Wow! The Daily Create was fun!

I just finished my third Daily Create project. Honestly, the whole experience was much better than I expected. It was fun! I plan to take the idea and use it in the intermediate level digital photography course I should be teaching next spring.

The first Daily Create project that I selected was a photography challenge. Obviously, that was right up my ally. The challenge was to photograph your favorite breakfast beverage. I prefer to drink soda for breakfast but, for the sake of the project I took artistic license and photographed my coffee pot. I had made the pot to help me study. I figured that made it more than okay. 

This is the image:

The Daily Create number for the project is tdc382.

The second Daily Create project that I selected was to describe the sky in one sentence without using any color words. That was fun too! Here is what I wrote:

With the Kona winds blowing, the sky has become cold, dark, threatening of destruction through torrential rain, and yet, at the same time, encouraging of closeness, the exchanging of bodily warmth, and a pleasant evening spent in intellectually intriguing conversation with one's partner and best friend.

The Daily Create number for the project is tdc383.

The third Daily Create project that I selected was another photography challenge wherein one had to create a silhouette. Of the three, this was my lease favorite. I wanted to use a light or a reflector to bounce some light back in on my subject. However, if I had done that it would not have been a pure silhouette as required by the project. It is okay. That that was part of the challenge and therefore also part of the fun!

This is the image:

The Daily Create number for the project is tdc384.

My Twitter Epiphany

Okay, I admit it. I was not very impressed with Twitter and the whole concept of tweeting when I was first introduced to it last semester in ETEC 622. Sure, I did my fair share of tweeting for the course. In fact, I think that I was the highest or second highest tweet poster in the course. I really enjoyed looking for information that was sometimes more, sometimes less, on point for the course. I enjoyed sharing that information via Twitter with my classmates. However, conceptually, I just did not get the point. Especially for one as verbose as I, 140 characters just did not seem sufficient! I wanted more space! It just seemed too limited. Despite all the information I read about its value, honestly, it seemed like a pointless, albeit a fun, waste of time.

When Dr. Bert informed us that we would use Twitter in this course and that we had a tweeting obligation I think that I rolled my proverbial eyes. Honestly, I did not want to do it. I thought that I had had enough of that experience last semester. Boy, was I wrong! 

One of the reasons that I am successful in life is that, when given a task, I always do my best to complete it. This is especially true when I am a student. I remember when I was an undergraduate taking a world literature course I had to read Faust. Within the first five minutes of cracking the cover, I was asleep. When I woke up, I tried to read it again and got the same result. After I repeated this pattern once again, I remembered Albert Einstein's quote defining insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." I decided to stop being "insane" and to try something different. I started to read the story out-loud. It came to life! I loved it. I could not put it down. The point is that I keep at my assigned tasks until they are done. 

Dr. Bert's Twitter assignments was just something that I had to do. Or, at least, that is how I perceived it until I had my Twitter Epiphany!

The epiphany hit me, as epiphanies are ought to do, like a sudden shock of clarity. I was in the sauna at the gym reading over my twitter feed. I was reading it not because I wanted to but rather because I felt I "had" to do so. It was, after all, part of the assignment. I started noticing interesting tweet after interesting tweet. I started following the links and reading the related stories. I started retweeting. But, I was not just retweeting to the class. I finally started to think about my other followers. I started thinking about my "audience" and what sort of persona I wanted to project through my tweets. It felt as if the blinders I had been unknowingly wearing upon my eyes had fallen away and I could suddenly see the value and the "point" of Twitter and tweeting. Finally seeing it fascinated me. I lost track of time and spent more time in the sauna than I had planned. The funny thing was that the time felt like it was my shortest time in the sauna ever!

With my eyes finally open to the value and the potential role of Twitter in communication I started to notice things that I had previously overlooked. I started to see the value the selective use of Twitter can bring. What is more, I started to benefit from that value. Following the links that interested me, I found information and links to even more information. I discovered that Twitter can serve as a wonderful starting point and even a travel companion on the modern information highway.

While looking for articles and information to post on Twitter for our course, I encountered three articles which really cemented my understanding of and appreciation for Twitter. The first story covered a suicide at a train station in Tokyo. While suicide is a terrible thing, the story was more focused on the powerful role that Twitter plays in keeping Japanese commuters informed. It also pointed out how photographs distributed through Twitter can help preserve events which many in Japan try to down play or otherwise minimize. The second story covered an English teaching Twitter user who, with correct but rather bizarre English expressions, is providing a very valuable educational tool through Twitter. The third story, which was just too far off the mark to share with the class, deals with a man seen riding the Yamanote train line in Tokyo dragging an ear of corn behind himself on a red doggy leash. While the story itself is not that important, the fact that Twitter is being used to post photographs and exchange information about this possibly insane person is interesting and on point in that it too shows the power of Twitter.

Now, I am a believer. I understand the value of Twitter. I want to Thank Dr. Bert for "making" me have this epiphany. I am still struggling with trying to process all the information coming at me through my Twitter feed. I am almost tempted to reduce the number of people and organizations I am following just so that I have a better chance of keeping up. But, I no longer question its value.

Before I end this blog entry I would like to bring up something that is still bothering me about Tweeting. With the limit of only 140 characters, when I tweet and especially when I retweet, I often have to erase information about my source. Granted, when my followers follow the link they will get the ultimate source but, I still feel a bit weird and wrong when I erase identifying information about a source just to make room for the #sp677e hashtag.

And speaking of questions, I know that we are kind of already working on this question in class but, I really wish I knew how many tweets I "have" to do on a weekly basis.

Great Expectations...

Great Expectations...

Some of my expectations for this online ETEC course have already been exceeded. Having just completed a different online ETEC course last semester with the same excellent Professor, I expected that we would be using Wikipages and Trello again. Instead, we are using Google sites and Google docs. 

I am not sure whether it is the technology or not but, this semester's course material seems very well laid out. It seems much better organized than last semester's material. Most importantly, because of this better seeming organization, the material seems easier to follow. This even higher than last time level of organization was beyond my expectations.

There also seems to be more information available and with that additional information, more guidance too. I particularly appreciate the availability of the very informative page entitled "Writing a reflective blog." I expect with the guidance it provides I will be able to do a much better job this semester than I did last semester in the blog writing department. This edge over last semester was also beyond my expectations.

Having just spoken about the course material's presentation it seems only natural to address the course content and to speak about my expectations regarding it. I expect that the material will challenge and amaze me. The tools (both mobile applications and web 2.0) that we will work with and learn about are sure to impress, amaze, and depress me! 

You should be able to guess why these tools will impress and amaze me. What might be more challenging to figure out is why they might also depress me. Well, I am going to tell you. When Dr. Bert's assignments and readings direct and expose me to what I like to think of as "new age" tools, I immediately start to think of ways that I can apply them to both my personal and my professional lives. That is where the rub, or rather the depression, starts.

I teach at a community college. I love teaching there. It is a very challenging and also a very rewarding way to make a living. However, when it comes to teaching course content it really seems that technology is not my friend. The more I try to incorporate technology, no matter how logical and simple it seems to me, the more precious  face-to-face time I have to direct away from course content and redirect towards teaching that technology.

No matter how wonderful and powerful the educational tools of the emerging trends are, if I cannot get my students to understand them and utilize them to their benefit, they are useless. The difficulty I face when introducing my students to not just new and emerging technology but even old school technology is depressing. 

Be that as it may, I am a stubborn person. I do not give up. While I do get depressed by the overwhelmingly bad odds, I do not give up. 

I expect that Dr. Bert, like he did last semester, is going to introduce me to new educational tools and is going to guide me through application and practice to a level of understanding that will allow me to not only break the chains of depression but also allow me the opportunity to figure out how to bring the best and most suitable emerging educational technologies into my classrooms.

In conclusion, I expect to be challenged again by the readings and the assignments that Dr. Bert is going to give us in this course. I also expect that the material will guide me as a learner to a new level of enlightenment. I only hope that I will be able to partake of enough of the proffered information and wisdom to be able to figure out how to successfully get the appropriate tools into the hands of my own students.