final post on field project December 8, 2007
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Reflections on my project:
This semester long project has been a “growing” experience for me. This project not only gave me different insight into implementing technology in higher education setting with adult learners but I also successfully mastered the Google Page Creator tool. I faced with number of difficulties including having to change the tool from new e-portfolio tool to be implemented at Lehigh to this free online tool from Google. I think this is an eye opening experience for me or anyone else who is working in this field. In reality instructional technology projects are very much like many other information technology projects and hence there are very few projects that are implemented on time and with-in the budget.
Another important learning experience for me in this project was dealing with adult learners especially student teachers. I working with student teachers is as challenging as in-service teachers. May it is something to do with the name “Teacher”. As teachers most of us still feel that we should be an authoritarian and be always in control of our learning as well as classroom. Both as a technology student and teacher, I came to understand the important of trusting technology and using them like the way adolescent students would. Unless we, teachers or adults try it that way, we will always be two generations behind the technological development and instructional technology will not succeed in schools.
This project also taught me a lot about e-portfolios and this will be one of the area I will continue my research. Hopefully, after I graduate, I will be able to help the pre-service teachers in Maldives to create their online portfolios.
Comment on Classmates project:
Discusses a classmate’s project that you found particularly interesting and that you’d like to learn more about. Perhaps you liked the technologies involved, or you thought the application of the technology to the learning goal was especially creative, or you thought interesting issues arose during the implementation.
I liked Tim’s project because he was able to really get the teacher and students participation. Also he had the opportunity to continue with his field project and get it supported by school principal. Its is these kind of projects or endeavors that are likely to be successful and adopted in schools as there is backing from influential people in the school. According to Tim he worked on what the teacher wanted and gave her suggestion as to how other technologies will be of use for the task. I feel this is a better approach than those teachers who expect everything from technology person because teacher is also playing an important part in the project and therefore will be more likely to be motivated to work for its success.
project update: nov. 24th November 24, 2007
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I worked on the final documentation of the project over the thanksgiving break. It seems like it is not as easy as I thought when I submit the first draft. I was not very sure if I can write in first person, but writing in third person is challenge since I am trying to describe what I did for this project. The other issue I ran into was on making a decision wheather or not to write some sections such as context analysis in pont form rather than long paragraphs. As of now, I have the context analysis section in point form and I am planning to make changes to it as I add content to other sections.
I hava also created evaluation survey with nine questions on surveymonkey.com and emailed to the class and professor to get some feedback.
Also, last week I attended a meeting with Dr. Waddel and IT team leader and IT consultant for College. During the meeting we talked about the portfolio creation and how things will proceed once the new eportfolio system is in place hopefully next semester.
field project updates(Nov 12) November 10, 2007
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This past week, I was waiting to hear from the teaching intern class. Although, I didn’t get any email requesting for help, I am positive that they will have some questions and need help once they start working on their portfolio Websites. As for the project documentation, I will be working with Lifang on some parts since we are working with the same class with two different approaches. I talked to Dr. Hammond about collaborating with Lifang on the project documentation and he agreed to my suggestion.
Project Updates ( Oct 29 – Nov 5th ) October 31, 2007
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This week I presented Google Page Creater (GPC) during Dr. Waddel’s class on Tuesday. I tried to demonstrate how to create a portfolio using GPC and I ran into some issues with browsers on my macbook. Both Firefox and Safari on my macbook didn’t allow me to use some functions of GPC that requires pop-ups. So I finally demonstrated using IE 7 on windows xp which was the test environment I used before when I created the how-to document.
Unfortunately, all the students in the class on Tuesday, had already designed their portfolio’s using Dreamweaver and they had more questions on how to use dreamweaver. In spite of this, I was still able to demonstrate to them how easy and useful GPC is for creating portfolio Website. Some students said they plan to re-design the entire portfolio, so I am hoping that some of them will use this tool.
Also I am hoping to assist those two students who are not in the class on Tuesday as they are my intended audience for this tool since they have not yet created portfolio Website.
Records of activities for the week (Oct 15- Oct 29 ) October 27, 2007
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This week Lifang and I met Dr. Hammond at his office to test drive what we will present during next week tuesday at Dr. Waddel class. Here is what we will likely be doing on wednesday 30th October, when we meet the teaching interns at Mac Lab.
- Show everyone’s Lehigh website?
- Ask: In five years, where will your portfolio be?
- Go over the rubric, ask people to score their website or that of a classmate
- Find out who is
- using Mac vs PC
- working from campus vs from home
- Organization for the session:
- FTP’ing files — everyone needs to know this
- Mac or Windows
- Understanding file location in FTP vs. file access via URL
- Google Pages — two different ways to view this (starting portfolio or moving portfolio)
- Q&A time — Dreamweaver, etc. OR Word-PDF conversions
- Review what you covered
- Provide contact info
- …set follow-up date if necessary?
Also during our meeting Dr. Hammond gave us very useful suggestions on how we should write our how 2’s. Here is the first draft of document I prepared on “How to use GPC to create portfolio Website“.
Reflections on pattern of use of technology October 22, 2007
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Let me start by writing how I use technology until this semester and how or what has changed during this semester.
In the past I very much enjoyed using technology to keep in touch with family and friends and use it as a library of resources for class work. I spend several hours everyday talking to my friends in MSN messanger, writing emails, reading online news papers or blogs. Even though I used technology for learning and created some online content through blogs and wikis, for me technology is good tool for social connectivity with a clear recognition that online resources are a great way to learn new things.
Since the beginning of this semester, I started using technology especially Internet differently. I came to know a number of new as well as familiar tools from our class tools presentations that persuaded me to use these tools. Also I started using some new tools for another class I am taking this semester: Bugeting, Managing and Maintaining Technology in Schools. I started contributing or publishing online more than ever through weekly blogs, wikipedia, wikibook project for class.
In addition , I started learning new tools and ways to use technology for instructional purpose from my internship at Library Technology Services(LTS). It is amazing for me ,at times to listen to, how much technological resources are available for us and how different get influenced to start using technology. Some times its a from a presentation, some times its from a one-to-one demonstration session of the tool/technology , or some other conditions that forced them to use the technology. As for me I get influenced in many different ways. For example I stated using deli.cio.us social bookmarking tool and RSS after listening to our class presentations. Also I try to test and start using any new tools/technology that I feel will be useful for me in the future.
field project podcast October 20, 2007
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Here is the podcast that gives an overview of my field project including what I have done so far.
what exactly a student does these days? October 13, 2007
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This is a fascinating video from Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class at Kansas State University, Spring 2007. It shows what exactly students do these days and how some student experiences are changing.
There are some socking findings from this study which was compiled using a Google Doc with 367 edits by 200 collaborators. Here are some of the stats from 133 students surveyed:
- “My average class size is 115.”
- “18% of my teachers know my name.”
- I complete 49% of the readings assigned to me. Only 26% … relative to my life
- I will read 8 books this year.” “2300 web pages” “and 1281 facebook profiles”
- “I will write 42 pages for class this semester.” “And over 500 pages of email
Records of activities for the week (Sep 24-Oct 1) October 12, 2007
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I am not sure what happened to my original post on this weeks activities . I think I have overwritten the post and I am no longer able to see it in my blog. Also this was the post I tried to test the “trackbacks” feature. I am sure I was able to post it and send track backs to class blog but I am not sure what happened after that. Here is what I think I did during this week.
I emailed Dr. Bishop requesting details of possible projects that I can work on. As usual she immediately replied with all the details and suggestions for me. I decided to work on producing tutorials on how to use the new e-portfolio system. These tutorials will be used by teacher ed students in Dr. Waddel’s class.
Records of activities for the week (Oct 2- Oct 14 ) October 12, 2007
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I forced myself to start working on the project because I need to submit initial draft of project documentation. I am not very sure if all what I do at this point can be of use in future. I am still doubtful of the new custom made e-portfolio system. If its not ready in another two weeks time, I may have to work with Lifang to create tutorials , for Dr. Waddel’s teacher ed students, on creating student portfolio’s using available resources at Lehigh( designing Websites using HTML editor and uploading to Lehigh server space).
As of new e-portfolio system , at this moment , I am unable to log-in with my Lehigh user name since the system only allows user names with four characters only. I am expecting to get a temporary log-in name and password from IT-team, so that I can test the system.
Also last week, Dr. Hammond emailed both of us( me and Lifang ) with detailed information on how he expect things to happen. He also gave us some important documents to get a sense of existing level of instructional materials and students capabilities.
