Off to a Strong Start!

The summer flew by so fast and I have already in the full swing of the new academic year. I will be teaching three courses: Methods of Social Studies, Methods of Science, and Nature of Schools in education for All Students (online). There are a number of students who were in my previous classes and it comforts me as I know they will be assisting me in the projects that will require technological skills and creative efforts. I enjoy introducing my courses through creative assignments on the first day of the class showing what is ahead and how my classes will be run. Teacher candidates have already used Moodle forum posting their responses, created personal pages on g-docs and interacted in groups to discuss insights on their learning to teach experience.
I have a positive feeling about both undergraduate classes. Teacher candidates seem to be focused and are ready to embark their learning to teach with technology adventures.
Tomorrow I will meet my Nature of Schools... class for the first and the last time face-to-face. Hopefully, this in-person session will help to ease some fears and anxiety about an online setting.
My students and I are off to a strong start!

Struggling with the Final Web of Wonders Projects

For the final project in my Teaching with Technology course teacher candidates were challenged to create final Web of Wonders projects, sharing something unique based on what they had been learning during 5 weeks of the intense summer course. It turned out to be a very difficult task in the beginning. Teacher candidates started asking me questions to specify the task and tell them what exactly was expected of them.  Of course, there was a description of the project in the syllabus, there was a rubric on eClass/Moodle course site. Most of the class needed more guidance.
I searched for examples of student creative multimedia projects on the Internet from all over the country and across the world and found quite a few. I shared the links with the class and posting them here:

• Developing eLearning - The eLearning Coach
• Multimedia Glossary
• e-learning in the Park

• Web 2.0 FREEDOM
• Participatory Learning
• Adaptive learning - created by schoolchildren participating the global Flat classroom project 
• Creating a website with Ideas for Podcasting
• Publishing a Screencast
• Movies Made easy with technology even by elementary students

In the end of the course, all students came up with their own solid ideas and designed impressive multimedia projects . They shared heir presentations with each other in our final virtual class and provided constructive feedback and recommendations for improvement.

Here are a few examples of the WoW projects from the summer 2016 course:

• Web-Based Training Tutorials with Wix
• Digital Citizenship and Digital Learning with Jing
• Flipping the Classroom with Prezi
• Virtual Chemistry Labs with Voicethread

Together We Learn More: Creating Communities of Learners

I was presenting at the MoodleMoot Virtual Conference today  on my favorite topic: Creating learning communities in face--to-face and virtual classrooms. It was well received. I enjoyed sharing my experience with interested educators about designing and teaching courses where I spend the first two or three weeks of the semester creating the communities of learners. Here is the link to the webinar on WizIQ.