Prezi

I decided to take a closer look at Prezi. I created an account at the Prezi site and watched their tutorials. As I played with it, I still had some very basic questions about just getting started. I went to YouTube and found 2 helpful videos that gave a general overview. Again, very basic, but that's what I needed. They were simply Prezi Part One and Prezi Part Two. Now that I have the "bigger picture" in mind, it doesn't seem as daunting.

Bugscope

Cool project. For a short time on Friday I had the chance to observe a fourth grade class in the computer lab looking at a bee on a scanning electron microscope through Bugscope in their study of Plant Pollinators. What a great opportunity the students had to take an up close look at various insects. They were communicating with the experts at the University of Illinois, asking questions and getting answers on a variety of topics relating to the insect they were studying. What a great opportunity for the students to become scientists themselves, posing questions, exploring, gathering information, and learning from the experts. Wow.

Focus, focus...

I sat down about an hour ago to continue reading Bloom's Taxonomy Blooms Digitally, but have gotten lost in Twitter. I checked to see if anything was going on, and it was down hill (so to speak) from there. For some reason I found it necessary to scan through the list of 444 possible groups to follow (excuse the lingo if it is incorrect. I'm not letting myself go back to check the terminology for fear that I won't get back here). Curious, I clicked on various choices, Ellen Degeneres, some Health Magazine type of thing, the Today Show, ... and found myself following one link, to another, to another. I'm in need of suggestions to help me focus better! For days, my intent of sitting down at the computer to complete class work has been to go through the two essay/reports listed in cluster 10, and for days I have been getting side tracked - at least going down class inspired roads, I suppose. If I were using a GPS to guide me toward my destination, I can hear it now, recalculating, recalculating...
Another C to add to the list, Choices. There are so many.

The three c's

Communicate, create, collaborate.

What else....We commiserate. We're challenged. We're curious. We curse. But above all, we continue.

A triumph

A few of us from class got together yesterday for about 2 hours. It was a fabulous success. We focused on twitter, added some tweets, found some tweets, found each other, and learned how to maneuver through the site. We also watched a video on wikis (wikis in plain English) that gave very basic information, but filled a void of understanding nonetheless. A document was created in google docs that the rest of us could then go in to edit. We could see first hand what was happening as changes were made and how that information was presented and conveyed. Being able to manipulate a document in this way helped to give me a clearer picture of how it all "worked." These were a few of highlights, I know I'm missing some things, but this is what comes to mind. I know I should have gotten on last night to complete this post, but plugging away for about two hours was my limit yesterday.

In this case working together, collaborating, along with some commiserating, really allowed each of us to come away with a better understanding of these tools and expand our knowledge base. Gaps were filled, misconceptions were cleared, and questions were answered. We might have struggled to answer them, but ultimately they were answered. Last week in class we had the opportunity to work this way to some extent, hopefully we'll be able to continue in the upcoming class (Dennis?).

A quote from the Minds on Fire article (bookmarked and highlighted in Diigo): "Light discovered that one of the strongest determinants of students’ success in higher education—more important than the details of their instructors’ teaching styles—was their ability to form or participate in small study groups. Students who studied in groups, even only once a week, were more engaged in their studies, were better prepared for class, and learned significantly more than students who worked on their own." I can't speak to those who worked on their own, but overall, I couldn't agree more!

Just beginning

I've created this blog to track my learning in the course, Three Cs of 21st Century. I'll report back here on my triumphs, failures, and new understandings. Hopefully, progress will be made!