Thanks Grateful Dead for your thoughtful album title, it has really helped me sum up my master's experience! I don't think I envisioned my journey taking the path that it has, it felt like every week I had to email an instructor about some crisis I needed to attend to at the moment. I was, "that" student. So, dear instructors, I am sorry. I promise that they were not excuses to evade homework or class time, my life has been running from disaster to disaster for the last 6 months.
So, what did I learn? I learned that technology has an integral part in understanding for students. As a teacher, I do not have to fear the newest technology, I can embrace it and use it in a meaningful way. (Thanks, TPACK) I learned many useful tools that my colleagues are using in their classes. It was really helpful to discuss, dissect and engage in playful exploration of technology and it's uses. It was also helpful to underscore the importance of teaching students the correct way to approach media. I guess, if I had to pick one thing I did not like, it was the research and the paper. Perhaps, it's because at the time it had been 17 years since I wrote a paper. Or perhaps, it's because it felt like the process was unclear. I also did not like getting a B in a class I had put a lot of effort into, without explanation. But, such is life. Moving forward, I hope to embrace the new technology that is coming, as well as continuing the collaborative feeling with my colleagues. It will look different in my classes, and that is both new and scary.
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Get you master's, they said. It'll be fun, they said. You won't even notice how much work you have, they said. Well, let me tell you, whomever "they" may be, are a bunch of liar, liar, pants-on-fire!
While it has been fun, and I have learned an immense amount of information, I am exhausted. Like, bone-tired, did the school year even end, exhausted. I have spent many hours going over my summary, video and website. I have awoken in the middle of the night to jot down an idea or fix. I have planned many of my days "off" around working. It has been a long process; it will continue to be a long process. I am ready to be finished with the program, but I know that the real work of carrying the ideas forward is yet to come. Transferring what I have learned here to the coming school years is the real test of my knowledge. Can I carry forward this idea of innovative learning? I hope so, and I hope that I can inspire other teachers to become tech-loving educators. But in the meantime, I need a nap. Let's just take a moment to breathe. In with the fresh air, out with the frustrating video making air. Good. Feel better now? I can say that I do feel better, and am in the process of making some final small edits to my video. I think, for me, the most frustrating parts have been getting the correct pictures, the sound to line up, the audio to not be too overbearing, the lack of feedback I have received, so all in all, the whole process. In fact, I am not sure why everyone clam's up when it's time to give me feedback? I would say it's my perpetual bad-breath, but it's an online course. Or perhaps, I have already critiqued it for them? Whatever.
Can we talk for a moment about the power point and executive summary? OMCheese! First, I was able to complete the summary-yay, I thought, this is a cinch. Then came the dreaded power point. What. A. Nightmare. Firstly, my home computer doesn't have the Microsoft Suite, so no way was I going to pay for a free trial! After a few moments of hyperventilating panic, I realized I brought home my work computer and NVUSD has already shelled out the dough for the whole enchilada. Thanks tax dollars! Anyway, off I go to download a template- and now I loathe it. Nay, despise it's layout. It is so not working for me, so I try another one and another one and another one. Until I realize that I am going to have to pick something. So, I did, and although it is completely bland and boring, it should do the trick for a first draft. But wait, there's more! Where in the holy coffee gods is the share button?!? Oh that's right, it's a giant MIcrosoft money conspiracy. After a quick google search on how to convert a ppt to a google slide, I think we may have a link. For now. Ever feel like you are the one holding the rest of the group back? Yeah, I've gotten pretty comfortable with that feeling during this entire experience. Now, don't get me wrong, my classmates and instructors have been encouraging, helpful, and supportive. But, I can't help but feel rather, well, primitive in my attempts to navigate technology.
Thus, goes the tale of my journey to create a video "brand". Yikes. On my best day, my ideas are, at best, tolerable, I cannot imagine trying to "sell" them to others. This doesn't mean I can't or haven't learned anything, it's just that marketing is not my strong suit. So, how did making the video go, you ask? A journey filled with many stops and starts, interruptions, re-do's and final touches. I agonized over which picture to use on each slide, which music, and finally the script. I pre-wrote the script so that I could narrate easily. However, my beloved dog, Maya, was suffering from a severe case of the barks that day. It seemed that every squirrel, cat and leaf in the neighborhood needed to hear her voice, loudly and frequently. I gave her a filled Kong treat and all was quiet- then Adobe Spark crashed in Google. Alright, take 10 or 20, I lost count. Anyway, I was able to reload in Microsoft and all seemed to work well. That is, until I realized my mic was not close enough to my face and I sounded distant. Ugh. By now, the cats thought I had gone crazy repeating the same sentences over and over again, they retreated to the safety of a bedroom as to not hear the speel again. So I recorded again, and I think I have a rough draft of what is needed for the next class. I feel like I may have a light grip on Adobe Spark, and am living in dread that I will have to try and puzzle out a different medium. If anyone sees me muttering the same narrative over and over, it's probably because I have to redo the audio. Or maybe the cats were correct. The saga of the video journey begins:
It was a temperate day when I sat down to begin the task of working on my storyboard. I had to come up with a compelling story around PrBL and the matching visuals. But how? How can one tell the story of PrBL in 3-6 short frames? I am but a tech-phobic of the Napa-Shire. Or: In a dining room, far, far away from the classroom, a young-ish, but weary, Jedi sat down to tell the story of the harrowing path of PrBL against it's arch-enemy: Darth Boredom. In case you have not noticed, the narrative of the video is truly what matters most, not necessarily the flashy pictures or slides. After reading the content about writing our story, it became clear that what we said was more important than how we visually showed it. In truth, I found it much easier to write my short sentences, than to find google pictures that I might be able to momentarily live with in a frame. I am still not sold on the pictures that I have chosen- I need to play around some more with movie maker sites in order to see what I really like. Because, this is going to hopefully, be a resource for other teachers, I want to spend some time getting the right pictures, sound and feel. Wow! This project was a journey, and I am sure it isn't even over yet! I tried at least three websites (logomaker, logomakr, and logojoy), before finally using Canva.
Let's chat about this journey, shall we? I first played on logomaker; it was flashy, fun and quick. I immediately fell in love with a design- it was simplistic and conveyed everything I wanted in one, simple shape. The problem, you ask? The price was the problem, they wanted $39.95 for the logo! The. Logo. Nope, not going to happen, unless I get desperate as the semester wears on, that is. Logomakr, was essentially the same as the first site, but without the neato graphics. The graphics reminded me of clip art. That's cool, I am not terribly tech savvy and clip art was cool in the early '90's, I am in. Again, I design a logo, fall in like with it and, boom! here is the final price. Ugh. Onto logojoy I go. Ok, so far so good, I can choose from so many potential designs, update on the fly, change colors, fonts, you name it. I narrow it down to 20 designs (I wish I was joking), drag the husband in for a second opinion, argue (constructively, of course, after all we are married), and settle on a design/color scheme I can live with for a first draft. Then I see the "buy" button. Dude, are you kidding me right now? So, I do what any logo making master's student would do; google search. I pledge allegiance to google, for which it searches, one nation, under results....you get the idea. After a quick search for "totally FREE logo designs", I finally remembered that Canva has tons of free options and might, just in fact, save my sanity. While I am not sure about the second part of the previous sentence, Canva really did have some great options. While it did not have the first logo I adored, or the flashy clip-art, it did have some viable solutions, that I can probably live with for the next 20 minutes. Maybe. The fact that the idea of Transliteracy came about over 50 years ago is mind-boggling. That McLuhan wrote about using the medium as the message before the internet was even a "thing", is well, bordering on the work of science-fiction. So what does this mean in my classroom? What does this translate for in terms of my students?
For starters, it means I need to be deliberate in the way I approach technology and content. Today's learner is very visual and needs quick bursts of information. The chunk and chew approach if you will. If I am choosing a video from edpuzzle for one of my classes, then I need to be sure that the content is not only relevant, but doesn't bore my students to tears. Sure, I do echo with the rest of the school about our Do Now and daily agenda, but the real meat of my delivery is when I attach or incorporate tech- rich content. I'm not going to lie, this is a whole lot easier to do with my math classes than it is with my ELA class. But why is that so? Why do so many ELA based classes tend to be boring and dry? I think, without any fact, that no one has yet to try jazzing up these subjects. Perhaps, the idea is that if the reading is dense, then the subject simply cannot be any fun. As of right now, I am supposed to be primarily a Social Studies teacher next year. For me, that means I need to look at traditionally mind-numbing material and make it come alive for the students. In short, I need to focus on the medium I use to teach the method. |