Metacognitive Blog

In my first blog I talked about how we had to do an assignment in class to come up with catchy titles for the different workshops. I also talked about the set up of the class and discussed needs assessments. In my second blog I talked about front end-analysis and a survey we had to do on emotional intelligence. I wasn’t very happy with the survey results. Finally I talked about how the affective domain is important for learning. In my third blog I talked about us taking our second quiz and also how we began working on the course design specification for our group workshop. I used my training reflection for my fourth blog entry. Basically in the training reflection I discussed the process of creating the course design specification and the process we went through to create the material for our own workshop. In my fifth blog I talked about another group that did their workshop presentation. I also talked about our own workshop and the annotated bibliography we had to turn in. In my sixth blog I talked about our workshop presentation in detail. I discussed the work we had them do for each of the Google tools that we chose to present on. In my final blog I talked about the Lowman Home workshops coming to an end, virtual high schools, and the CamStudio Video we had to create.

I’ve learned quite a bit this semester. Teaching another workshop really was a great experience. I felt like from the workshop we presented last year in 444 this workshop in particular was way better. I think we were definitely prepared better this time around. It’s great to put something together, have a successful presentation, and see that you’ve actually taught people something. I think my favorite thing about the class this year was learning about CamStudio. Other than not being able to edit the videos, it’s a really cool application for being free. Learning about the virtual high schools was also cool. If I had a kid I’m not sure I would allow them to attend that school, but it is definitely a nice idea. If they could come up with something to take care of the social aspect the kids are missing then I it could work, but until then I don’t see it happening. Finally, if I could give advice to future students in this class, I would say to make sure you check the due dates on the assignments and start them early. You do a lot of different things in this class, so it’s really easy to miss something and get overwhelmed.

Blog Response Inventory

Date of response: September 7, 2009
Blog Author: Matt Ward
Blog Title: BLOG 1
Date of blog entry: August 31, 2009

Date of response: September 21, 2009
Blog Author: Jose Lugo
Blog Title: BLOG 2
Date of blog entry: September 12, 2009

Date of response: October 5, 2009
Blog Author: Tim Jones
Blog Title: BLOG 3
Date of blog entry: September 28, 2009

Date of response: October 19, 2009
Blog Author: Chris Lambert
Blog Title: BLOG 4
Date of blog entry: October 12, 2009

Date of response: November 2, 2009
Blog Author: Matt Ligon
Blog Title: BLOG 5
Date of blog entry: October 31, 2009

Date of response: November 16, 2009
Blog Author: Chris Simpson
Blog Title: BLOG 6
Date of blog entry: November 9, 2009

Date of response: November 30, 2009
Blog Author: Elizabeth Martin
Blog Title: BLOG 7
Date of blog entry: November 27, 2009

BLOG 7

This is the final blog of the semester. This past week was the final week for the Lowman Home workshops. They had a party for all the participants, but unfortunately I wasn't able to make it. We also spent the past few weeks talking about virtual high schools. We had a class discussion online about it. I think that virtual high schools could definitely be helpful with some classes but you just miss so much of the social aspect of high school if you were to take all of your courses online. We had a couple of speakers that came to class today to talk about it. One of the things they said they do for the social aspect of school is they have an online room that allows the students to create avatars and go around and talk to different people. That's fine and everything, but there is absolutely no way an avatar can take the place of actual socialization face to face. To me a total online high school will not have the students ready for any type of social situation in the real world. We also worked with CamStudio this week. We had to pick an objective off of a wiki website some other students created and create instructional videos and upload them on to a website such as Youtube. This was my first time creating a video on the computer so it was really a learning experience for me. To be honest it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be though. CamStudio was very easy to understand and I got my video done relatively quickly.

BLOG 6

Another couple of weeks have gone by. We recently presented our workshop on Google Tools. I thought the presentation went very well. We chose to do the presentation on Google Books, Google Maps and Youtube. We had 6 people show up. It wasn't a full class, but still a good number of people. For Google books we basically just had them look up The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to allow them to see a full scanned version of the book online. Many of them really seemed to enjoy this because not only can you look up books online but also magazines. For Google Maps we just had them type in Heritage at Lowman just so they could see some of the features of the application. We also showed them the street view which a lot of them found very cool. The last thing we showed them was Youtube. We actually found a video of another event at the Heritage uploaded on there so we had them search for that video. A few of the audience members were actually in the video so they enjoyed that. Last week another group presented a workshop on OpenOffice Writer and the last group goes this week presenting Calc. I think all of the groups have done a great job so far and hopefully we can finish strong.

BLOG 5

Well it's been another couple weeks. We had quiz 3 recently and well...that didn't go too well for me. Hopefully I'll do better on the next one. Last week we had another workshop at the Heritage at Lowman Homes. That workshop was on iGoogle. They reported that only 4 people showed up but overall it went well. This week my group goes and we're doing our workshop on Google Tools. The Tools we chose are Google books, Google Maps, and Youtube. I feel like we made a pretty good presentation and I'm really hoping that the internet doesn't slow down on us. I think that our topics will be very useful for the students that come to the workshop. We also had to turn in our annotated bibliography this past week. I think I did pretty good on mine. We also have to participate in a discussion board for another part of our assignment. Today in class we had to play a game because no one volunteered to be a moderator. Lucky for me, Snoopy was never thrown my way.

BLOG 4 Training Reflection

For the training project, the first thing we had to do was to decide which one we would be participating in. Like in TSTM 444, I chose the Heritage training workshops. After everything was set up, we split up into our project groups and began working on something called a course design specification, or CDS. The first thing we had to do for ours was to decide who was doing what workshop. After that was decided, we split off into our groups of two to work on the specifics for our workshop. The workshop I have is Google Tools and we’ll be presenting it on October 28^th. We chose to present our material on Google Maps, Google Books, and Youtube. I personally believe those are three Google tools that anyone would find useful and I think our audience will benefit by using any of these three. The first thing we did was decide our individual job within the group. To finish up the CDS we had to come up with all of our objectives for the workshop and layout how we are going to present the material. I think we have a really good set up with good objectives. I also think out of all of the topics Google tools will be the most interesting and intriguing to our audience.

BLOG 3

This past week we had our second quiz on our module 1 stuff. I think I did decent on the quiz but it was a lot harder than expected. We also had to get together in our groups and begin working on our course design specification. It's basically setting up what we're going to do for all of our workshops. This past Wednesday was also the kickoff for the heritage. I was out of town so I wasn't able to make it. My group member was able to go and informed me that the most people signed up for our workshop, which is Google Tools. I think we have a basic understanding of which tools we're going to present in our workshop but there were so many to choose from. It was a very difficult decision. I believe we'll be able to make a good workshop because I think we have the most interesting topic. That's about it for this week. There wasn't a whole lot to write about.

BLOG 2

The past few weeks we've talked about things such as front-end analysis and emotional intelligence. We also decided which training design project we'd be doing and I chose the Heritage training once again. I'll be doing my workshop on Google Tools. For front-end analysis we had to pair up and each write about a different front-end analysis tool in the discussion board. I had Technology. We also had to do a 106 question survey on emotional intelligence and then respond about it on the discussion board. Basically it said my emotional intelligence was below average and I wasn't happy with the results. As I said on the discussion board I'm very comfortable controlling my own moods and motivating myself to overcome obstacles. We also had to talk about the affective domain and tell whether it was important for learning. I feel it's very important for learning. Since the affective domain deals with things such as motivation, attitudes, perceptions, and values it can greatly enhance or inhibit learning. I think it could be a smart idea for teachers to focus on the affective domain when planning courses. That's about it for this week.

BLOG 1

Well, this is my first blog post of the new school year in TSTM 544. We had our first class last monday. We went over the syllabus and what we would be doing this year. During class we also had to come up with catchy titles for the workshops some of us will be presenting this year. The class is set up similar to TSTM 444 where assignments are posted in different modules and most are due by the end of that week at midnight. We also had to do our first assignment in the dicussion board disscusing the importance of needs assesment after reading several chapters in our book about it. I found it very important. Needs Assessment allows companies to uncover the root of a percieved problem and keep them from wasting valuable time and resources. That's about all we did during the first week. This week we have to do our first blog response.