Blog posts about my Connected Learning classmates’ final makes have started to appear on our class website. I am in awe of the depth and variety of projects that have been created. Since I was unable to attend one of the final make discussions I thought I might acknowledge traits I admire about a few of them. Here are my thoughts:
Samantha K’s multicultural event stood out to me as a perfect example of a peer supported project. I appreciate that she sought input from her students as well as fellow faculty members. The combination of food, games, art, music, and technology assures that there will be something to interest every student.
Tosch’s STEM Career Day is an event that could not exist if it were not interest driven. His focus on making the event different form previous years’ events is obvious after reading how he wanted to make it more interactive and engaging. I applaud his application of all of the principles of Connected Learning we have been investigating.
Selvi’s proposal to turn an Indonesian library into a community hub for children exemplifies the concept of shared purpose. I love that her idea reminds us that connected learning does not need to be exclusively digital or online. Her blogs throughout the semester gave me insight into a culture and location that I previously knew little of.
Jen H figured out a way to teach math more effectively through a comic book project, and as a comic book fan for the past 30 years this can only make me smile. Her idea combines art, writing, dialogue, and purpose into a tangible object that can be used to inform future students. If this is not production centered learning then I think I might need to retake ED677 next semester…
In the week before we began out final makes my classmates and I were asked to contribute to a Google Slides presentation summarizing Connected Learning principles. Each learner was asked to create a slide, with the idea being that these slides would convey our understanding of exactly what we thought Connected Learning was. This project was academically-oriented because it was an assignment, but also because it could be used as formative assessment by our professor to determine our comprehension of the topic. This was a unique group project for me to take part in because each contributor was allowed autonomy over his or her individual component. It was openly-networked in that every member of the class had the right to both add to the presentation and to comment on others’ additions. The slides are in chronological order according to the order they were completed, which means that the later someone created his or her slide the more information would already be covered in the previous ones. “Thank you!” and “Congratulations!” to all of my fellow contributors. The presentation looks great!
Thanks for reading,
Eric L