Collaborative project
For the collaborative project for ECMP 455 Jordan and I have been working with Paul Park’s grade 7/8 class. Our project is to help Paul’s students create better presentations. Because Paul is teaching in Mortlach we were able to meet face to face to discuss the project. It was great to be able to have that initial meeting face to face and get to know each other before the project began.
Jordan and I then met a couple times and emailed with Paul until we were all sure of where we were going with the project. Jordan took on the part of researching good a bad presentations, and I took on the tools side of the research. We originally wanted to use either Slideshare or Google docs to do our collaborative side of the project with the students and use WizIQ or Skype to teach a lesson in Paul’s class. After some research on the programs and their capabilities Paul and I had conversations using Google Chat, Skype, and WizIQ and came to the conclusion that the best route would be to use Google Docs and WizIQ.
Jordan and I prepared a lesson for the grade 7/8 class and made sure all the technology worked the way we were hoping it would. On the day of our lesson everything went well accept for some minor difficulties. Even though we tested everything the day before we were unable to get the screen sharing to work properly and the Youtube video would not play. We came to the conclusion that with WizIQ running on twenty computers plus the added band width of video it was too much for the school server.
The lesson went well other than these minor issues and I was very please with how the lesson turned out. I am pretty sure that the students learned something from us and I know that I learned from this experience as well. I learned that no matter how many times I rehearse and practice a lesson beforehand there is always something that can go wrong; especially when using technology with students. We just have to roll with it and do the best we can. I also learned not to trust that screen sharing will work. Before this lesson I did not trust screen sharing because of how poorly it works during elluminate sessions. In testing, screen sharing worked so well, but when it was time to actually teach with it, it failed me again. I am not saying that I will never try to screen share again, but I will always have a backup plan.
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About Me
My name is Darin Janssen. I have been married to my wife Michelle for 14 years, and we have two children. Briana is 11, and Garrick is 4. I am a student at the University of Regina and I am a leader with Scouts Canada. Between family, school, and Scouts I am very busy but I still find time to enjoy life. I love to travel, kayak, canoe, camp, snowshoe, bike, and many other activities that allow me to enjoy the great outdoors.
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Sounds like you guys are having an awesome experience for your collaborative project. It also sounds like you have learned lots about using technology in the classroom. I have a love/hate relationship with technology. Like you said, you will always have a backup plan and that is what I have started to do as well. During my internship when my faculty advisor came to watch me, the server was down and my whole lesson involved computers. Luckily I had a prep before her arrival and had time to change my whole lesson. I was not prepared for the technology to totally not be working, but I was able to make it work. After that, I always wrote in my lesson plan what I could do if the server was ever down again. It is all about the learning experience and nothing is going to run perfectly all of the time. Thanks for sharing your and Jordan’s experience!
Great post Darin! I am glad that you are having a good experience with Jordan. You have taken a lot of initiative with computer training lately. I think that it is great that you went down to Calgary for that workshop on top of all your other demands. Kudos to you!! I wonder whose presentation that had so many transitions when she screenshared making it hard in elluminate that you are talking about?
That is the nice thing about learning from others. You never know until we experience it. Good luck with the rest of your project!