ETC Final Movie

For my final video in my ETC course this month, I created a movie to introduce the big idea of apathy to my students for when we begin out Challenge Based Learning project later this fall. You can view the video below.

Week 4 Reading

Okay, so I made an interesting discovery this week while reading: one of my resources that I thought would apply as I skimmed it while creating my resource list does not, in fact, fit the scope of my research project.  It was an interesting read about perceptions of e-learning in secondary education, but it does not touch on engagement in the same way that I'm looking to improve in my classroom.  So, this one is going to be sent back out there for someone else to try to use in their research, but in the mean time, I'll talk about it since I read it.

Journell, W. (2010). Perceptions of e-learning in secondary education: A viable alternative to classroom instruction or a way to bypass engaged learning? Educational Media International, 47(1), 69-81. Retrieved from ERIC database.


In this study, the author conducted interviews with an secondary instructor of an e-learning course, and 11 of the 13 students who took the class.  Overall, all interviews conveyed similar views, with the larges difference being on the part of the instructor in regards to his perception of students.

The most interesting thing I read was the instructor’s preference of the classroom over and e-learning context.  His point was not about the lack of learning in comparison; rather, he said that the social development aspect of the classroom is better for students in the classroom rather than online.

As I thought about my e-learning in this program, I see that I’ve not struggled socially. This may be a result of my age being above that of the students in the study, meaning I have fully functioning social skills, or it could be that there is such an emphasis on the social aspect in the first few months of this program, which makes it easier to transition.  Overall, it was an interesting, but somewhat useless for my AR project, read.

Week 3 Reading

So for this week, I was only able to look review one article because I was busy finishing my Resource list, blog posts, and the wiki.  Here's my quick review of:
Yonezawa, S., Jones, M., & Joselowsky, F. (2009). Youth engagement in high schools: Developing a multidimensional, critical approach to improving engagement for all students. Journal of Educational Change, 10(2/3), 191-209. doi:10.1007/s10833-009-9106-1.


I chose this article because I'm focusing my AR on improving my students' engagement.  To do this, I need a firm understanding, or as firm of an understanding as one can get, on the current definition and views on engagement.  What I gleaned from this article was that the definition and research methods associated with egagement up this point do not really help us engage our students.  Up to now, the focus has been on academic engagement, but that is not the only way we have to engage students.  They are hormonal adolescents - they need to be engaged emotionally and socially while at school as well.  It's so interesting to look at students after reading this article.  Students who perform well in school engage more in the academic aspects (teacher's pets, nerds, brainiacs), while those who couldn't care less about their grades are fully engaged in the social and emotional aspects (class clowns, party animals, queen bees).  Our goal needs to be to bring all students to engagement on all three levels.

How do we accomplish this?  Go to the source.  If you want to know what someone wants, the best way to find out is ask them.  The authors encourage educators and researchers alike to embrace the student voice when it comes to finding how to engage students, and they back this up by involving students in their own research studies (3 to the date of this article's publication).  By asking students what they want, we can usually find out what they need.

BP_Diigo Group

Here is a screen capture of my Diigo group for my Action Research (AR) project. Right now I only have  three group members, but many more have been invited, including my critical friends. 

BP2_iGoogle Screen Shots

Like Google Reader, I've been using iGoogle for the last few years, and it's been my homepage for a majority of that time.  Before this assignment, I hadn't considered creating tabs for different areas of focus with their own gadgets on them.  Mainly, I had my homepage with multiple tools, and it may have been too many. After a while, I was only using one tool on the page (Gmail) and pretty much ignoring everything else.  Using different pages will allow me to focus my attention on a certain class or project and make my time more productive by clearing away the clutter.  Here's what my pages look like right now.

HOME

So you don't think I'm morbid with a person in a casket across the top,
it's a scene from one of my favorite TV shows, LOST.

FSO

I'm also a fan of Ohio State football.  Also, the LinkedIn gadget is there, but it isn't functioning properly.  

AR/CBL

Like the LinkedIn gadget, the Diigo gadget wasn't functioning either.

ETC

I love the look of the books at the top of this page. I think I'm addicted to books.

After creating these pages, I can see how some of the features I added will enrich my web surfing and make is easier.  The biggest example of this is the Flickr gadget.  I love photography, and the "Interesting" tab has some really creative and unique photography in it. 

However, I already had processes for some of the features I added that I think will stay with me and not be supplanted by these features.  The main example that I have is my bookmarks bar vs. the box of links.  I have folders on my bar that serve the same purpose, with each folder containing the necessary links or folders of links to streamline my browsing.  I know I'll always access FSO from the link in my Full Sail folder, but I can see me using the box links for APA resources and some of the new sites we'll be accessing this month that I've never used before.