Studying

I have started playing to my strengths when it comes to studying. I have realized I'm a very visual person, so I convert notes and important concepts into pictures to make sure I remember them. This is how I studied for my counselling quiz. (I was going to say it's tomorrow, but it's just over 12 hours from now today.)

lolcats explain the steps in Reality Therapy.

My ELA Identity

We had an assignment in my senior years ELA course to think about who we are and what that means as future teachers of English. It was a great way to reflect on the fact that who I am influences my teaching. I need to make the best of my strengths and focus on my weaknesses to reach all students across all learning styles/preferences. So, this is where ELA and I intersect.
 

Presentation Pointers

At one point in our course we went over what made a good presentation. This reminded me of a lesson my co-operating teacher gave while I was student teaching. It was for a biography project where the students would present someone they had researched.
This is the link to the presentation the lesson was based around: www.iasted.org/conferences/formatting/Presentations-Tips.ppt
[WARNING: It contains, possibly, the worst powerpoint slide ever created. View with caution.]
I know I've been more conscious of slide design since I went through this.

Prezi

Prezi is a web-based alternative to the standard PowerPoint/Keynote presentation. It uses dynamic motion, including panning and zooming, between sections of a digital canvas to present presentations in a whole new way.

At first I was intimidated by Prezi. The old adage is that we fear change and Prezi's style is a dramatic change from what I was used to. I signed up for an education account when it was presented in class and even watched the tutorial videos, but I didn't go any further. I couldn't think outside the slide.

However, other classmates could and they presented their Prezis in other classes. They were visually stimulating and engaging. Their great work allowed me to make the shift to motion. I decided to make a one myself.

I was working on an inquiry project on dyslexia with Kelsey and we had modified an assessment framework for how to proceed if you notice one of your students has reading difficulties. It was represented as a flowchart. I decided to convert our adaptation into a Prezi.

Assessment Framework on Prezi

I thought the spiral enabled everything to be close together, yet show a definite progression through the steps of the process. The design and colouring choices were to match the website we'd created to share our findings with the class.

Prezi has a host of web 2.0 features: public access (if desired), collaborative editing, and multiple sharing options (facebook, twitter and embedding, as I've done above). It also allows multimedia to easily be incorporated with simple tools to upload images and video built in to the editor. I also appreciate that I can download any of my Prezis, and any public one that the author has given access to, and present them offline. Some schools may not have a wireless network and bringing an entire class to the lab for a two minute presentation on the scientific method, to pick something at random, may not be productive. Or one day, inexplicably, the network may fail or the server will crash. With my offline copy on a flash drive none of these situations need change my plans. I can present worry free.

Google Docs

I had some experience with Google Docs before this class. I used it mainly as cloud storage. It was helpful for having resumes and important documents available anywhere when my wife and I were traveling.  I had only really experimented with the word processing aspect of it before this class as well.

I'm so happy that Google Docs was covered early in the course. Learning about its various capabilities beyond word processing and the collaborative benefits has revolutionized how I've worked on assignments in all my courses.

Collaboration = doubleplusgood!

This is what really blew my mind about Google Docs. I still remember the class all simultaneously logged into the Hopes & Fears document with it projected for all to see. The multicoloured cursors creating, altering and destroying was like a digitized fireworks display. While it may not have been very productive at the time, the implications of this activity have set off fireworks in my head that have been very productive indeed.

Group work has been revolutionized. Finding a time and place to meet that works for every group member has always been one of the most difficult aspects of group projects in my experience. The ability to work on a collaborative file, accessible to each group member and updated in real-time vastly reduces this difficulty. A specific time and place for everyone is no longer required. Individual work time and a deadline is all the is required. If I have to work when everyone else is working on the project, I can simply see the changes the next day when I sign in (and everyone else is now working) check the chat and start on my section. This works amazingly well for busy university students trying to juggle multiple courses' workloads and very often jobs as well.

Capabilities

In general, the Google Docs suite is lacking the advanced formatting and stylistic capabilities that dedicated, downloadable programs have. However, Google Docs is more than capable of managing my day-to-day needs, as it is rare that I need to utilise the aforementioned advanced capabilities.

Google Docs now provides the following:

Documents - An intuitive, easy to use word processer. I've used it for brainstorming, lesson plans that were accessible at school just by saving them and to share projects with group members.

Presentation - It's strange that I want to call it a Google PowerPoint, but it simply is what it says it is: a presentation maker. It's lacking in animations with the only animation option being to reveal points to be revealed one after the other. Perhaps though, especially with presentations, simpler is better. I've used it to create a presentation on Writing-to-Learn strategies for Instructional Methods with a group. Everyone created their own slide individually, but since it was on a shared presentation it was ready as soon as the last person finalized their slide. There was no compiling and reformatting.

Spreadsheet - the capabilities of a collaborative spreadsheet program are mind boggling. So far, I've only used it to keep track of and collectively play McDonald's Monopoly with family. (Sadly, even with three couples playing together we didn't win any major prizes.) Its uses go far beyond this, though. I can imagine worldwide research projects where data can be input on site, with real-time analysis through the spreadsheet formulas and functions. Businesses could do likewise with sales data and discover trends as they are happening.

Form - Allows you to create questionnaires and forms. The collaboration feature makes sending them out and tabulating responses very easy.

Drawing & Table - both are relatively new in the Google Docs suite and allow you to create pictures and various types of tables and graphs. I have a feeling that a collaborative drawing could get pretty hectic.

Collections - While collections are not a specific capability of Google Docs in terms of creating files, they are a very helpful function that allows users to organize files however they see fit. Simply create a collection (a.k.a folder) and store created files in them. I have collections for each of my courses, what I did during student teaching, and resume and job related files. The great thing is that collections can also be shared with others.

Google Docs is incredible! I will continue to make use of it myself and will use it as a tool to enhance collaboration in my future classroom.