Final presentation Pedagogy First!

Editor's Notes

• #3: MY POT FINDINGS – I thought this was a clever acronym to cover the concepts I learned in the Pedagogy First class, so let’s get started with P for Progress.
• #4: PROGRESS – As I look back on how far I have come since September of 2011, I was amazed. I looked back to my original blogs, which were such a convenient source, as I am sure it was “the design” all along from our wise POT instructors. I had never created a blog and didn’t own a headset or camera for my computer. I didn’t know what a tag was, nor that you could do HangOut Sessions on Google.
• #5: OBSERVATION – My observation is a bit of the bigger picture. I definitely believe that on-line education in one form or another will be part of all learning in the future. The idea of flipping the class and practicing your homework and lessons at home on the computer and doing more interaction with the real live instructor in class makes so much sense to me. As our textbook by Ko & Rossen covered, the students can work at their own pace and replay any sections they need to, or pause it as they go along for better comprehension. Vice versa, the students that want to move quickly can speed their pace up.
• #6: TECHNOLOGY- Technology has changed the way students expect to learn has changed with the advent of all this great technology as well as the way they think, as we read in Matt Richtel (NYTimes), Growing up Digital, Wired for Distraction (2010) during Week 16. Hyperlink to article is included here. In my opinion, if the instructor doesn’t adopt new methods to engage them, they will not be as effective at getting their concepts communicated. Our goal is to get them to learn, so we need to use the tools that they will be receptive to. Personally, the Second Life experience was distracting to me because I was so busy looking at Barbie’s outfits and the BookHenge environment that was specifically designed by someone, that I couldn’t concentrate on the message. I am in my 40s and was raised in a remote area with limited TV, no computers or electronic games, just books to read or playing outside. I just concentrate better when reading, but I am well aware that today’s generation responds to technology – it just livens them up and gets their brains excited, although it may be for a short time, it does get them interested and going.
• #7: FAVORITES – My favorites FAQ, JING, SLIDECAST & FLICKR – FAQ- A Frequently Asked Question page is such a simple document, but major time saver for the instructor and it cuts down on the frustration of the beginner on-line student. I had never taken the time to do one, so this class helped me along on that one. JING – JING is so easy to send a screen shot and make a short video. I like Jing so much, I should probably pay the fee for the upgraded version and gain more expertise with this tool. For my hybrid class, I can take a picture of their homework and write comments on it or highlight and send back to the student showing them exactly where they made a mistake. My students seem to enjoy that style of feedback. FLICKR - Flickr stands out in my mind due to the efficiency of it. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an annotated picture must be worth a few thousand more? I teach accounting, so I don’t see as much of a use for it in my discipline, but for many other liberal arts disciplines, I see this tool as being very helpful. It was easy to figure out and fun to use. I’ll talk more about Slidecast when I get to the S in my POT FINDINGS.
• #8: INTRODUCTION - I like the idea of using Voice Thread as an ice-breaker so everyone in the class can get a chance to hear and see the other students they will be interacting on-line with. It was very easy as a participant, as I remember from Weeks 7 and 8, however, I have not created my own Voice Thread from scratch as the moderator, I was just a participant. I am currently teaching a hybrid class so on the first day I just had each student stand up and introduce a fellow student and give us all a little background on their accounting experience and their goals for the class and ONE interesting tidbit about them. That allows me to remember their names easier, plus they write it on a 3x5 note card for my future reference. I have that luxury since it is a hybrid class, but if I had a fully on-line class, I would use Voice Thread for the ice-breaker. I created a Jing link to our Voice Thread we used earlier in the year. This introduction ties in to my next letter – N for Neighborhood.
• #9: NEIGHBORHOOD – Teaching on-line appears to be so much more effective if the students feel like part of the community. Pilar did a talk about community that made so much sense, I love the analogies she made about comparing your on-line students to members of a community. It really resonated with me that everyone is trying to create a non-threatening way to get students involved on-line and be part of the community much in the same way as real life. However, as on-line instructors, we need to provide the appropriate tools to allow the students to have that connection. By providing voice and picture introductions, it creates a more personal environment for the remainder of the class. Also I do believe it is important to personalization of your syllabus to let them know what your life is like and to set time expectations. It is good for the students to know some of your habits, like going to bed at 9:30pm and NO, you won’t be answering them at 2am. In an effort to personalize this presentation, I included a picture of myself on top of Half Dome in Yosemite Valley. I have a busy life and have children ages 7 and 9 and a consulting business. So, I do not have normal hours sitting at computer all day and it is important for my students to know when the best time to reach me is, so they are not frustrated or think I am just ignoring them. I might even be out selling Girl Scout Cookies. I use the discussion board as a forum for questions and give extra credit for students that get back to others with the correct answer first. I learned this idea from Pablo Martin at one of the continuing education seminars at Mira Costa College. Thanks Pablo for the great idea, it have been working wonderfully.
• #12: DIFFERENCES – The differences between the learning management systems is quite surprising. Based upon the numerous videos out there dissing Blackboard, I really get the impression many students and educators don’t like Blackboard and feel it is not friendly or flexible and it is certainly not free. I am relatively new to Blackboard and I do see how the structure of the LMS changes the flow of the class. Moodle seems to be more useful for the on-line class structure with its format and presentation. A fellow POT member shared the link to The “Moodle Official Music Video”, which I embedded a link to here. That video was quite impressive. I found it interesting that those two students took the time to create that. For me, creating that could have taken weeks to produce. I guess it is easy for the younger generation. But they must really have a passion to get Blackboard eliminated or changed. Maybe I was slower than the average POT student, but I finally grasped the meaning of the title “Pedagogy First” about a month into the class. I did NOT get that at first reading of the title. I am not a full-time educator and much of the Pedagogy and Educational Theory was all new to me.
• #13: INTIMIDATION – As time goes by, it seems like the quality of videos out there is increasing rapidly. I get intimidated because I am a complete novice with not a lot of time to spend “experimenting” with new technology. The mentors and instructors in the POT class have been in this field for years, so their material is great as is the material they share from the web. But, that being said, what I love about this class is that the instructors and the design of the class takes away the intimidation factor. Everyone has been so helpful and I really feel it is OK to be doing all of this for the first time. I think that was also the point of Dean Shareski’s video that we recently covered, he did a great presentation and he shared how he was filming his presentation by using two cameras and how he used his Ipad to stream his notes. Also the encouraging videos we get weekly from our POT instructors were instrumental to my success. I remember Lisa’s Week 2 Panic video, that gave me the motivation to not give up. And Jim’s most recent power point with Helter Skelter music brought down the anxiety I was having over the final presentation format and content.
• #14: NEW THINGS – POT created a motivating and a safe environment to try all of the new things I just mentioned and many others. During this class – I created by first blog, CPAProf on Edublogs, opened a Diigo account for bookmarking, uploaded my first You Tube video from my cell phone (with the help of my children), I surveyed my hybrid class using Survey Monkey and created a Mind Map for them on accrual accounting. I created my first Google site, my first Slidecast and first MP3 file voice file from Audacity, which I am using right now. I used Flickr to mark up a photo and then used Mbedr to embed the annotated photo to my blog. On-line educational theory was a new one to me, I had no idea there where that many different ways to approach learning. They made sense once explained, just not a field I was aware of, since I am not a full-time professor. I am a Certified Public Accountant and today is April 17th, it is a busy time of year for us here in the United States.
• #15: GOOGLE – Throughout the class, I recognized the power of Google, it can be used for just about anything. I think POT could run a whole class on just becoming a Google expert. If only I would have bought the stock years ago, who could have foreseen how prevalent this company has become in technology. I’ve embedded 8 Ways Teachers can use Google from Lisa’s post. I definitely see the benefit of having a Google site outside of the standard learning management system. I really like Pilar and Lisa’s idea to e-mail the students and link to someplace else outside of the learning management system, so that document can help them access the system more effectively. Instructions inside Blackboard won’t do them any good if they can’t get in. And also the fact that you have your own space where you can save your work and not worry about losing access to it when the semester is over, or if you switch colleges.
• #16: SLIDESHARE – or SlideCasting with audio. This is the tool that I chose to use for my presentation because I only teach one accounting class and I find it most useful to use the publishers’ already created presentations as my starting point and then edit and narrate. I didn’t see any reason to recreate the wheel when I can just personalize and tweak the wheel from the Publisher. It is a much more personalized touch. I am currently using this tool in my hybrid class and I have included a link to one of my Slidecasts for an Exam review. The right tools are so imperative for the on-line class, and I feel fortunate that I am able to ease into learning all of the on-line technology with this Pedagogy First Class and the fact that I am currently teaching my class half on the ground class and half on-line. I can take baby steps to becoming a fully competent on-line instructor. Thanks to you all for the wonderful program you have created.