Major Digital Project (eci831)

I have participated as a non-credit student in ‘ECI831 Fall 2011’ and one outcome of this course is to develop a ‘Major Digital Project’ related to technology in teaching and learning. My idea was to demonstrate how teachers can create a digital representation of their experience and reflections with help from online tools.

Project Description:
I have made a Webzine called “The Educator Prophet” mainly with the tools Issuu and Pixlr.  The idea was a spin-off from the magic newspaper “The Daily Prophet” in J. K. Rowlings books ‘Harry Potter’.  Where there are talking and moving images that interact with the reader.  Another main thought was to use free ‘open learning’ tools that will be available over time.  Basically the work I’ve done is a collage with images and text, similar to a mind map.  The online picture editor allow you to grab sources from the web add comments and then I can, in the tool for publicizing, add links to sources or reference material.  The images can be re-used in presentations or lessons and the PDF-format can be downloaded or distributed with Slideshare.  For the more advanced user an online demonstration can be done in LiveStream and the recording can then be uploaded to YouTube.  During the session the participants can join the back-log with the use of a hash-tag on Twitter and when watching the recording anyone can add their comments.

Final Project Reflections:
I wanted to stimulate creativity and take away the focus from the technology, but in my case I was definitely stuck in time consuming technology. The shared Dropbox folder was good to create instant access to ideas and saved images. Then the voice-over was edited with Audacity and I’m going to make ‘clickable’ recordings in the Issuu presentation that was collected during the online seminars.  The second edition of “The Educator Prophet” will hopefully be easier to put together.  It will be reflections on George Siemens presentation “Sensemaking and Wayfinding in Complex Information Environments”, Stephen Downes “The Role of Educator in a Networked World”  and the Wrap-up of EC&I 831 …

Evolving Expert Skills in Social Media & Open Education? (eci831)

Some members in our cohort, Fall 2011, maybe noticed that I’ve been following the EC&I 831 as a non-credit participant.  My struggle involves finding the balance between ‘Practice & Reflection’ and ‘Model & Demonstrate’.  I have been what can be described as lurker/observer and my main focus is on how I will become a node that creates learning resources for teacher’s open online learning.  On the personal side I’ve used social media successfully for a long time and am now facing the challenge to develop ‘expert’ skills in Social Media & Open Education.

An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. (Wikipedia)

I can with ‘good’ skills  demonstrate blogs (WordPress customizations, HTML/PHP programming, MySQL databases, Transparent alpha layer and image editing), micro-bloging (twitter, tweet deck, hash-tag folksonomy), social bookmarking (Delicious, Diigo), RSS feeds (Google reader) and online collaboration (webinar, wikipedia, Dropbox, Google docs) etc.

I have since week one in eci831 started a project with a ‘new’ form of online learning based on the application supplied by Issuu.  If you remember the Daily Prophet in the movie Harry Potter, this will give you an idea of where I’m heading.  This is also part of my participation in the Creativity and Multicultural Communication MOOC.  The vision is to use Pixlr to aggregate a picture collage that visually demonstrate a topic and after it has been converted to an Issuu webzine there will be a voiceover and links included.  The screen cast will then become a video presentation on ‘You Tube’, but this can also be used fore a synchronous live session.  In the first issue I will include:  Introduction (Digital Identity, Networked Learning), EC&I – Fall 2011 (Learning Network, Community vs. Collective) and Autonomy (Personal Learner, Digital Resident).  You can find a preview here, but soon the final version will be ready!