Reflections for this week in EDUC 391.

I had to let it simmer for a few days to get a good grasp on what it was that I needed to understand about my presentation. After letting it simmer over the weekend I think I have narrowed it down a considerable bit. This was the first time I actually articulated this idea, and though at the time it was crystal clear in my mind it became obvious to me as I presented that the idea was still very raw. I have been reading some articles and visiting some websites, as well as databases and search engines that I believe are going to help with a lit review and to polish my presentation to make a better proposal.

Looking back, I need to work on my delivery a little bit. I need to slow down the pace and not rush through so that I can devote enough time to each component of my proposal. I also need to get a good review of the literature to establish real need as opposed to just talking about a need that could be the offspring of my subjective bias. Is there a real need for this? This is the question I am trying to answer. Based on my conversations during the last few days with some teachers and librarians there is a need, but I need to put a spin on my approach to make a more solid case.

Overall I think last week’s presentation was a success. Not because I delivered an awesome presentation, but rather because by taking the first step early on I might have started on a course that will lead me a to potential master’s project. The hardest thing sometimes is taking the first step. Well, I have taken that first step now. My next steps are to do a good lit review to establish need, and to discuss in more detail and with more eloquence the ABCD’s and the six principles.

I think this is doable, and am feeling good for getting this opportunity early on to start throwing my thoughts down on paper!

M. Ricardo Flores

This week’s installment.

I was in the group that reviewed Vyew.com. I thought this application has a lot of potential for teaching and learning once they iron out some of the kinks. Right now it seems to require too much bandwidth. The application froze or crashed a couple o times while we were using it. Another problem that we observed in our group was that because it had too many features it would be easy for the instructor or the course facilitator to loose control because the many bells and whistles can be distracting. This happened in our group. Once we were given free reign to use al the features we all inevitable tended to want to test everything out and to almost deviate from the task at hand. In spite of these downsides, I think that with proper planning an instructor can turn this into an advantageous medium for imparting curriculum. I believe that once they solve the bandwidth issue this could be a great tool for it enables learners to participate synchronously or asynchronously depending on the needs of the learner or the curriculum objectives. I have added this to my bookmarks and will continue to explore its functionality for I think there are some things that can be exploited here. It is true that many of the features here are already found in Skype or other applications, but sometimes taking an existing idea and expanding it to a higher level is better that coming up with a new one that might not be as good.