It's the official end of Fall Semester here at the University of Houston. Phew! Now it is time to unwind, relax and also plan for the upcoming one!! In terms of my overall experience it has been moderately steep learning curve. I am happy with how much I learned and I look forward to have more meaningful exoerience. Learning : This semester I took 2 courses, Professional Seminar 1 - Technology, Community Education and Research and Educational Use of Digital Storytelling. Both the classes were entirely online. CUIN 7303 : Technology, Community Education and Research : This course is divided into three mini courses and the students rotate through these mini sections after spending a month in each. Each of the mini courses is taught by a different professor. In Technology course we were encouraged to venture out and understand how technology can be incorporated into 21st century teaching environment. There was also an emphasis to add a 'human touch' to technology, to make it more personal, interactive and appealing. Did I ever imagine that Twitter could be used for educational purpose, for exchange of ides???? No I was wrong! Although most of the modules were asynchronous, but Twitter chat was a great idea to connect with each other, to see the face behind the names and exchange thoughts! We also used other emerging technologies like Flipgrid, Voicethread to share our views. Each of these tools have their own strengths and weakness. For instance although Flipgrid is a great way to include video messages, but Flipgrid requires a code to enter into discussions. Voicethread allows to post both written/audio messages which is a great idea I think. Community education: I had very faint idea about community education before I took this course. Community based education strives to promote learning amongst community by using both formal and informal tools. Community education often uses social , interactive and constructive approach, hence the process is dynamic and laden with high energy!! As a part of the course we had to choose two community sites to understand how community education happens in practice and I chose Houston Public Library and Children's Museum of Houston. One of my reflections is here. Research: This was my first encounter with educational research, to be more precise action research. The term action research may sound like an oxymoron, as the term research evokes the imagery of a scientist working in a lab for a prolonged period of time, but action research aims to apply the study findings in the social/academic perspective and further refine understanding of the issue. This mini course also helped me to polish my writing skills. Everyone has a different way of writing. In my case I realized, that I cannot substantiate my thoughts into writing in one go. I used to create a draft and revise it over multiple times. And as consistent with any higher form of learning, writing requires lot of reflection, asking questions and jotting down of thoughts. I must admit that initially writing a graduate paper seemed like driving in a dark mountainous road, not exactly knowing how the terrain looks ahead. Often the hardest part is to get out of the inertia, create an outline and start writing. I also had to learn APA style writing. This is not tough at all once you understand the requirement! The culmination assignment of the course was to find out how technology, research and community education can be connected together. CUIN 7358 : Educational use of digital story telling: Digital stories are short narratives which are created by blending recorded narrative, images ( still/multimedia) and background music. One of the strong distinction between documentary versus digital story is that later has a strong emotional content from the point of view of the narrator. This was a very hands on experience and I thoroughly enjoyed this course. Over 15 weeks period I developed two digital stories and it was a great experience. As I kept doing, my speed got better! We used Wevideo to create digital stories. I also had fun in creating short animation movies in Windows Media and incorporating them in final digital story. Here is the link to one of my digital stories. Outside of class experiences : In my bid to continue my passion for teaching Geology, I hosted my second session with Nepris where I talked about Glaciers to elementary school kids at Oregon! How cool is that! Here is the link to my session. I also did observership at Briarmeadow Charter School and T H Rogers School and I wrote about my experience at here and here. I attended couple of ( professional) events from the University of Houston Graduate office and I think in the future I would like to do more. One of the events is called Graduate Research and Scholarship Projects (GRaSP). Students from various disciplines showcase their work ( in the form of poster presentation, talks and performance). Apart from learning how a smartphone can be used as a microscope ( !!) it was great way to learn from fellow graduate students and get geared up!! I also volunteered at the ITLD conference sponsored by the College of Education at University of Houston. This year I have chartered in an entirely new path! This was my first major experience with online learning. Did I like it? Well like anything else in life there are certain aspects I enjoyed, somethings were challenging.
Although online learning creates a spatial and temporal barrier, but I am fortunate my professors were very responsive to my queries. Critiquing/ "reflecting" on other cohort member's work is something new I learned. The most challenging part was to do time management and not to feel 'lost' although I was actually feeking lost!!!! I hope the next semester is going to be even more engaging, fruitful and productive. I am ready for the next step!
1 Comment
5/2/2018 11:14:30 am
I love that you had a class that focused on digital storytelling. I think this is such an important concept for our educators. Allowing students to tell their stories and share their learning empowers them and allows them to connect with others on a global level.
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