WebQuest- Jamaican Culture

Content analysis of Jamaican music to create a history and present social commentary of the people.

My first podcast part 2

Here is my first podcast, it's part of my MVCR course on podcasting, I was able to do this after week 2.

My Podcast

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Mohammed and the Podcast mountain, 3 years later

So here it is 3 years later and I'm still pursuing podcasting, this time I've enrolled in a 4 week class through the Illinois Online Network.

Mohammed and the Podcast mountain, 3 years later

So here it is 3 years later and I'm still pursuing podcasting, this time I've enrolled in a 4 week class through the Illinois Online Network.

Creating a Podcast - Mohammed & the mountain

Web industry trends Podcast audience small but still growing

"The total audience for podcasts has shown meteoric growth, particularly in the US," says Mike Chapman, eMarketer Editorial Director and author of the new Podcasting: Who's Tuning In? report. "The active listening audience is much smaller, but it is still set to grow rapidly."

"A year ago, many people had not even heard of podcasting. Yet the number of podcast listeners who have ever listened to or watched a podcast is projected to top 10 million this year and reach 50 million by 2010."

My interest in podcasting grew when I read a magazine article describing educators at our Ivy league universities creating podcasts of their lectures which thier learners can access at their own convenience. I thought, "technology at work again" I was happy to see fellow faculty members taking the initiative to keep up with the generation and their "toys". This can only be good for creating interest after all "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed then Mohammed must go to the mountain" :))

So I began investigating and found a good web site, How to create your own podcast which gives good instructions. Yesterday I downloaded the software audicity and its encoder Lame 3.96 1-1. Downloading was the easy part, linking the encoder to Audacity was a little tricky. For some reason I kept looking for an .exe file instead of the required .dll file but after a couple of attempts I got it and voila I was on my way to mp3 creation. My first mp3 file materialized in a matter of minutes. It was an intuitive process, I gave the "victory pull" sign at my mid-afternoon joy.

The first part of my lesson was successful, I also created the txt file in notepad an now need to take other steps i.e. upload these files and run my podcast, stay tuned.

MVCR Final Project Reflections

Subject: Lorraine's reflections - Final Project

Message no. 1214
Author: Lorraine Cross (lcross)
Date posted in WebCT: Saturday, December 4, 2004 6:03pm


1. How well did the project in its final form conform to your Learning Contract?
Timeline
• Week 1 – Brain storm ideas - ACHIEVED
• Week 2 – Research models & theories - ACHIEVED
• Week 3 - Relate models & theories to course content - ACHIEVED
• Week 4 - Develop/identify theory & graphical model - ACHIEVED
• Week 5 - Submit rubrics for assessment, submit 1st draft
i. Show how model/plan can be operationalized by creating a 1 week planned
lesson – PARTITIALLY ACHIEVED
• Week 6 – Resubmit draft – NOT ACHIEVED OFFICIALLY – (revision
done but not submitted)
• Week 7 – Submit 2nd draft - NOT ACHIEVED OFFICIALLY – (revision
done but not submitted)
• Week 8 – Complete review of peer comments & redesign output -
ACHIEVED

2. Now that you have finished the project, what additional components would you
like to add OR have added?
• The plan has grown to include a complete instructional design prepared
in the
form of a PowerPoint Presentation based on the model selected in week
2 & analyzed in week 3

• A class Assessment Technique has been created to capture formative
evaluation information for the unit for day 5



• One class activity for day 5 has also been created

• A summative evaluation survey – to capture information on students
interaction with the Learning Management System (password 71219924)



• To be added/created are:
o Culmination activities for day 2-4
o Storyboards for day 2-5
o Learning resources for each days activities
o Assessment tools for mid & final module
o Critical thinking skills learners are expected to use for days 1-5

• To be developed
o The course’s web page to execute the storyboards


3. What have you seen that needs revising?
o Each days lesson plan flow as per the syllabus’ timeline


4. What are the major strengths of the course/project that you have created?
o There is plan in place
o Instructor knowledge, skill & commitment to improvement
o Methodology – Blended with an emphasis on online resources to aid skill
development while exposing learners to the best of the F2F worlds
o It’s learner centered
o It facilitates a challenge to the Instructor and forms a basis for her
professional development


5. What is the major weakness?
•Not yet validated by Distance Education Committee
•It’s just the beginning, i.e. 1st week, this is just the beginning


6. How will you continue to enhance your skills in the future?
By teaching/training others

audio & text MVCR musing :))

Text version
My MVCR journey began as venture in curiosity and fueled my creation of a blended course which is still a matter in progress. I see myself teaching/facilitating a fully online line class at the first opportunity. I must say I have enjoyed participating in these sessions my colleges added depth to the work which we did. Our group work was particularly beneficial; the synergy which it created has left me & underscored the view that group work is particularly important the sum of the total is greater than the sum of one. To my instructors - good work, to my colleagues - good luck.

MVCR reflections

Each course added to my learning curve re online learning and facilitation, to date I have completed 8 courses:

a) Online learning - an overview
b) Technology tools for online learning
c) Multimedia principles for online educators
d) Student assessment for online learning
e) Web design principles for online educators
f) Copyright, the TEACH act and Intellectual Propery Issues
g) Instructional design
i) Practicum

Details of my reflections can be found at http://www.geocities.com/lcross2004/MVCRreflection.htm

Facilitation reflection

Logged in 11:00 pm

Re read guidelines for reflection, copied and pasted questions below
Total time = 2 min (copy, paste & decide what to include in reflection)

REFLECTION
Guiding questions:

1. What did you intend to accomplish with your facilitation topic?
My main intention was to two fold a) give each learner the opportunity to reflect on his/her own situation re "what next" after this MOT experience, express key ideas which others could use, also to explore a new online method of documenting information, & data via blogs. A medium that appears to be very popular among young learners in many circles. Use in a course would bring learning close to what they are using among themselves.

2. What were your observations about how the discussion developed?
Discussions showed the anticipated interest and even pleasure at questions assigned which indicated that the use of personal & professional introductions at the beginning of the course is an effective way of guiding the learning process. There was definitely a high degree of positive Synergy for the first two days, this steadly declined as the end of the facilitation period was reached. The question of how to maintain this momentum for a 5-7 day period is a point to consider. One thought on is would be to divide the group into two phase e.g. one group answering assigned questions with the other replying, then in the second half of the week those who were previously assigned now become respondents. This could help the activity level and maintain a high degree of synergy while creating an analytical atmosphere.

3. What might you have done differently?
I was however disappointed with the question on Blogs. Not much participation there. If I made it part of the required reading with a two fold format, I think participation could have been enhanced. But I was warmed by the fact that the learner who was assigned the question uses a blog to keep updated on information in her subject area. Perhaps I could have directed questions specifically to other learners re the use of blogs in specific situations by other educators. Or even suggest ways and find out if they felt it could work in their classes. To do this the use of a generative voice to list current directions and interpretations could have been used.

I had hoped my classmates would see blogs as useful in this course for chronicling their data as part of our final assignment. I don't think my indirect introduction worked. However I will see when we all submit our journals. But I think this tool adequately serves this purpose. :))

4. What direction could the discussion have taken?
In reflecting discussions could have been more engaging if as my facilitator pointed out, more probing questions were asked. As a first timer I was so happy with what was occuring I left learners to interact with each other. However while I was offline I remember thinking to myself "shouldn't I be doing something? It did feel strange. I could not "see" and felt somewhat blind, although the same is not true in my role as participant. As facilitator it was a challenge.

5. What tone and voice did you use in at least two postings?
Posting type 1 - e-mail to 2 non participating learners-tone & voice - one of active & friendly questionning concern (informal mediator), refered to an e-mail sent to me by a facilitator.
Posting type 2 - curious tone in a reflective voice to re state a question using information from the individual's posting.

6. Did the introduction of a tone or voice produce the desired results? What indicated to you that they did have the indicated result?
Yes it did, both responded to my e-mail and gave information re participation one gave an assurance for the weekend. The other indicated participation in the parallel discussion topic room.

7. Total time spent on facilitation exercise=585 min = 9.75 hrs


Logged out WebCT 11:02 pm

Facilitation conclusion

Logged in 11:30
Total time =10 min (read posts, reflect on prior decision of how to deal with concluding facilitation, rejected orginal idea and added just the key idea)

1 new post, read, then proceeded to add key idea. Offline thought about how to do this and what to say, ended up being brief, just adding one key idea which most supported. Added this info as a separate heading in facilitation space. Also sent e-mail with the same info to all classmates.

Disappointed with the response to the topic blogs not sure what this means, but happy that at least one person is using one.

Logged out WebCt 11:40 am

# responses -all except one

November 1
Total time = 10 min (read e-mail, posts)

logged in 5:48
Read e-mail apology from one member who had not yet participated. Gave assurance to do so 3 new responses since I logged on earlier- read.

Read Logged out 5:54

****************************

Logged in 12:32 pm

By now all classmates have answered their assigned except 2 which I e-mailed, one responded that -participated in similar same week activity and therefore not interested in this forum. I responded to the e-mail "thanks for the info"
There were 10 new responses, very few on the issue of blogs


Logged out WebCt
12:36

# of original responses - 7

October 31
total time =60 min (read posts,replied, composed e-mail, re read instructions for clarification )

Logged on 11:55 pm
Was pleasantly surprised to find 58 new replies to original posts, the conversations seemed to flow and there were genuine expressions of interest in each others postings, ideas and thoughts to questions assigned.

12:02 am

Noticed two members had not yet responded to their question, e-mailed them but as I did, how to word my notice of their non participation was difficult to put together. I refered to one which my facilitator sent to me. That helped.


12:08 am
Returned to discussions, read all responses replied to a few. Noticed that not all had given a key idea. Re read the instructions, maybe I need to create a separate heading called key ideas.

12:55 am
Logged out of WebCt