Saturday 30 November 2013

How I have Become a More Networked Professional

As part of the Networked Professional Learning assignment for my EC&I 831 course, my professor, Alec Couros, challenged participants to develop a "personal learning network" through continuous participation with a wide variety of social media tools.  As a summary of our growth, we were asked to consider the question: "How have you become a more networked professional?"

I decided to base my response on the concept of "The Networked Teacher" diagram Alec shared with us during one of our sessions.  In my infographic I have highlighted the thirteen components of connected learning in which I experienced significant growth.  For each of these components I have provided links (dots) to examples of tools which helped me become a more connected teacher.  In addition, for each component I have provided a video explanation (black play button) outlining how that component allowed me to become a more connected educator, and what I learned in the process.

I have decided to post  this Thinglink as part  of my Summary of Learning because it outlines the growth and learning I experienced in my attempts to become a more connected educator.



Creating This Project
I began by exploring a number of different infographic creation sites.  None of the ones I looked at suited my needs, so I decided to build my own in a low-tech way.  I built the infographic using MimioStudio Notebook software (similar to SMART Notebook).  I probably could have done the same thing with PowerPoint, Paint, or Photoshop.  Once all of my images were in place, I saved the slide as a .jpg and uploaded it to Thinglink.
Next, in Thinglink I created links for every icon I had included in my diagram.  When possible, I linked directly to my account for the web service or tool.
Finally, I gathered "evidence" of my growth for each component through screen clippings and screen recordings.  I loaded these clips into iMovie and added voice narration to explain my growth.  I uploaded these to my YouTube account and then linked these to my Thinglink image.

I would definitely consider doing a project such as this with students in the classroom.  How might you use Thinglink?  How is your growth as a connected educator similar or different to me?

2 comments:

  1. This looks awesome Dean! Great visual and I love the ability to click on the links and hear your voice or see your 'activity'. Well done! I have to admit though, your description on creating the project seems kind of intense? I am not that tech savvy and having to start in one tool, then up load to another tool, then record in another tool and link seems scary to me. But the final product is definitely worth it. Maybe your description is scarier than it is, but for those reasons I probably wouldn't do this with students. Maybe students could create a visual like this (using Padlet), include links where possible and then do a screen cast while they click on the links to describe them further? (I think this is how I'm going to do my summary of learning for the class).

    Thanks for sharing! Very well done!

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  2. Hi Shauna,
    I checked out your Summary of Learning. It turned out great. Sorry if I scared you off a bit with the description of what I did with Thinglink. It actually can be fairly straight forward. A colleague of mine did this with Grade 4 students last year. They each drew a picture, which they uploaded to Thinglink, and then linked to YouTube videos and glogs to explain the content of the picture. The focus should not be on teaching students to use a specific tool, as much as it should be on helping them use different tools to achieve particular learning objectives.

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