Final Reflection on EDU255

This semester began on a positive note as we gathered in Prescott to launch the course. Each student created their weblog in Blogger. For many, including me, this was the first blog we had ever created. Here is the link to the completed blog from this course: http://www.tinaluffman.blogspot.com/. When you are previewing my weblog, you can see links to the other classmates’ weblogs. As you can see, each student learned how to use a variety of tech tools for the classroom as well as his or her personal life.

As well as creating weblogs, we also created wikis. I decided to create one for people who have gone to conferences so participants can share teaching ideas and lessons developed after attending. I am still waiting to hear back from the presenters of two conferences I have attended this past year to see if they will share the wiki with other participants. Here is the link to this wiki: http://0809workshops.wikispaces.com/. I certainly hope that someday I will hear from these presenters and will have some fun with collaborative editing.

Next we learned about RSS feeds. I have used Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing in my English and GED classes in the past. This week I learned that I was not really creating an RSS feed load into Blackboard but was merely loading a link to the Web site where students could scroll through and find interesting feeds on their own. In the Ning class I have created for this class portfolio, I actually did add the RSS feed. Students can see these new recordings coming into our class on a regular basis.

Since I am a current Facebook user, Social Networks in week five were not completely new to me, but I had not used Ning extensively in the past. I was excited to have time to spend using this network, so I am pleased to create this portfolio in Ning. It has been great having the opportunity to return there and create the Critical Thinking network. I plan to use this network for my ENG140 hybrid class this fall. One other network I have used is del.icio.us. This network is invaluable to me when I am not near a local computer. I can find all of my favorites wherever I travel. I highly recommend this site to anyone interested in locating your favorites anytime anywhere.

During the fifth week, we learned about photo sharing. I had an idea how to use these tools, but had no personal experience before with loading and creating photo sharing sites online until this semester. Now I have both a Flickr and a Picasa account. I have also learned that I can apply for a special account to load Flickr photos into Ning. I have also been able to create a slideshow of photos in Picasa to import into email and share with friends and family. The wikispace: http://0809workshops.wikispaces.com/ also includes a Picasa slideshow of images for Critical Thinking.

In the sixth week our class learned how to create a YouTube video for the classroom. I created a YouTube presentation describing their lessons for the week in the ENG140 summer class. It was nice to be able to talk with them informally through the Internet. I hope they enjoyed seeing my face and hearing my voice. That is a new treat for online students (we hope) since it is easy for them to feel the instructor is a non-entity in cyberspace. You can view my first YouTube recording here.

Our seventh week of class was the most challenging for me. We created an audio file in Audacity. I chose to explain to students how to open Tegrity Classes inside Blackboard since I had a recording that week for them to view. Recording the audio file was a cinch after figuring out how to download both Audacity and the correct LAME file onto my local computer. Now I should be ready to create audio files in a snap, thanks to superior assistance from Mark and friends at the college. We also created Jing recordings. I seriously needed help with this download and had called upon Todd. Even after he helped me, I took hours finally making my first recording, and because of the challenges and things I had done wrong, I decided to make my screen capture on how to download and install Jing. I can see why their website has so many tutorials. However, their tool is slick and invaluable to instructors. I can see where I will be able to find uses for this tool in the future.

All in all I feel much better prepared to face the tech savvy youth coming to college this fall than I had in the past. I also feel I have a much better tool box for serving the needs of the students. I will be teaching three online classes and one hybrid class as well as one or two face-to-face classes depending upon enrollment. Each of these tools will make my job easier and hopefully more effective. I am glad to have taken EDUd255 this summer along with each of you, and I certainly hope to see more of you in the future.