Well, my week has been both rewarding and disappointing.
Let’s start with the disappointing aspect of my week. I found going through the “help” menus for the blog, the wikipage, the bio, etc. to be very time consuming. I spent a couple hours every day (yes, I’m a beginner in all of these) trying to understand the terminology and the process to post, to upload, etc. I am still trying to figure out how to put my picture in the participant directory. I also need to upload (proper term??) my video to Youtube. I’m almost at the point where I will be phoning someone to help me with the picture. Not yet, I will not be defeated!!!
The rewarding part of my week is that I did accomplish most of the introductory activities. I was able to create accounts and I now understand what a blog is and its purpose. I also know now how to use my web cam. What a great tool. I have a sister who lives in San Diego and I have not seen her in six years. I am going to set us up so that we can conference every Sunday. I am so excited. Back to the class material. I have decided not to freak out if I can’t keep up to what everyone else is doing. I have already learned so much and will continue to learn. My personal goal for this class is to take back what I have learned and use it in the classroom. Once I feel comfortable enough I will create a classroom blog for my English 31 crew.
I did have an opportunity to view the assigned videos for this week and I found them to be very interesting. The video that resonates with me is “A vision of students today”. I couldn’t help but think that we (educators) are so out of touch with the youth of today. However, is that any different than when we were in high school? We thought our teachers were out of touch with our world? I realize that we are still in the textbook age and need to move beyond that. But how? Teachers are moving at a snails pace when it comes to technology. How do we improve the training of teachers? What about the teachers that refuse to be brought into the Web age? What about undergraduate programs, what is the requirement regarding technology skills and knowledge?
Well, back to my picture and video!
