I started this course as I start many others. I need to get in, get out, get my grade. But this class has drawn me in to another level of learning.
I think I have finally found something that I truly enjoy learning about - technology.
I created my Delicious account, my Twitter account, my Blogger account, my Google reader, and who knows what's next. Everytime I log in to any of these, I find myself spending hours exploring, clicking, gasping, and reading about things I had never imagined. I see a tweet, which links to a blog, which links to an article, which links to resources, which of course links to a massive amount of websites.
I am old fashioned and linear with my thinking in that I must follow every link and when I reach dead ends I go back and click the next link. It's my own personal treasure hunt. While I have 15 tabs open in Safari and it's 2:00am, I do drive myself slightly nuts. But it's worth it!
I know that one day when I get in front of a classroom (but let's face it, not much is taught exclusively from the front anymore), I will have millions of resources at my fingertips to dazzle, impress, inspire, and motivate my students.
On my journey, I came across ClustrMaps - a pretty neat "hit counter map widget and tracker" that "shows locations of all visitors to any site." What better way to show students who is reading the classroom or student blogs, how the world is slowly shrinking into the palm of our hands, and how influential we can be in our writing, media, and actions?!
I am in love with this journey and I know it will never end!
Enjoy:
There's a lot of information! I'm loving it and am overwhelmed by it at the same time. What I'm finding is that I'm getting a lot of news just from my Twitter account. It's great! I have not only subscribed to ed tech sites, but to news sites and just other interesting people. It really is great. I do think that it's interesting to read just headlines--140 words and you get a snippet of what is going on in the world. I also think that Siemen's Connectivism theory really makes sense in terms of taking knowledge in and then dumping what is not needed.
ReplyDeleteSean,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, great post! I completely agree with you. Quite often students just do the work to get the work out of the way, but I can honestly say that I have enjoyed most of my learning in the Educational Technology program. Technology has always been a hobby and interest of mine so I have enjoyed the program so far.
I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that not much is taught exclusively in the front of the classroom anymore. I agree with you. I think learning has evolved to where there are so many different forms of instruction and discussion for students to learn from.
The ClustrMaps site is pretty interesting. That's cool that you set it up for your own blog. Just by looking at it from a glance, you can tell that people from both sides of our country have viewed it. Looking at the site in general from a teacher's standpoint, this would be interesting for students to know if others around the world have viewed their blogs.
We use cluster maps in my district with the student's blogs and they go crazy over it! It is so rewarding for a student to see that someone in California or even Asia has visited their blog. It is really empowering for them to be writing to that authentic audience and even more powerful when they start to receive comments from others across the world.
ReplyDeleteIt's great you're having so much fun - and I agree! There IS a lot of information shared here!
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my classes site! They'll be very excited to find out we are in class together. Their jaws practically hit the floor when i told them the "Mr. Calvert" that commented on their posts was MY teacher - haha.