Week 4: Managing Professional Workflow

Finally!  In our EdTech class we arrive at the topic that has long been on my list of things to explore – using technology to manage and increase the efficiency of my workflow.  This is also known as GTD, Getting Things Done.  From week four of class we learned that David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (2001), suggests that in order to become a more productive and organized individual “you need no new skills to increase your productivity — just a new set of behaviors about when and where to apply them” (p. 80).  He even speaks about these new behaviors in a TED Talk YouTube video (http://youtu.be/CHxhjDPKfbY) as ones that will most likely feel “very awkward, very unnatural, and even unnecessary” but that with practice, just like with anything else, these behaviors can become second nature.

We also learned from our online lecture that Allen’s framework for GTD is organized into five stages:  collect, process, organize, review, do.  I can totally wrap my head around this organization and can quickly identify where I fall short.  My weakness is found in the last step, “DO!”  I have been a long time master of making lists and organizing to-do’s but sometimes I find myself creating and revising them more than GTD!  I really appreciate Allen’s suggestion of not even writing down a to-do item if it only should take you a couple of minutes to complete the task.  Unfortunately though, I have a horrible memory.  So lots of lists for me are the best option.

So with this information in mind, this week’s assignment was to explore several different productivity tools and share my insights on the usefulness of a favorite tool.  For this, I will give a short review of 200 words or less of Evernote.

Evernote Overview:
Are you a constant list maker?  Do you have a list for every category of life – home, kids, work, groceries, grad class, etc.?  Do you sometimes jot down a list on paper only to then forget where you put it?  Well these are all characteristics of my list-making habits, and Evernote has been a life saver.

Evernote Pros:
Wow, Evernote has endless choices for functionality.  By far, the biggest organizer for me has been the option to group notes into notebooks.  So all the categories listed above get neatly tied up together in a notebook for me to easily reference.  There is also a shortcut tab to put quickly access your favorites, a search bar, and a feature to tag notes.  For simple word processing purposes, it’s genius!  Keep all your docs synced on all devices so you can list away at any given moment.  This was unbelievably helpful for grad class while on vacation with my family last week – laptop, iPad, or phone I was GTD with ease.  I have not even explored much of the other features such at adding images, audio notes, and FaceTime recordings.  And this is not even the premium account which offers more!

Evernote Cons:
Not sure I’ve come across any yet.  While there are limitations from a creative standpoint, Evernote gets the job done when it comes to organizing.  Give it a try if you are not already a user!

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References

Allen, D. (2001). Getting things done: The art of stress-free productivity. New York: Penguin.

Week 4: Networked Learning Project Update

ASL + L2 = Signing Fun in the Language Classroom

When I was in elementary school, maybe 3rd or 4th grade, I remember one of my teachers showing us the finger formations for the alphabet in American Sign Language.  I have no recollection of the purpose of the lesson, but I vividly recall that I was instantly intrigued.  I saw it as the perfect way to communicate with my friends secretly.  You know, like from across the room while the teacher was writing on the board or something like that.  So my bestie and I practiced together, learned the alphabet, and used it whenever we wanted to communicate.  It totally worked!  But we eventually got caught.

In middle school, I actually had a classmate that was hard-of-hearing.  She wore hearing aides in both ears and spoke a bit differently and was rather shy.  However, we both played the clarinet in band and instantly bonded.  She taught me some new signs and we had fun with it.  But this time, the signing was meaningful.  It was authentic and I loved it.  We became really good friends in and out of school.

I have not thought about these childhood memories in a long time, maybe even since they happened.  They literally just came to mind as I sat down to write this blog post to give an update on my Networked Learning Project.  I sat at the computer for a moment thinking to myself, when and how did my interest in ASL even begin?  I have always had a fascination with ASL, but not until this very moment had I connected the dots of my past.  Wow, my interest in ASL makes much more sense to me now and gives me more motivation to make my Networked Learning Project for CEP810 a reality.

As stated in a previous post, I am a huge fan of using gestures and movement in the classroom.  The more exaggerated, the better.  The kids love it and it keeps my days interesting for me also.  In second language education, this is referred to as TPR (Total Physical Response) so to incorporate ASL seems like a natural fit.  I am hopeful that signing with students will be a way to aide and increase their comprehension and participation as well as support classroom management and community building.  My commitment for my class project is to learn at least 20 signs that will be of benefit to my students and me.  I first began by brainstorming a list of words that are most frequently used in my K-2 classes.  I then broke down the list into three categories of teaching and learning:  kindness and manners, classroom management, and participation.  As I am discovering videos that include my target signs, I am marking the words with an asterisk to show that I am confidently able to sign it.  I am also editing my lists throughout the process.  Please have a look at my Popplet that shows my progress so far.

ASL Words for the K-2 Language Classroom

The tricky part of this assignment is that the learning can only happen via YouTube and Help Forums. My initial reaction to this requirement was one of excitement, thinking that the resources on YouTube alone would be more than sufficient.  A search on YouTube for ASL graciously delivers well over one million results!  Yikes, that’s a lot.  And as you can imagine, they are not all quality videos or do not really fit my needs.  Nevertheless, with more specific searches I have found several promising YouTube channels and am making progress.  I am finding that the videos that are geared toward signing with infants and toddlers are the most helpful to me.  So far I have learned from ASL for Infants and Toddlers (http://youtu.be/d1P6IxBSwMc), Two Little Hands Productions (https://www.youtube.com/user/SigningTime/videos), and a set of videos by a user named Mary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx2Tk2ZfM4Y).  My favorite by far is the last.  Mary is a teacher of deaf students, and I absolutely love her style of videos.  She organizes signs into useful categories, she signs conversationally throughout the entire video and narrates to explain, and she includes receptive and expressive quizzes at the end to make you practice what you have learned.  Her videos may be overwhelming for some, but I find them to be brilliant.

It has only been two weeks, and I am happy to report that I am already approaching my goal of at least 20 ASL words.  I have two more weeks to go.  Perhaps I will be able to double my initial goal!

Week 3: PLN Reflection Post

So if I “like” your post, I need to use FaceBook.  If I’m looking to “hangout” with you, I need to be on Google.  If want to include you in my “stream”, I must be on Instagram.  And if I “@you” or “#you”, I am likely using Twitter.  I know this all sounds very, very basic to many and the list goes on much further.  But I’m playing catch up here.  Am I at least on the right track?

The online networking options (and jargon) are a bit over the top in my opinion.  I have avoided much of it (intentionally) for some time now.  I don’t really need to be connected and consumed with the digital world ALL the time, do I?

Well, apparently I do.  At least a little bit more than I do currently.  In my EdTech class last week, we focused on identifying key mindsets that teachers need in order to successfully meet the needs of our 21st century learners.  One of the mindsets discussed was that teachers must accept the importance of becoming more connected and building a wider PLN (professional learning network) using a variety of technologies.  I consider myself to be fairly tech savvy when it comes to engaging my students and using tech to create classroom activities.  However, I do realize that there are ways that I could indeed be using technology more effectively for professional gains.  With the surplus of online networking opportunities available, why am I not more connected!?

Don’t get me wrong.  I spend lots and lots of time online.  But it’s not necessarily in a connected manner.  By that I mean that I do a ton of searching and browsing and gathering info as a consumer but not so much interacting and contributing as a producer of web content.  I’m kinda missing the mark when it comes to building a PLN that offers a give and take experience.  So it’s time to GOI and stop feeling like a 4NR out there on the WWW of WTMI.  There are options for EVRE1, including me.  Plenty of EZ opportunities for PD that are accessible 24/7.  I just have to first get used to the lingo, LOL!  TFLMS!!

(P.S.  I know that ending was super cheesy, but I couldn’t resist!)

Week 3: Popplet PLN

Check out my Popplet! It is a visual representation of my current PLN (Professional Learning Network).  Many of the popples in the area of online connections are new beginnings for me.  I definitely want to expand the ways that I am connecting with others and continue edging my way towards becoming more of a contributor and not just a consumer of online resources. 🙂

Week 2: Networked Learning Project

ASL + L2 = Signing in the Language Classroom

I am very much a hand talker. It is a habit, a reflex if you will. I often can not control it or am even aware of it. Half of what I communicate is likely to be in gestures and facial expressions. With my hands and my face and no words at all, I can get you to sit down, laugh at me, or engage you in a tall tale… that is if you are one of my elementary school students.

For my Networked Learning Project for CEP 810, I would like to take this natural affinity I have for exaggerated body language one step further. I would like to literally learn to speak with my hands. I have always been interested in incorporating real sign language to support language learning with my students. It would be an excellent way for me to facilitate my students’ comprehension skills and allow them to similarly use signs to increase their confidence with exclusively using the target language. How cool would that be for the students to not only be learning Spanish but also some common signs that would be effective in the real world (not just in Super Señora sign language!)?

I have taught myself over the years a handful of signs that I use regularly so I am confident that this learning project can work. There are tons of resources available for learning sign language… books, DVDs, online courses. Oh wait, I just remembered that the requirements of the assignment are as follows, “You are going to learn to do something using ONLY YouTube and Help Forums on the Internet as your guides.”

¡Ay, caramba! This will be interesting. In fact, in today’s world of technology I even think this will be great. So, this is my commitment. By the end of CEP 810, I am confident that I will be a user of at least 20 words and phrases in ASL that I will proudly fold into my teaching in the fall. These will be high-frequency words and phrases that help with transitions, classroom management, and connecting personally with my students while sticking to the target language. I have a few ideas to get started but please let me know if you have any suggestions for me!

Week 1 Essay: Learning, Understanding and Conceptual Change Essay

Contributing to the development of young children is one of the most fascinating things in life in my opinion.  When given the opportunity to openly explore and experience the learning process in a nurturing environment, children approach learning with admirable positivity and curiosity.  I find that while they often readily accept and absorb information in naive ways, they are also eager to be active learners.  They express their curiosities and doubts to openly challenge learning, enriching the process for themselves and others.  In my experience, children are creative and flexible with transferring their knowledge to make sense of the world.  Their unconventional connections can prompt new ideas and paths of learning to consider (even for the adults with whom they interact).  This type of inquisitive, exploratory nature that most children exhibit in their early years is what makes each and every day for me both fulfilling and inspiring.

An important question to consider is how can we as educators take advantage of the learning potential of children at an early age?  Furthermore, how can we create the best environments to ensure that as children mature they continue to embrace their inherent quality of curious, positive energy and use it to deepen their knowledge and understanding for real-world application?  In the first chapter of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School, the authors help us explore these questions.  “Overall, the new science of learning is beginning to provide knowledge to improve significantly people’s abilities to become active learners who seek to understand complex subject matter and are better prepared to transfer what they have learned to new problems and settings” (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, 2000, p.13).  Updates in research on the brain and learning continue to help us examine our understanding of learning and the important characteristics of productive learning environments.  “The emerging science of learning underscores the importance of rethinking what is taught, how it is taught, and how learning is assessed” (Bransford et al., 2000, p.13).

For our young generation of students, learning has a taken on a completely different look in comparison to what most adults recall of their school experiences.  I hear from parents regularly how impressed they are with not just what their children are learning but importantly the way in which they are learning.  Of course these differences in experience also can lead to parents questioning current ways of teaching and learning.  The activities of an elementary school classroom are sometimes misinterpreted by those not familiar with current best practices.  For example, some parents lack an understanding of an exploratory-based or play-based environment and therefore underestimate the powerful learning that is taking place.  They find it difficult to disconnect from their prior experiences of traditional classroom settings and struggle to see that children’s attitudes, beliefs and understandings are being shaped for lifelong use.  Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) explain that “because learning involves transfer from previous experiences, one’s existing knowledge can also make it difficult to learn new information” (p. 70).  This supports why it is important that institutions of learning also make an effort to communicate with and educate their parent body to create a mutual understanding of learning and teaching.

I am fortunate to be a part of a teaching and learning community that strives to embody the design characteristics that Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (2000) suggest for creating an optimal learning environment.  The authors state that there are “four interrelated attributes of learning  environments that need cultivation” in schools (p. 23).  Schools should be learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered (Bransford et al., 2000, pp. 23-25).  Achieving this type of interrelated learning environment has become increasingly more tangible with the advent of new technology.  However, just as there is a wide variety of teaching and learning strategies to choose from, it is also important to be thoughtful in the way that we choose to integrate technology.  It can be a powerful tool to support learning and engage a variety of learning styles, yet knowing how to choose and use technology thoughtfully is a complex and evolving discussion which brings us back to the importance of understanding learning.  “A benefit of focusing on how people learn is that it helps bring order to a seeming cacophony of choices” (Bransford et al., 2000, p. 21).

References

Bransford, J., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind,  Experience and School (Expanded Edition). Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368