20% Project Blog Reflection 6--What lingering questions do you have about your topic?

            I have not yet run into any lingering questions on my topic as I feel I have addressed most of them. I believe my biggest wonder is whether or not social media will be used in a classroom on a more everyday basis in the coming years. I believe social media as a teaching mechanism could be a great and beneficial tool I am just speculative that some teachers and professors will not want to change their teaching ways and integrate something new.

            I also wonder how students will perceive these new tactics should they be introduced in a classroom. Will they tune out other work that isn't on a social media account? Will they instead explore the site and lose track of the assignment? Will it create situations where bullying could occur? I believe these are important questions to be asked, but that they cannot be fully addressed until after full integration of social media was placed into a classroom setting as an experiment. It would be beneficial to do beta testing on this sort of tactic, as it could not translate well across all types of courses, and may be better off in on setting in comparison to another.

            I am really excited to share my 20% project with the class, and explain my findings on these topics. To me personally, I believe there is plenty of room for growth on the topic of social media in classrooms. I believe teachers have the potential to engage students on a medium that serves of interest to them. I understand that this could also prove challenging but would be willing to bet that most would find it rewarding in the end.

Reflection #6--Augmented Reality

            Described by Augmented Reality in Education, Augmented Reality is the "the fusion of digital information with either live streaming video or the viewer's real environment" and is a medium in which live video is used with supplementary sounds and graphics to create a "reality". Augmented reality is a great tool because anyone can use it. This is a huge advantage as many can use it and AR can share a vast amount of information in a relatively short time period. However, some disadvantages include lack of social acceptance in a particular situation, and frustration that comes from a lack of technological knowledge by those who are attempting to use it.

            The AR app I chose to explore was Animoto. In a previous course of mine, a classmate used Animoto to create a video project. I choose this app to explore because my classmate created a great presentation and I was curious how it worked. I could use this app to help others or myself learn about video creation and this could be used easily in a classroom. If the teacher requires the use of this free app for a project, it could allow students to be producers for their own short video clips and elaborate on a topic learned in class.

Screenshot of the popular app Animoto

            I believe that AR is a great tool to use in a classroom, and that using this tactic can prove beneficial as many students can relate to technology in today's society.

Student at Tate Center using both a cellphone and a laptop to stay connected and complete assignments.

20% Project Blog Reflection 5--How does your project relate with topics addressed in EDIT2000?

       My 20% project, which focuses on social media in educational learning, is slowly becoming addressed in EDIT 2000. Our most recent project has specifically shined a light on YouTube, a social media account that I am looking at for my 20% project. We just met in groups to discuss how video can be used in a classroom, and more often than not our group referred to YouTube for an example. YouTube as a channel is a huge resource for teachers to use and a great place to find a video on pretty much anything.

             So far in EDIT 2000, we have also touched on topics that can be integrated with social media to enhance the learning experience. For example, our Communication and Collaboration project could easily line up with my 20% project as a task could incorporate students communicating and collaborating together to build a twitter account or a YouTube video. Also, our Creativity and Innovation project could incorporate social media, as group members could have tweeted our their process, and place their videos to YouTube (as we did).

            In each of our lessons for EDIT 2000 I have seen the potential to include a social media link. Pictures can easily be tweeted while our groups are hard at work and YouTube can be accessed for help if a group should get stuck while working on a project. My project could definitely be incorporated into the projects we do in EDIT 2000, as almost everything can be placed on social media.

Reflection #7--MOOCs

I have not taken a MOOC but last summer I took my very first online class. While many of my other classes incorporate the internet, this course was my very first where it was all virtual. I really enjoyed the set up of the class, which was entitled Rhetoric and Society and was a communication class, which counted towards my major. Our "modules" included different readings, a quiz, and a mandatory post on our discussion board.

 

            Online courses are good for the convenience. Many of times during my online course I was on vacation with my family, or somewhere with my friends. I could even complete the assignments on my phone, if I needed to. The thing I disliked about an online course was the lack of interaction. Sure, classmates are commenting on your discussion posts, but for me it wasn't enough. I prefer to have a professor lecturing so that if I get confused at any point, I can simply raise my hand and ask a question. From an article titled "4 Lessons We Can Learn from the "Failure" of MOOCs" on the website 'edutopia', mentions a failure of MOOCs is this point exactly; that a student-teacher relationship and a student-student relationship cannot be formed because their is no interaction aside from a computer screen.

            According to the required reading for this blog post, a concern for MOOCs arises, which states that "Online education leaves almost everybody behind except for highly motivated students," which I can totally agree with. Many of times in my online course I realized that if I chose to slack off one week, my grade was reflective of so. Other students also voiced their concerns with low grades in which my professor responded that grades were determined by the work you put in". For this reason alone, MOOCs could certainty be becoming problematic. If their main purpose is for students to learn and be engaged in the material, then students who don't put in the effort fall behind.

Creativity and Innovation Project Personal Reflection

        Creating and watching infomercials for this assignment was interesting to me, as it gave a visual for the enhanced learning tools presented by my classmates. Watching a tool in use was more beneficial than just listening to a verbal presentation of the subject being addressed. To see the tool applied to a situation was helpful, and allowed for me to understand clearly what to do. My classmates did a good job explaining their tools, and opening my eyes to different tactics that are out there.

        The way I think about learning using tools was challenged, as I did not even realize the amount of tools out there that could be used to change "boring" everyday classroom habits. By integrating some of the strategies demonstrated by my peers, classrooms could be transformed to include more technology integration and more interaction between students.

         For me personally, I learned how to work creativity in a group by listening to an influx of different ideas and reaching an agreement and common ground about which would be most beneficial to explain our topic. My group works well together to reach agreements about how our projects should flow, and this group work also allows for us to work together to produce a presentation. Also by watching our classmate's videos, we were impressed with the efforts they put in to create and showcase their own tools. I especially liked the Evernote presentation and the Edmodo presentation, as they were well explained, and included tools I could see myself using in the future.