Reflective Post and Poster

Personal Learning and Reflections.

Gradually with playing around with all the tools I learnt a lot about using Google sites and many other tools. I had to enhance my skills in Microsoft word to be able to achieve my target of teaching the students the same.

There were two major changes in my project due the facts that I learnt while the production of materials of the project. The Changes were:

1. Microsoft PowerPoint was dropped as research tool to be taught to the students. The major reasons behind these changes were (I am trying to be honest here):
• I did not find any special tool in MS PowerPoint which will drastically help students to enhance the skills. This may be because I am not aware of such tools in MS PowerPoint, but I will get back to it once this end -semester rush finishes and enhance my skills first and then share the knowledge using my website, and there is no point sharing half knowledge.
• I lacked time to learn all those extra skills in MS PowerPoint to be able to teach students. As my knowledge in MS PowerPoint is also to be polished to make it a excellent research presentation tool.
2. Video from external sources was preferred to what I made. The major reasons behind these changes were (I am trying to be honest here):

• After I made some video’s to help students understand what I want to teach I realized that it was just the repetition of the detailed downloadable PDF guides I already had prepared for the course. So decided to scrap them and share you tube Video’s which told more than what I could teach, so that the students can enhance their skills further. I will seek for more videos in future and share them. And students will be alerted from RSS Feeds Subscription.
• The owners of the video have been contacted by email or comments and I am still awaiting reply. I have made a point to refer to the source of the video so that they get the credit for the work they have done. And I also have shared it using YouTube gadget so the ownership remains with YouTube and its original owner.

The communication throughout the project was fair. I was under pressure of too many thing happening around me and may have not communicated all my developments with Dr M. Veerhart. I genuinely apologize for that. This is especially for the last minute changes I made to the project in view that the Study Material for PowerPoint was large but not serving the purpose of the course to teach research tools.

Apart from this I communicated everything with my peers and my professor. That is the reason I can only rate my communication as Fair not Good.

Ethical and Accessibility Issues

I would like to emphasize the point that I have acted with utmost integrity while doing this project keeping in mind the ethical considerations surrounding the issues of plagiarism and copyrights.

I have made extensive use of Google and its various tools to assist my assignment. I also have used various relevant YouTube video's to assist learning of the students of this course. I made it a point to contact them to inform that their videos will be shared on my web-site using YouTube gadgets and also mentioned in my site in every video upload to whom these video's belong. No Videos were downloaded, they were only shared using YouTube Gadgets.

I have made this site free and has no commercial benefit attached to this web-site. All users are allowed to view and provide feedback on the website.

Technical Learning

As with all the people who have used Google Sites, it took me a while to get my head around the pages and its functions. And how can I exploit the Google Ecosystem to my advantage. I read a lot of forums and played around with many functions, committed mistakes (a lot of them) then tried to restore them and again tried tom play around till I finally got it right.

The main motive of my website was to make it as simple as possible so that any one with slight knowledge is able to access the knowledge provided in it. The web site is designed to remain open and free 24x7. I have allowed RSS Subscriptions and also will constantly try to improve it using the feedback and requests I receive from the users. I have added a form to my 'Contact Tab' which directly feeds all the feedback to my spreadsheet for me to use and develop my course further. As this course is designed for providing tools to users its important part that it is modified according to requests and feedback to keep it relevant and useful in future as well.

Teaching and Learning Effectiveness

I found the teaching of Digital Learning Technologies to be first rate. It encouraged me to think, innovate, question, analyse  and thoroughly learn various new concepts at my own pace.

And if I talk about effectiveness of the course I have designed, that can only be decided by the feedback's I receive from users. As I said earlier this course is for the people so they decide how it is and how they want it to be in the future. 

From my perspective I have tried my best to implement the idea that I had when I decided to do this project. There were some changes but that were to maintain the teaching and learning effectiveness  of my course.

Project Plan

Project plan served as my checklist and time-sheet  and the project ready to be submitted is the biggest proof of adherence of it.

Well to be true there were variations in the dates decided but the plan was designed with buffers to acclimatize those changes. The project was delayed by a day due to the last minute changes that I made. These were mentioned above, and was large considering the project size. I had to redesign the whole project and edit it with new contents and deleting the old one to make the project more effective. The project would have been deemed complete even if I had not made those changes, but morally thinking would the project have served the purpose of giving 'students who are new to Well referenced assignments', efficient tools and knowledge to counter their new ghost ? NO. So the decision to provide little but efficient knowledge was taken.

Possible Improvements and Future Extensions

A many of them will be done. Improvements will be according to the requests and feedback's that I receive. Also I will make an endeavor to enhance my skills to best level in MS Word and PowerPoint to add more skills and guides to use for the students.

I am planning to design a good template in current APA style which students can use if they lack time to learn the skills. But that is when I learn all about APA, so this is kept for the future.

Poster

My poster is based on web same as my course so that I can share it with the world without any hassle of compatibility and conversion. Simple Glog available to all 24x7 same as my Web Site.  

The link to my poster is: http://www.glogster.com/prashin/prashin-s-research-tool-s/g-6kofu52laqica3u99fon7a0
And it is easy to print too. Just click on Private Print Tab & Print.

and the link to my web site is: https://sites.google.com/site/msofficeasresearchreporttool/home

Please feel free to view and provide you precious feedback by filling the form under my 'Contact Tab' of my Web Site.

At last I would like to sincerely thank Associate Prof. M. Veerhart, for his precious time and guidance. As trust me when I say this his thought and ideology changed the way I thought. As this is the end of the course with him, I only hope I have met his expectations, And I sincerely apologize if I have let him down, during any point in time.

Thank You Sir,
God Bless & God Speed.

Comments on Peer blogs

1. Raj Jadeja : http://exploringdigitalleaning.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/in-process-i-learned.html
2. Raj Jadeja: http://exploringdigitalleaning.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/e-portfolio.html
3. Paula Edwards: http://digitallearningtechnology.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/blog-5-1/comment-page-1/#comment-3
4. Lee gaylor: http://holyarmadillosmoke.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/81-reflections.html
5. Arun Warriar: http://digitallearningtechnologyunlimited.blogspot.co.nz/2013/04/online-course-examples.html

Week 8 - Term Reflection for Digital Learning Technologies Course @ EIT, Hawke's Bay

When I enrolled for this course I, had a fair idea that this is a course that will guide me to increase my knowledge to be used in my profile. As now in my life growth cycle I am at a stage where every knowledge I gain is planned and channelized to what my future profession will be. And I am yet to reach a stage to read random library full of books and articles to enhance my knowledge. But for now my goal is a good profession. Now I will try to take you through the journey of the first term (February 2013 to April 2013) of my course name Digital Learning Technologies, from which you can make a small idea of what this course is all about.

My first idea was that this course will teach me to use advanced skills, and knowledge of use of various multimedia tools. These can be used for teaching or developing your own knowledge base. But to be true I learnt much more. May be because of the design and implementation of this course or excellent teaching skills of my professor. For now we will concentrate in syllabus wise what I learnt from this course, and what I liked about it.

We started of with learning to use blogs, micro-blogs and what is 21st century teaching is all about, and how digital learning technologies have been embedded in our daily lives. We also saw what were the challenges it faced in today's world. That made me see the technology that I saw and used form the other side of the window.  We went in depth about the various DLT's used in organisations and how o use social networking as learning tool. I had been using social media but never used it as a tool. The best thing came the later was I learnt what PLN was. It was like my plans for the future got a structure to stand on. I was now preparing to embrace technologies to enhance my learning and professional network. That was a major turning point in my career planning. After all these years of education I had never thought about the pedagogic implementation. I realised that NLP and VAKOG are the need of the future. We learnt about the four pedagogy, and made me think of all the education I had done through that spectrum. 

We learnt all about the various instructional design models, and had our first play with EIT Online (Moodle). We made a model in group within 1 hour using common Google doc. And that started the creativity end in my brain. I started to plan my final assignment of creating a online course, from there. The knowledge of using connected media and detailed use of wiki gave platform to use wiki as tool. We also researched various cloud tools and mobile learning techniques and how it can be used. 

This was just the brief what what all I learnt in just 3 months. The best parts of this course was Adobe connect providing live streaming of the classroom sessions at comfort of your home or anyplace in the world. Then the method of submitting your assessments using blogs and cloud tools like Google sites was unique. 

                                                                              They  opened me to an idea of sharing my work with the

world and receiving feedback from them. It was scary at the start but gradually developed a thought in me that the your knowledge can also be shared with your world. The effort my professor puts in maintaining his course online open and available to one and all in the world was outstanding. It portrayed a amazing ideology of sharing his work that he created with such hard-work. 

For me this kind of educational delivery was new and was a amazing journey of change of ideologies. And will cherish every thing I learnt from this course. The only suggestion I wanted to give in the start of this course almost was inculcated. That was the presentation of assessments.

One thing I would like to add is that apart from Adobe connect we also can use a back technology, just in case Adobe Connect is down. 

I will remember Associate Professor M Veehart all my life for his unique thought of imparting and sharing his wide knowledge. The effort you put is herculean and many teachers and even your peers can learn from that. If in future such efforts are made common education for all will not be far fetched dream.

A sincere thanks to you. 

Week 7 - Example of an online course

First on reading the assessment I searched a lot of online training courses. Then a thought came that we also as students of Digital Learning Technology @ EIT Hawke's Bay also are designing a online training course under guidance of Associate Professor M Veerhart.

So in this blog of siting an example of online course, instead of siting a well established online course training course, I decided to share my online course with the world. As it is meant to be free and accessible without any log in's, I can always use feed-backs on my site. 

The motive of my product is to educate students with basic knowledge of MS Word and MS Powerpoint, how to use these software’s to make the task of making a research paper, written assignments and presentation easier. As this course ware should be available to one and all, the course has to be laid out on a web with free access.

The site: Prashin's Research Tools

P.S. This site is still under construction and is expected to be fully ready by end of may 2013, but will be shared with public as feedback's/comments will be appreciated.

Wiki Page (wiki page where I, added the link)

Week 7 - e - Portfolio

If we speak in general terms it is the collection of all the work that one has done till date in a showcased manner. The work can be files, blogs, sites, CV. We can also adjust the access of different audiences in some but most allow you to collect all your work and share what you want to show and in what template.

In today's world most of us have some or the other form of online social presence but all these are informal way to showcase their work and success. E Portfolio gives  formal platform to share their work, blogs, to showcase what they have done or as a record of what they have achieved till date. It can also be used to create online learning learning communities, career development by setting goal plans. It can also be a showcase of your PLN. Instead of a plain CV paper or pdf file it can be a media enriched showcase to portray your work achievements, co curricular achievements, with proof in the form of photos, graphics, files, reports, spreadsheets, web pages etc. And the students can take this information to be shared with friends and family and most importantly employers and higher study institutions. 

One can gain feedback from the learning community, and also from self evaluation and action planning in a learning process spread throughout you life. One can accumulate all the multimedia profiles and work and show case it in one single platform. This could never have been possible with the paper based old school CV, which would not have been enough to sell yourself in this competitive market.

One of the most followed and simple form of e portfolio is linked in. It is modern method of CV which is been used by many job aspirants and closely followed by employers all over the world. It has some features like joining some professional group and also of getting feedback on the submitted work. But as it is strictly customized, one cant showcase all the things in their own planned manner.

My Linked in Prashin Poovelil 

Another method to make a very vast e portfolio is Google Sites. The best thing is you can just keep adding all you want and only share what you want. Google with is vast family and all supporting apps, if used smartly can provide huge database for all your work on one of the most reliable servers in the world. There is is no doubt it needs a little learning curve before one can use it as a professional e portfolio, but once that learning curve is achieved the vastness of the Google ecosystem can be exploited to create a free but yet most versatile e portfolio.

My CV on Google Sites: Prashin Poovelil CV

Week 6 - Instructional Design Model

This week we:

• Explored the role of learning technologist.
• Looked at using different methodologies (OTARA) and designed a learning object in groups.
• Reviewed the results of other groups and in class one of the group presented your work.

The learning technologist plays a very important role in design of the pedagogy. We had beautiful classroom session on how to design the OTARA model. We learnt to use a document collaboratively and to share our thoughts in a team to construct a instructional design.

The lecture Steph took us through various experiences of intructional design.

We also had a exposure to moodle design and made me motivated to use EIT moodle design for my DLT final assessment. It was a good hand on experience which I would love to take further. It showed instructional design needs a lot of planning, sharing and collaborative work even to design a small design. In the last we shared our work with the class which opened my idea process on instructional designs and broadened my creative angle to it

It has almost motivated to think this also as a career path, and the result of my final assessment will give me final indication on whether I should take it further.

week 5 - Refelective Post

My plan for the PLN is very simple to start with.
For simplicity I have divided my pln in 5 Major segments.
The applications are mentioned in the caption I want to use them in.

The main idea is to use mobile technology to use or maintain these on the go and to increase my efficiency in mobile technology.

The newspaper widgets I want to use are Stuff (For New Zealand news and global news in NZ perspective), Times of India (For Indian News and global news in Indian perspective), Google reader to read my books, with all my other knowledge and general knowledge feed coming on to one page using rss. And also sharing interesting bits with the world.

The Digital Learning class has reintroduced me to world of blogs, which I left using due to busy schedule. But I will try and inculcate it into my daily routine.

Social Networking was a craze when it had started but with busy schedule kicking in it had gone to a backside. I plan to use Facebook, twitter and Google plus to its maximum potential to enhance my social circle.

Career Networking has taken a new turn for me as I am new to NZ and my huge Indian network is not of much use here. I have to built contacts in NZ. As we have to compete in competitive job market with locals who have a clear advantage of networks and references. I plan to built a portfolio web page soon after my studies to reflect all my work, experience and skills till date. Also I plan to take EIT faculty into loop as they are my only support circle in the new land. I will take linked in profile also seriously to portray my image.

For the current time my communication weapons will be gmail, yahoo and gtalk but I plan to increase that as soon as possible.

That is my PLN and last but not least I will keep increasing it more and more with more crisp and efficient applications as and when required.