Capstone II Week 1

So I am now starting the third class in a three part series on technology integration in education. As part of that class I am required to blog my thoughts and reflections. In fact the second class is what got me started on my blogging in the first place. Anyway, this weeks topic is Personal Learning Networks.


We started by checking out "Information R/evolution" created by Michael Weschon on how the internet has revolutionized information. The video was thought provoking in that it got me to think about how I approach the deluge of information available. Then it was on to Tags and an article by Andy Carvin called "It's All About the Tags". He discusses how easy it is to pull lots of information quickly using tags and the importance of using specific tags. That gets at an issue I have with using tags. They are only as effective as someones vocabulary. I struggle with how best to tag things that I come across. I wonder if practice will help me get better?


Finally, this part of the lesson presented some articles on RSS. I didn't realize that there were tools out there that would allow me to search on specific topics with in the blogosphere and hunt down topics with in my book marking tool. I will have to take advantage of those features in the future.

The next section was on reflection, a popular concept in the education world. Reflection is the idea that you think about situations and evaluate them. You look at what worked and what did not so you can improve in the future or you think about upcoming problems and how to attack them. In some ways I see reflection as an excuse in education not use hard data to evaluate our results and in other ways I know how valuable it is to think about how to handle situations. It certainly has a role in education.

I have seen reflection at work with students via the AVID program. Students participated in study groups once a week called tutorial. At the end of the session students had to reflect on the session and evaluate it to determine what went well and what did not go well. The same kind of idea could be instituted with students via an exit ticket or through an online discussion. I have also seen this idea put to use via Socratic Seminars where some students observe other students as they partake in a discussion.

I value reflection. It helps me be a better person.