Week 02 Update

Listen while you read: https://app.box.com/s/867cr89ej9y57iw0yf4sx5qngroif0lz

This update is a bit longer than usual as there are a number of “getting started” issues to address.
Please bear with me. While each week’s update will vary, most are far shorter. I hope that you
will, nevertheless, agree that scheduling these 15+ minutes each week is time well-invested!

Continuity
During Week 1, we took a broad look at educational technology in the 21st century. Hopefully,
you took advantage of our first Search-&-Read activity to fill-in any gaps in your knowledge
about the field of educational technology (edtech) whether these gaps were what you might call
“foundational” or more “advanced.” As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, in the past, I required the
purchase of a very expensive textbook which addressed foundational content on each of our
topics as a complement to the “edgier” takes on these topics I provide in the online modules and
other content I provide. This term, as you know, I’ve “ditched the textbook,” and the Search-&-
Read activities are one of two ways I’m ensuring that you as students still get access to
comparable content. So, hopefully, if you needed it, Search-&-Read: Module01 should have
allowed you to get a more traditional view of edtech.

(This textbook ditching thing is a bit of an experiment for me, as I’ve mentioned previously, so
as some of you have done already, please do continue to let me know how it is going for you.
That is, as the weeks unfold, please consider whether you have the opportunity to get well-
grounded in each topic, or would it have been better to have you pay the money for a traditional
textbook to fill-in your knowledge gaps?)

In our module reading, you had the opportunity to review Professor Jose Esteves’ 2016 update of
McLeod and Fisch’s provocative “Did You Know” video along with numerous other links
throughout Module 1 before reading the interview with 2016 US Teacher of the Year, Jahana
Hayes. Combining ideas from both of these sources reveals the complex, counterbalanced issues
involved with teaching today’s students while integrating technologies. We want to prepare our
students for the future, but we live here in the present (or in some settings it might even feel a
little bit like “the past”!). As many of you have experienced, funding (or the lack thereof) is a
very practical reality affecting the technological resources available in schools. Ms. Hayes has
suggested public/private partnerships as a way to overcome outmoded tech in public schools.
Some of you responded to this idea in your Learning Journal entries. Many agreed with her. A
couple questioned the appropriateness of corporation-sponsored resources. A few offered
alternative suggestions for addressing funding. Regardless of your personal stance, I so
appreciated your engagement on this topic! If I might offer a piece of unsolicited advice related
to the technology disparities in our classrooms, I’ll encourage all of us to focus on “locus of
control.” That is, it is more productive to focus on what we have and can do (what we can
control) rather than on what factors are out of our control. Don’t just sit on the sidelines and
complain. Change what you can. Accept that the situation will remain “imperfect.”
Learning Journal #1 (on your blog)
You also had the opportunity to experience how you can use your blog to connect with and
extend ideas exchanged publicly with other educators. This happens all the time. Even ideas
posted years ago when discovered for the first time can ignite one to reflect and connect. Your
ideas can then invite comment from interested others. Educators worldwide are active in this way
every day, and now, you’re among them! For those of you new to blogging, hopefully this was a
good first taste of the power of this platform.

I’ve read all of your blog postings, and almost all of you had something important to say!
(Great!) A couple of you could stand to extend your ideas into more substantive postings. A
couple of you seemed to not post anything using the blog urls you submitted previously.
That’s not good. I’m not sure what happened, but get in touch with me before skipping an
assignment. Make sure that if you have changed blogs that you send me a message with the new
url so that I can update our blog url sheet.) Several of you made a point to include APA citations
at the end of your blog postings for every source you cited in your Learning Journal entry. This
is a good practice for everyone to follow. (If you are going to cite sources within the body of
your postings, make sure to match those citations with full references at the bottom of your
posting.) However, you might also experiment with “web-friendly” writing. That is, include
active links to relevant content (or to online sources of ideas that you’re discussing). This
provides important contextualization when reading online. (It can sometimes get confusing to
know when to just link to a source, such as the interview with Ms. Hayes, and when to cite a
source. If in doubt, cite. However, please do not mention a source without either linking directly
to it or including a full APA citation at the end. If it is available on the public web, include the
direct url in either the citation or as linked text in the body of the posting or both.) Also, you
might experiment with including visuals such as embedded photos or videos that support your
points. (We’ll be talking more about finding and using appropriately such media elements in the
weeks ahead.)

All that being said, I found that many of you engaged with the ideas presented this week. I’d like
to take a moment to give some shoutouts.

Some of you chose to focus your comments only on the “Did You Know” video, while others
concentrated only on the interview with US Teacher of the Year Jahnna Hayes. A few of you
pulled both of these sources together to guide your remarks. Some of you shared a lot about your
personal experiences, and a couple of you incorporated additional, related sources that you
found. While some just put words to screen, others of you formatted your postings in a web-
reader-friendly way.

I’ll mention by name just a few that stood out to me: Emma, Mary M., and Colleen each wrote
beautifully-formatted, well-composed postings that connected ideas from the Did You Know
video, the Hayes interview, and personal anecdotes to make a clear point. Cory had a similarly
substantive posting, and she developed a theme of personal empowerment that culminated in
suggested action steps. I was also impressed by the clear voice of veteran educators Neshea and
Carrie for whom, it was clear to me as a reader, resolving these issues of edtech currency and
application is no mere academic exercise. Alyssa, Emma, Carrie, and Bianca were also models
of responsiveness this week in quickly posting substantive replies to those who commented on
their first Learning Journal entries.

Please take a look at each of these blog postings as good examples for the reasons I’ve
mentioned using the blog list shared last week via the “Announcements” area. (The link is:
http://bit.ly/sp17bloglist_eme5050.) We can always learn from each other both in content and in
implementation. That being said, if I didn’t mention your name, please do not take offense or
read too much into it.

Moving On
During Week 2, we’re going to side-step various categorizations of educational technologies for
a bit and zoom in on tools for web searching. Let me explain why… As I've noted before, you're
going to be exposed to a LOT of web-based resources in this course, so it behooves you to
consider how you are going to store and organize these resources for later use. (Again, my
goal is for you to use what you’re getting from this course.) Social bookmarking sites (such as
Diigo or Delicious) are one option for storing/retrieving web resources.

And, of course, in addition to being directed to web resources, this is also a great opportunity to
refine your own web searching skills so that YOU can find materials that help you succeed in
this course. For instance, maybe you don’t know how to make a photo show up on your blog, but
with some skillful searching you discover a brief YouTube video that shows you how.

Web searching skills will also be useful in supporting your performance on assignments.
Obviously, web searching allows you to extend our treatment of each week's topic in our Search-
&-Read activities for the reasons I mentioned above and, if you choose, through our extra credit
information stream. In addition, as you sharpen your searching skills, later on in this course,
you'll be able to find media resources on the web for inclusion in your development projects and
research articles for use in Writing About Research assignments. (By the way, if you haven't
been exposed to Creative Commons licensing before, this is a great time to dive in since you will
need to work with media later in this course, and it will help you to be able to find media you are
legally allowed to use.)

By the way, let me know what you think of the thematic photos on the homepage each week. Do
see you see a connection between each week’s photo and the theme of the week? Did you notice
that each photo is Creative Commons licensed? (Also, did you notice that clicking the photo is a
shortcut to the current week’s module?)

We’ll pick back up with various classifications of educational technologies in Week 3.

Logistics
I know you’re still getting your head around the rhythm of this course, so let me first give a
couple of friendly reminders:
First, please remember to check your blog for any last minute comments received last week that
you should rate as soon as possible using the online form and rubric (that you should already
have bookmarked) at http://bit.ly/eme5050_sp17commentform. (No, you do not need to rate
any comments that I might leave for you. I don’t do so very often, and they are not likely to be as
substantive as yours are anyway.) However, please do enter a rating for any other comment you
receive, whether you recognize the given username or not. Always rate comments as soon as you
can, but I’ll always give you until one week after the accompanying Learning Journal due date
to get the ratings submitted. (And, to be clear, if you have a lot of comments, you submit a lot
of ratings. If you receive no comments, you submit no ratings. Generally, it will feel pretty
lonely if you’re getting no comments, so here are some suggestions. Please remember, as a
reader, to use the blog lists I’ve provided in order to look for new postings on which to comment
and, as a writer, 1) to also promote your blog postings on Twitter with an enticing lead-in or
headline and 2) to write blog posts earlier in the week that are as engaging as possible.) Apart
from ratings, please do engage with those commenting to your blog postings by leaving
follow-up responses. Some people actually go back and read them! (On a related note, I think
some of you don’t realize that you received follow-up comments to your Week 0 Discussion
postings back in Webcourses@UCF. Please avoid getting lulled into what I call “post-and-run”
behaviors.) :-)

Also, please note that if your blog is set to “moderate comments” that you will need to approve
comments before they will appear publicly. Whatever your settings, please make sure that the
comments of your classmates are displaying within a reasonable time frame. (It is maddening
as a commenter to post substantive thoughts only to have them never appear.) :-(

Second, please do remember that I’ve asked that you make regular “information stream”
contributions to our learning community via Twitter. (Many of you made a great start of this
during Week 01, and you’ll continue to see contributions from me during Week 02.) Your
optional contributions will be evaluated for extra credit at the end of the term.

Beyond the self-promotion of your own blogs, a few shoutouts here from our information stream
to the content resources tweeted by Colleen, Emma, Scott, and Tiffany. In addition, I
appreciated the quotes from our readings shared by Alyssa and Colleen and the cool photo quote
shared by Bianca. Keep ‘em coming!

Of course, this week some of you have hit a snag with getting your tweeted links to appear in our
#eme5050 Twitter stream. If you haven’t already, please re-read carefully the part of the “Start
Here” section of Webcourses@UCF that addresses this issue. The bottom line is that you
should continue to post hashtagged, course-relevant links via Twitter whether they are
showing up on our homepage widget or not. (I’ll make sure that you receive credit for the
work that you do.)

Third, as you work with Twitter, blogs, or any other hands-on technologies this term, push
yourself to come up to speed as quickly and fully as possible with those tools. That’s part of
the theme of this course. For instance, remember to use whatever resources I’ve provided for you
in our course materials, but then, go further and use the “Help” feature within those tools. Then,
if you do some web searching, you’ll find that there are many resources available to help you
online. Consult those as well. However, if you’re stuck, do not hesitate to contact me. I’ll be
happy to help you. For instance, here are some items to explore in using Twitter if you
haven’t already:

• What are all of those weird codes and links in the messages on Twitter?

• How could you receive micropostings from our course on your mobile device if you
wanted to?

• Kelvin might have something worthwhile to say, how can I quickly get to his course-
specific micropostings on Twitter?

• How can you automate the spacing out of your postings to Twitter so that you don’t post
five or six messages at one time (causing people to just scroll past them)?

Breaking it Down
These general reminders aside, let’s look at the logistics of Week 02 specifically.

Perhaps the biggest departure from the usual in Week 2 is that there is no Search-&-Read
activity this week. This is so that you can take the time to focus this week on the first
submissions of two other recurring assignments, both of which have preparatory work associated
with them.

First, while this is an introductory course, it is also a graduate course, and no graduate course is
complete without some consideration of the research literature related to its subject matter.
You’ve no doubt read elsewhere about the four Writing About Research (WAR) assignments
we’ll be conducting this term, but here are a few highlights and tips. Get an early start on the
WAR assignments. Read the journal article and then work on writing in response to each section
of the writing prompt throughout the week. You could do that offline if you wish, but you have
the ability to post and edit within the discussion area so that others can see and provide feedback
on your work in progress. Think of these WAR assignments as writing workshops based upon
research literature. You might wish to consult the optional Information Literacy Modules in
Module 1 and Module 2 related to research if you want additional support. Also, as we proceed
this term, there is absolutely no shame in getting writing assistance from the University Writing
Center (UWC). That’s why we have a writing center! They exist to help you! There are a variety
of online resources from the UWC included under the “Success Resources” button in
Webcourses@UCF.

Second, as mentioned above, this week you’ll take time to dig into an array of search tools as
you pursue some assigned searching tasks. This activity will form the basis for your first Activity
Reflection (AR#1) using the “Assignments” tool within Webcourses@UCF. I’ve posted down at
the bottom of Module 2 some specific resources on the type of reflection writing and other details
I’m expecting in this first Activity Reflection and some examples from past students. One quick
note I will share is to keep your focus on your performance of the activity rather than just
creating a commentary about interesting web sites you’ve found. That is: how did you do? What
did you learn? Help me understand your process so that I can see how you’ve benefitted. These
activity reflections are designed to help you learn and to help me see how you’ve learned. (As a
reminder, please remember to consult the relevant scoring rubric for each week’s assignment
posted within the Syllabus area in Webcourses@UCF as a general reference.)

Feedback Form
Remember that I’ll post a link to an anonymous feedback form each week in the
“Announcements” area of Webcourses@UCF (and via Twitter). Please use this to provide
general feedback on your experiences during the preceding week and to ask any questions that
you don’t feel comfortable asking directly. I’ll summarize and respond to this feedback in each
week’s update.

1. I was glad to see that the majority of you found the assignment instructions very clear and
that all of you found this week’s activities to take less than the typical 10 hour time
commitment to complete. Based upon those who’ve replied, on average it took you right at
6.5 hours to complete your work. You may personally find some weeks more challenging
than others so keep looking ahead in order to manage your time effectively. Certainly, do not
wait until the last day of the week to start the activities.

2. A number of comments or questions raised in the feedback form have already been addressed
earlier in this Week 02 Update. If you have unaddressed concerns, please contact me directly.

3. Many of you commented positively about the blog postings and blog-based interactions
related to your first Learning Journal entry this week. (That’s great to hear!) :-)

4. A couple of you shared some minor frustrations with the first Search-&-Read activity as you
were uncertain how “substantive” a substantive source should be or how to go about
searching for a given topic. [Completely understandable! I will certainly let you know if I see
you veering into the territory of thin or spurious sources. No worries. Hopefully Week02’s
emphasis on web searching will give you the opportunity you need to refine these skills.]

5. A number of you also enjoyed the “Did You Know” video and the interview with US
Teacher of the Year Jahana Hayes.

6. Perhaps my favorite quote from the feedback form this week is: “I was almost a bit
uncomfortable sharing on the blog because of it being public. I'm really excited to explore this idea of
being uncomfortable as I'm being challenged to think about what my role is in technology. I question a
lot if this is really the path I want to take, but the more I'm being pushed out of my comfort zone, the
more I'm seeing that I do have an important role in this discussion.” [That is awesome!]

If you haven't yet filled out the Week 1 Feedback Form, feel free to add your comments. I'll read
them, but obviously I can't respond to them in my weekly update recording as I did to those I just
mentioned. (However, if one or more people raise an issue that needs action, the whole class will
hear from me.)
Don’t Be Shy…
I’m so happy to say that several of you who were, say, 98% clear on some point or another
during Week 1 took the time to contact me just to make sure. That is great! :-)

If you’re anything less than 100% clear on what you’re to do at any point, then email me from
within Webcourses@UCF or IM me or Skype me or tweet me or call me. All my contact
information is at the top of the “Overview” page in the Syllabus area. I’m here to help you. Let
me. :-)