week we met up for the first time.

After we introduced ourselves and made connections with each other, we then  started to discuss this weeks reading. We talked about digital immigrants and natives. We also discussed the idea of metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and how this relates to the use of technology. Learning is not all about recall and content as much as thinking about where things come from, and if they are valid, especially when  relating to the digital media.

We talked a lot about the privacy issues in the reading as this related to some of our experiences working with 'at risk' children. Privacy for these children is very important, and it was good to read about some practical ways to keep these children safe.


First problem was how to create a blog....... Here’s the youtube link which shows you step by step instructions (for dummies).

Click here to learn how to make your own blog (We also learnt how to create links)

Every week we intend to use this blog to try out our new Web2.0 tools. Our group includes digital natives and digital immigrants. Hopefully with many heads put together we will learn new skills and succeed at this course. We wanted to find a way to include everyone in our learning journey, and share with you the new tools we are using. Feel free to leave us some comments or feedback!

Happy blogging J