Week 2

With one week (okay, it was 3 days) of school under my belt, I feel like I can breathe a little easier. I’m still waiting for that time in the year where things don’t seem so hectic, I know my students’ names, and we are operating like a well-oiled machine - I just can’t seem to remember how long it takes to get there. I think I can, I think I can. Adding to the stress of the new school year, is the workload for this course. So many topics of interest popped up this week within our readings, discussion, and videos, but I will just hit on the highlights.

This week’s focus of digital footprints (tattoos) has really got me thinking. I worry that my district has not done enough to really help our students understand just what that footprint entails and just how permanent it is. It was quite eye-opening to Google myself, and this is definitely something I will have my seniors do in order toe evaluate themselves. They are applying to college and should know what admissions officers can easily find. I also spoke with one of our district’s technology coaches about my concern for our lack of teaching digital citizenship. She is well-aware of this and is actually trying to implement lessons to help teachers cover the basics. I plan on doing several things throughout the year with my own students to make sure they understand the reality of their online personas.

The best and worst part of this week was creating a short animated video. I decided to take it in a bit of a different direction, but ultimately completed the task. When I first read the assignment, I knew I wanted to be able to tell more of a narrative rather than a research-some-facts essay. I couldn’t get my own experience with research and finding information out of my head - from combing through the Encyclopedia Britannica, to getting lost in library stacks, to Asking Jeeves, and finally to the wonderful world of advanced Google searches and online databases. I quickly had a vision of what I wanted; next, I just had to execute. I wanted to use VideoScribe for no other reason than I thought it looked neat. However, the free trial version really limited what I could do. I turned my attention to PowToons knowing several of my classmates have created some masterpieces. Well, this was a challenge.

Honestly, I was cursing the assignment as I tried to plan out the scenes, get it to flow and make sense. But then, I recorded my voiceover (in quite a few takes), and it all came together. I won’t say it’s the masterpiece I first envisioned, but I am proud of my first Powtoon. Now I’m even excited to introduce my students to it. What a great example of multiple literacies and different ways to share information.

As week 2 concludes I am somewhat hesitant to look at what comes next. This course is one that it definitely testing me.