This week, the ET lab as a group participated GSA symposium together.I helped prepare slides show and have a short presentation together with my colleagues. It is really a good experience of summary and reflection of the working experience here.
I also kept on working the lesson plan with the application of activeboard. I have already generated an idea and located resources I am going to use to produce the lesson. The lesson will be a math class for k-12 students, targeted on some of the Virginia State Standards for K-12 students. I will use functions of timer, dice, and one template in activeboard to create my own lesson.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
March 15 - 19
- GA meeting on Monday.
I've clarified that my roles in the following work are: 1) prepare an instructional manual for using Active Board. 2) Create a lesson plan with the application of Active Board. 3) Conduct a research to compare features/functions of Active Board and Smart Board through collaborative efforts with Elza and Andy.
- Found out and revealed tens of templates in the Active Board. Got familar with their features and usages.
- Prepared GSA presentation by answering the following questions. Below is my answers:
Q1: What knowledge and skills concerning learning and researching have you gained from your lab working experiences?
Working in the ET Lab for more than one year, I found that I’ve gained a lot in the following aspects:
* Keep learning new technology and discovering its application of educational purposes. ET lab is an open resource center that provides students and faculty with a variety of handware and software for teaching and learning. As a working staff in the lab, we are responsible, not only to maintain all those facilities, but also explore features and functions of the technology, and to try to put them into specific products that students and faculty can benefit. For example, we worked out innovative applications of Camtasia, Dreamweaver, GPS, Smartboard, etc and came up with several lesson plans that others can refer.
* Long-term collaborative opportunities: every lab member spends 20 hours per week to work in the lab for at least one year. A lot of project topics in the lab are interconnected or shared by many of us. Such working time frame and conditions allow engagement and commitment of long-term collaboration.
* Problem solving skills: one of the responsibilities of us is to be ready to help students and faculty when they have trouble in using the facilities provided here. We encounter diverse problems everyday, ranging from problems in hard technology such as computer, projector, video-conferencing, camcorder to soft technology such as how to use video to make active learning. In dealing with problems, we may seek assistance from more expert people or search information on the internet.
Immersed in authentic trouble-shooting environment, we gradually grow up from novice to experts in using various technologies.
* English communication skills: no matter in learning new technology, collaborating with others, or solving problems for others, we practice the English communication skills.
Q2: What are the best and worst working experiences of you when you work in the lab?
The best experience I had is to combine my knowledge and skills to solve practical problems in interdisplinary subjects. With an systematical approach, I employed GPS and theory of constructivism to convert an instructor-led lecture to a student-led field trip. Problems arose from passive reception learning will be solved and replaced by effectiveness of intentional authentic learning.
I don’t have too much worst experience working here. Perhaps at certain times, there exists misunderstanding among colleagues, which leads to the unwillingness to incorporate suggestions of others and failures of group work. That could be one of the reasons why we should apply a variety of methods to strengthen our communication, and hopefully build up a collaborative community.
Q3: What service and functions do you think ET Lab can provide for potential customers (such as students, staff, faculty, etc.)?
For students:
* technology support: students often have problems in using some educational software such as dreameweaver, camtasia, video editing, photoshop and etc. We have produced a lot of video-based tutorial, or students can directly ask us for help.
* rich resources: 1) some software are really too expensive to afford, students can come to our production lab to use them for free. 2) we developed diverse lesson plans that students can refer to see innovative application of technology. Inspirited by our ideas, students are more easily to create their own artifacts, which can be put on their ePortfolios .
* It is an open place supports collaboration and practice of community. Students have discussions, f2f meetings here for their group projects.
For faculty and staff:
* technology support: faculty also faces technological embarrassment
* innovative application of media for effective instruction
Q4: Certain instructional approaches and methods that have been utilized in the lab work include instructional scaffolding (from easy/simple to challenging/complex tasks), solving real problems in the lab, using existing manuals, instructions, and equipment, getting the assistance of more experienced peers, collaborating with others…
How do you think of the effectiveness of these instructional approaches and methods being utilized in the lab work?
I think they’re quite effective. The training in the beginning of each academic year is a good orientation for new comers. Existing manuals serve as instruction for novices to learn basic knowledge and skills needed for working in the lab. Following the existed materials and experienced peers, we command basic skills. After practicing with the fundamentals, we will be assigned with more complex tasks that requiring us to search information on our own, explore new ideas, and solve newly appeared problems.
ET lab is a community of dispersed expertise. Every working member is an expert in a particular media, who can assist others as novices in using that media.
Q5: Several asynchronous communication tools (such as e-mail, Scholar web calendar, Scholar e-portfolio, and Blogger) have been utilized in ET Lab to support effective communication and collaboration among lab GAs.
As a lab GA, What do you think the effectiveness of such asynchronous communication tools in facilitating your communication and collaboration with others?
* Keep every updated: we can always know the progress of each project, and track how the project is involved. Be aware and alert of what needs to be done by what time.
* Monitoring: to keep members in the same project on the right track. When there is a problem in some one’s ideas/solutions/strategies of the project, it will be identified immediately by others.
* Motivating: I am always motivated through sharing experiences from others. One will get feedback and new ideas from others.
* Eportfolios and bloggers serve as a steady resource pool that I can always locate whenever I need it.
Q6: What’s your reflection on 1st ET Lab EXPO and what suggestions do you have for future ET Lab EXPO ?
Reflection:
a great way to summarize and elaborate on our own work, learn from projects of others, a platform for communication, strengthen connection, show products for people out of the lab, get feedback from participants (colleagues, students, faculty), motivation, meaningful, a sense of accomplishment, convert knowledge and skills into products that are helpful to others.
Suggestions:
* maybe have a theme for each year’s EXPO
* invite a scholar talk (key note?)
* produce more concrete examples or lesson plans, rather than generally talk about the usage of medias.
* Have questionnaires from students to find out what they want to learn most, and then prepare the EXPO with certain identified topics.
I've clarified that my roles in the following work are: 1) prepare an instructional manual for using Active Board. 2) Create a lesson plan with the application of Active Board. 3) Conduct a research to compare features/functions of Active Board and Smart Board through collaborative efforts with Elza and Andy.
- Found out and revealed tens of templates in the Active Board. Got familar with their features and usages.
- Prepared GSA presentation by answering the following questions. Below is my answers:
Q1: What knowledge and skills concerning learning and researching have you gained from your lab working experiences?
Working in the ET Lab for more than one year, I found that I’ve gained a lot in the following aspects:
* Keep learning new technology and discovering its application of educational purposes. ET lab is an open resource center that provides students and faculty with a variety of handware and software for teaching and learning. As a working staff in the lab, we are responsible, not only to maintain all those facilities, but also explore features and functions of the technology, and to try to put them into specific products that students and faculty can benefit. For example, we worked out innovative applications of Camtasia, Dreamweaver, GPS, Smartboard, etc and came up with several lesson plans that others can refer.
* Long-term collaborative opportunities: every lab member spends 20 hours per week to work in the lab for at least one year. A lot of project topics in the lab are interconnected or shared by many of us. Such working time frame and conditions allow engagement and commitment of long-term collaboration.
* Problem solving skills: one of the responsibilities of us is to be ready to help students and faculty when they have trouble in using the facilities provided here. We encounter diverse problems everyday, ranging from problems in hard technology such as computer, projector, video-conferencing, camcorder to soft technology such as how to use video to make active learning. In dealing with problems, we may seek assistance from more expert people or search information on the internet.
Immersed in authentic trouble-shooting environment, we gradually grow up from novice to experts in using various technologies.
* English communication skills: no matter in learning new technology, collaborating with others, or solving problems for others, we practice the English communication skills.
Q2: What are the best and worst working experiences of you when you work in the lab?
The best experience I had is to combine my knowledge and skills to solve practical problems in interdisplinary subjects. With an systematical approach, I employed GPS and theory of constructivism to convert an instructor-led lecture to a student-led field trip. Problems arose from passive reception learning will be solved and replaced by effectiveness of intentional authentic learning.
I don’t have too much worst experience working here. Perhaps at certain times, there exists misunderstanding among colleagues, which leads to the unwillingness to incorporate suggestions of others and failures of group work. That could be one of the reasons why we should apply a variety of methods to strengthen our communication, and hopefully build up a collaborative community.
Q3: What service and functions do you think ET Lab can provide for potential customers (such as students, staff, faculty, etc.)?
For students:
* technology support: students often have problems in using some educational software such as dreameweaver, camtasia, video editing, photoshop and etc. We have produced a lot of video-based tutorial, or students can directly ask us for help.
* rich resources: 1) some software are really too expensive to afford, students can come to our production lab to use them for free. 2) we developed diverse lesson plans that students can refer to see innovative application of technology. Inspirited by our ideas, students are more easily to create their own artifacts, which can be put on their ePortfolios .
* It is an open place supports collaboration and practice of community. Students have discussions, f2f meetings here for their group projects.
For faculty and staff:
* technology support: faculty also faces technological embarrassment
* innovative application of media for effective instruction
Q4: Certain instructional approaches and methods that have been utilized in the lab work include instructional scaffolding (from easy/simple to challenging/complex tasks), solving real problems in the lab, using existing manuals, instructions, and equipment, getting the assistance of more experienced peers, collaborating with others…
How do you think of the effectiveness of these instructional approaches and methods being utilized in the lab work?
I think they’re quite effective. The training in the beginning of each academic year is a good orientation for new comers. Existing manuals serve as instruction for novices to learn basic knowledge and skills needed for working in the lab. Following the existed materials and experienced peers, we command basic skills. After practicing with the fundamentals, we will be assigned with more complex tasks that requiring us to search information on our own, explore new ideas, and solve newly appeared problems.
ET lab is a community of dispersed expertise. Every working member is an expert in a particular media, who can assist others as novices in using that media.
Q5: Several asynchronous communication tools (such as e-mail, Scholar web calendar, Scholar e-portfolio, and Blogger) have been utilized in ET Lab to support effective communication and collaboration among lab GAs.
As a lab GA, What do you think the effectiveness of such asynchronous communication tools in facilitating your communication and collaboration with others?
* Keep every updated: we can always know the progress of each project, and track how the project is involved. Be aware and alert of what needs to be done by what time.
* Monitoring: to keep members in the same project on the right track. When there is a problem in some one’s ideas/solutions/strategies of the project, it will be identified immediately by others.
* Motivating: I am always motivated through sharing experiences from others. One will get feedback and new ideas from others.
* Eportfolios and bloggers serve as a steady resource pool that I can always locate whenever I need it.
Q6: What’s your reflection on 1st ET Lab EXPO and what suggestions do you have for future ET Lab EXPO ?
Reflection:
a great way to summarize and elaborate on our own work, learn from projects of others, a platform for communication, strengthen connection, show products for people out of the lab, get feedback from participants (colleagues, students, faculty), motivation, meaningful, a sense of accomplishment, convert knowledge and skills into products that are helpful to others.
Suggestions:
* maybe have a theme for each year’s EXPO
* invite a scholar talk (key note?)
* produce more concrete examples or lesson plans, rather than generally talk about the usage of medias.
* Have questionnaires from students to find out what they want to learn most, and then prepare the EXPO with certain identified topics.
March 1 - March 5
- Finished maitaining computers in hallway and production labs
- Make a mannual of "Trouble‐shooting of connecting Mac with the projector", together with Yeonjeong. This mannual has already been posted on ET lab website.
- Make a mannual of "Trouble‐shooting of connecting Mac with the projector", together with Yeonjeong. This mannual has already been posted on ET lab website.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The new blog
This blog is created to track my work in Educational Technology Lab at Virginia Tech. It will also help lab colleagues know each other's progress.
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