The future. . .

I made it!

My nine weeks of Web 2.0 exploration are complete.

I have forwarded my recommendation to my colleague, Pam, for her upcoming blogging adventure with the Grade 9s. The winner of the hotly contested Edublogs vs. 21Classes blog platform debate can be found here.

Pam and I are meeting tomorrow to create the student blogs with the Pro Account I purchased. It will be interesting to see how Edublogs works around the usual requirement for an active email account. In my initial attempts to set up the additional student blogs I see that an email account is "required", yet a few lines further down it instructs, "If your users do not have email addresses you can use this Gmail method to add your users!"So far, clicking on this Gmail method hyperlink takes me in a circle. Hmm! I will have to investigate this further. The details of this dilemma will not be known before this post's publication deadline - further evidence that a Web 2.0 exploration project never really ends!

This is Jessica Levitt, mum, wife, reader, tl, and BLOGGER signing off!

Reflecting . . . and a bit of ranting (just a bit)

I am at the halfway point in my blogging project. On Friday, I received informal feedback from my professor on my blog to date. It was not great, but I am not surprised. I have deliberately neglected including certain aspects of the overall assignment criteria in this blog. Not because I am a rebel, although I can join a good cause in a heartbeat, but because I am struggling to find a space in my blog for the very things I do not like reading in others' blogs.

Bloggers lose my attention when their posts are lengthy and when they descend into the how tos of a task, with those awful "and then, and then, and then" that I tried to beat out of my Grade 6 and 7 students when I was a classroom teacher. (Not beat in a violent sense, more in a repeated reminder sense.)

If I want "how to" instruction, I'll watch a step by step video on YouTube: I do not like to wade through written instructions. I would even suffer through a podcast, although I have said before how insufferably boring I find podcasts.

Herein, lies my problem: I do not want to produce something which I would not like to read.

I am not a technical writer. I prefer to teach by demonstrating. I am not the kind of teacher who provides her students with reams of notes to "learn" from. My lessons are mostly of the "demonstrate and apply" format, followed by an assessment of the application.

Yet. . .

This blog is for an assignment. I want to do well on this assignment, and I want to conclude this project in December having met the following four goals set in my proposal:

• to achieve the level of "proficiency" in all six tools
• that my future Web 2.0 experiences, through self-regulation, will be rich with deep learning 
• that each post will be a place “of critical thinking, analytical writing and reflection”
• to become a resource for teachers and students in my school (See my full proposal for further explanation of these goals, including references for some of the language appropriated here in quotations.)

I believe my readers are knowledgeable and they can infer a great deal from what I am not telling them. I believe my professors can do the same.

But. . .

Can my professors assess what they infer? I do not think so. To date I have demonstrated proficiency in Diigo, Jing, and VoiceThread. I believe I am becoming a resource for teachers at my school, and I have provided some evidence of this in these blog posts. But my posts have yet to be places "of critical thinking, analytical writing, and reflection", nor have I explained much of the deep learning that I have experienced.

Hmmm. . .

So. . .

My challenge from this point forward is:

• to include the "how tos" in a critical, analytic, and reflective style that will hold my readers' attention; and, 
• to provide evidence of my deep learning through connections to academic literature

My posts are going to get longer. I just hope they get better, too.

P.S. The rant: I HAVE SHINGLES! According to The U.S. National Library of Medicine, when you have had chicken pox as a child the virus lives on forever in your body. And for about 20% really fortunate people (sarcastic tone necessary) it can reactivate during a time of lowered immunity. Say, when your husband is away with the senior boys soccer team and you are single parenting and trying to stay abreast of your Master's level coursework. . .ARGHHHH!

For further information on shingles, refer to this page. Caveat: the images are disgusting!