So Friday's class was in North Quad. I liked the change of scenery - it was truly a magnificent architectural marvel. The room we were in was spacious and brimming with sweet acoustics for Kristin to echo directions over. The day was mostly spent going over our "Organizing My Online Life" handouts in small groups, and I gotta say...I learned more than I expected.
I was charged with examining the relevant aspects of Skype and how it could help contribute to the classroom. Well, I - and everyone else in my group - was already pretty familiar with Skype. Skype, to me, has always been just a social tool used to connect with others. Well...whaddayaknow...isn't that kind of what we do in class as teachers on a daily basis? Sure enough, the opportunities are bountiful to utilize Skype in a fantastic way. We can conduct classes online via Skype. We can connect with OTHER classes ANYWHERE. Forget Ann Arbor - how about being able to teach kids in Kuala Lumpur about the various intricacies of the American judicial system? Well, I can finally do that now - and it's all thanks to Skype! (Brace yourselves, Lumpurites)
I'd like to extend my appreciation to my group members - Lakeza, Pete, and Carrie. They all did wonderful jobs with their individual presentations. Pete's breakdown of Dropbox was very useful and I look forward to utilizing it in my own way eventually. Carrie's explanation of Evernote was fantastic. Though I already use it, I discovered new ways to better harness its capabilities and use all of its tools to my advantage. I can already assure you a lot of time will be spent on Evernote in the future. Last but certainly not least, Lakeza introduced me to this very odd, but very interesting bookmarking application called Diigo. Though it's still in its beta stage, I'm amazed at its potential. Lakeza did a very nice job of setting the stage for an application that I think will be hugely useful moving forward.
All n all, my experiences on Friday compelled to find a whole lot of usefulness in this assignment - which is a credit to both Kristin and Jeff. I learned some new things, I learned some new things about old things, and I generally had a great time interacting with my fellow teachers and concluding that there's a whole lot of technological innovation on the horizon - and it's up to us to make the most of it.
Your group really had a productive hum to it -- a credit to all of you! It was a pleasure to have you at North Quad!
ReplyDeleteI thought Friday's class was awesome. I also had a great experience that day. I was a fellow skype presenter and I learned sooooo much about it. I had no idea there were so many third party apps and possibilities in the classroom. Also, Diigo is amazing. I wish I had known about that when I got here as an undergrad. I'm going out on a limb and saying it may be one of the most useful tools I've ever been introduced to. I'm glad you had a great experience too. Props to Kristin for taking that on all by herself. It was probably one of my favorite classes out of all of them over this entire semester.
ReplyDeleteI loved North Quad too, it's beautiful. I'm jealous that Kristin gets to teach there all the time! I also thought Friday's class was really useful. I learned so much about Skype that I didn't know- I especially liked the option to connect teachers with experts in their field via "Skype in the Classroom." And it was really nice to be introduced to the three other tools- I think they will all be very useful in the organization of our lives, academically and professionally.
ReplyDeleteI also really enjoyed learning about how to use Skype in the classroom. It seems to be a really transformational tool. I think it'd be great to use Skype to have guest speakers in the classroom or to have students communicate with peers from other schools. Do you think you could use skype for something like peer tutoring or group work outside of class?
ReplyDeleteHussein,
ReplyDeleteI agree that the architecture at North Quad is impressive. It is a living-learning community in every sense of the word. In some ways I think we should look at North Quad as a metahpor for our future as teachers. We should combine living and learning in a way that enables our students to technologically thrive in the twenty-first century!