Staring down the barrel of Semester Two and looking back on Semester One

High Distinctions!

I got HDs for both units and yes, I deserved them. I worked hard, I gave it my all and I got the marks to justify my efforts. And yes, I'm proud of the letter I got from the Dean congratulating me on my efforts.

I've raised an extremely high bar for Semester Two and I'm terrified.

Exam muddle

So, I'm sitting in the uni library studying and feeling my way into the exam. Again.

On the whole I've really enjoyed this unit. I've found it engaging, particularly with the hands on stuff.

However...

And but...

Now it's exam time and everything's about to get theoretical. It's one thing to design a web page and to write a blog (my strongest point) but it's quite another to go into an exam and write about the theory of authentic learning when applied to solar panels etc.

And I'm not the only one panicking. I've just come from the discussion boards and a lot of people are talking about the work that has gone into EDN113 and the overwhelmed feeling they're having going into exams. I have to be honest and say that I'd love to say "Waaah! Waaah! Somebody call a wambulance!" except, well, I feel rather overwhelmed myself. This is my second year of doing semester one of this course and I have to say that this unit is the most time-expensive one yet. I expect to put in at least 10 hours a week on each unit. I put in that and more which is why I get the good marks. Only, this unit expects way more than that if you want to just get a credit. I put in about 20-25 hours a week on 2A and got a credit. Now, realistically my time should have been shared with two other people and it really wasn't. I'm not going to whinge. I'm not, but...well... you know. Somebody had to do it.

But, anyway, exams are nearly here. There are hours of theory to research and prepare and I just don't feel anywhere near ready. I know I'm one of their good students and if I'm feeling like I'm drowning in information I can only imagine how others are feeling. I'm trying to re-listen to the lectures and am getting some stuff for my notes, but in general it's hard going. In the end what I'm trying to do is find the generic links between all the questions then try to extrapolate the rest. It's not fool-proof but it's the best I can come up with. I think researching information for 8 questions is a fool's errand so I have to find the best way to deal with it and that's it. It may work. It may not. My exam mark may pull my overall mark down further, but in the end I have to do what is right.

And at the end of the day I still feel that I've got some good stuff for the future in my teaching tool-box just from this unit alone, so it's a win either way.

Later edit: I've just read through this post and, my, there's a lot of 'ends' aren't there? :)Well, I guess I'll be glad when, at the 'end' of the day, I'm at the 'end' of this unit because I'm already at the 'end' of my tether :))

Nearly there

It's just a little tiny bit over a week until exams and now my focus has turned to the questions. I have quite a few to study for and I'm a bit nervous because there's a lot to catch up on.

This is my plan:

Monday (today) listen to one lecture, answer one EDN 113 question.

Tuesday listen to one lecture, answer one question from both units.

Wednesday and onwards repeat above.

That's the plan. I hope I can stick to it.

Edited later: I've now listened to the Week Two lecture and have been able to take notes during it for both Qs 1 and 7, plus I've added to the discussion board about my experience with Twitter as a Teaching Resource.

Done

Assignment 2B is submitted.

It hasn't been an easy semester. I missed this week's lecture and tutorial thanks to Aiden having to be rushed to hospital for an emergency appendisectomy and now Connor is vomiting. I've had a lot on my plate that I've had to deal with, but finally, it's all done. I only have to deliver my reading log for FDN102 and then it's all about exams. I'll start on that on Monday. After the awful time I've had with child-health, I'm taking the weekend off to relax, read and vege out.

I have loved this unit, though, and I'll probably keep this blog going as I continue my journey through my degree. I've leant a lot over the past 14 weeks, both from a unit POV and about myself.

In short, I rock!

And, what's more, I have a full command of correct apostrophe use.

Phew...

It has taken all day, but it is finished. My resource is up.

Am I happy with it? Well, yes, I am, thank you.

However, I am very unhappy with the hosting site itself. No matter how many times I've deleted the spaces between the paragraphs, they just won't stay deleted. I've gone back time and again, but next time I look at the site, there they are, great swathes of space between paragraphs. It's darn annoying.

But but but. I'm still happy with the assignment itself. My Twitter resource rocks the grannie's panties. I'm proud of it because it was totally my own idea and I hope to use it one day in a proper teaching situation. I'm happy enough with the Interactive Whiteboard resource that I put into a lesson plan, but that was someone else's idea. Twitter was mine. I went into Assignment 2A being told that an idea had been chosen, I just had to make it happen. 2B is my idea and I'm happy.

I'd squee, but that's a little beneath me.

Oh heck

I've just had a look at the 2B example and I've done it so wrong! So extremely wrong. Thank goodness I checked before putting it up.

Correcting my resource is what I'll be doing over the next two days.

Oops

My weekend was supposed to feature me looking up the questions for the upcoming exams and researching half of them. I was also supposed to edit and upload my 2B assignment. Instead I played a lot of Plants vs Zombies and spent time with my kids.

I did, however, get up early this morning and edited the assignment. Now I just have to upload it to the site which I should be able to do within the next few minutes.

EDN113 lecture today. I have been very, very bad about my lectures and it's the one area in which I need to play catch up. That is what I'll be doing today and tomorrow.

Finally

I've been having problems with blogger the past few days, but here I am, again. Yay.

Not long to go now until the end of the semester. I've pretty much finished Assignment 2B and just have to proof-read it and put it up.

One more week and the whole lecture/tute thing will be over. Then it will be study study study for the exams.

No, I can't wait. I've enjoyed these units and I've done well, but I will be glad to take a break from it all once exams are over. I've got some writing I want to do and I just want to push everything else aside to do it. I did find the group presentation stressful and I just want to be alone in my own head for a couple of weeks.

Anyway, onwards and upwards.

Love it

I can't find the proper way to attribute this, which is a shame because it's brilliant, so I'll put it here, rather than on my website. This slide show (which is all about using Twitter for teaching) is held under creative commons and there are various page authors given. They deserve a round of applause for their great work. Just in case it needs saying, I am not responsible for any of this. The page authors are listed by their Tweet names on their relevant page.

Go to: https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_118cfb8msf8

Moving on

I made a decision this afternoon. I could either lose sleep worrying about everything that went wrong with 2A, or I could just move on and concentrate on making up for it with 2B. So moving on it is.

I'm researching using Twitter in education and I'm surprised by the apparent lack amongst my friends. I put this tweet out a few days ago:

lynbattersby lynbattersby

I can use Twitter in education by...

2 May Favorite Reply Delete

and received replies from my teacher friends that basically said "remind students to do their homework."

Ahem. I intend to be a teacher, not a nanny.

I had to explain that I actually wanted to use it as a hands on tool for students but was met with radio silence by the teachers and horror from my parent friends. They hated the idea of their children using Twitter at school. Anyway, I found some good ideas out there, but generally it centred around writing. In my research I also came across this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/25/primary-schools-twitter-curriculum

which states that students are going to be taught Twitter and Blogging as part of the curriculum.

Interesting.

I admit, when I started this assignment I really didn't want to consider Twitter. I'm not a fan of it (I prefer Facebook) but after reading around and thinking about different approaches, I can see how it could really help children make important education connections.

The biggest theme I'm coming across with technology and education is the presumption that tech is for the teachers and they only use it to record what the students are doing.

This could be a very exciting time to be an education student.

Over

We had our Assignment 2A presentation today. On the whole I think it went well, losing points mainly on the fact that all three of us read directly from the text. It was hard not to. There was a lot to cover and in such a short time frame that it was hard to ad-lib. Also, I was severely tired from looking after Connor and from my own migraine I couldn't think straight, so reading it was.

Our presentation was quite different to the other groups, mainly because I interpreted the question differently. The other groups focussed on what their resource looked like, while we focussed on how we made our resource. Maybe I was wrong, but that was what I thought we were meant to do.

Anyway, there's nothing that can be done about it now. Done is done. I had other gripes about it, but now I can let it go and concentrate on 2B.

I left the tutorial early today and missed all of FDN102. I hated doing that, but I just had to get home.

Not much of this semester left, which is sad. Out of all the units, EDN113 has proven to be my favourite mainly because I surprised myself with what I could achieve. I always think of myself as being of average intelligence, but I've proven that by applying myself to the full extent of my abilities I can do amazing things.

Turns out, all my teachers were right :)

Today's the day

We're giving our presentation of Assignment 2A today. Connor has an extremely bad cough. I don't want to go to uni, but we have to give it. What to do, what to do. All I can do, I guess, is ask to go first and then leave once its over. This time last year he was in hospital with bronchitis. I really don't want to go through that again.

Anyway, the teaching resource can be found at Team Awesome's Assignment 2A. Feel free to have a mosey around and let me know what you think.

In other news, I received an email from Murdoch University the other day congratulating me on my High Grade Points and inviting me to come to a Masterclass information night on May 16. If I maintain my grades across 24 credit points of study, I'll be able to join the Masterclass programme which, according to the email:

"This program is unique to Murdoch and gives you the opportunity to graduate with your undergraduate degree, as well as a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Administration at the same time."

After this semester I'll be 12 down with 12 to go. It's achievable.

I don't know if it's advertising or a real 'well done' but this pleases me no end. I work hard and it's nice to see my efforts paying off.

I'm very interested because it broadens my skill base somewhat should I decide not to teach at the end.

Back towards the light

I'm working on Assignment 2B and judge myself to be about half way through. I'm yet to decide on a second teaching resource, but that's okay. I'm responsible only for myself and to myself and I know I will get there in good time.

I've really been giving a lot of thought to my decision to teach over the past week or so. I admit, I got a little impatient this week, waiting for the assignment to come together. It's still not finished, I'm still waiting, but I've decided that I've done everything I can and there's nothing I can do to force the issue right now. Still, I've not let my impatience show to those concerned. To them I've been the model of patience, but inside...not so much. Ask my beloved husband.

My teacher friends tell me that teaching has up days and down days. They tell me that teaching in the classroom is not the same as working on a group assignment. They also tell me that the majority of teachers who give it up do so in the first three years. Four years learning. Three years teaching. I've therefore made a promise to myself to spend as long teaching as I do learning to teach. That's a minimum of four years. That seems like a good promise to myself.

The thing is, I love learning. I love taking in new information and forming new attitudes with the knowledge I have. I love sharing information. But I love it more if people interact within the process. I love learning so I don't understand it when others don't share that love with me.

Which is why we have to be taught to be teachers, I guess.

And now, here's a song about teaching (or, how not to be a teacher) from when I was at school:

The downside of frustration

Do I really really want to be a teacher? Do I have the patience?

Not so sure anymore.

Almost done

I've spent close to six hours at uni this week putting the finishing touches on the 2A website. All I'm waiting on is one more lesson plan to arrive and I'm done. The best part is, I uploaded the ppt as both a ppt and a pdf and they both work brilliantly! We did away with a timer function, so it has to be clicked over, but other than that it does exactly what we wanted it to.

I will be so glad when it's over and I can concentrate on 2B.

Frustration, thy name be Yola.

Okay, I may have had to pay good Aussie dollars for my website, but at least it works whenever I need it. At this point I'll be putting all our work from Google Docs and onto my website because it's the only way I can work on it.

Hating Yola with much hatiness. Hate.

My favourite part of this week

A good selection of Australia's horror writers having a fantastic dinner at the Balti Restaurant in East Perth, Saturday night. A night off from assignments, children, uni and all things Not Writing.

From left: me, my beloved Lee, Kate Eltham, Rob Hoge, Alan Baxter, Peter M Ball, (unknown blurry person from other table), Jason Nahrung, Kirsten McDermott, Paul Haynes (who had a book launch that made many of us cry), Matt Chrulew, Ben Payne and Rob Hood. Photograph by Daniel Russell who managed to freak out the hardcore horror writers with his oh-so-sordid jokes.

Since I want to at least try to make this about EDN113, many of us own and use our iPads and/or laptops as a normal part of our day. A lot of what we talked about was the publishing of ebooks so we believe in authentic learning. There. I did it. :)

Easter

It's holiday time and the family have been out going to movies, the pool, Swancon, watching DVDs, playing video games and doing all the fun things families do on the holidays.

Yes, I've done some of that, too. I went to Swancon because Lee and I were both up for awards (and therefore got together with the best of Australia's Horror Writers for a night of catching up over drinks, dinner, more drinks...) and I saw two movies ("Thor" and "Paul") but other than that, my life has pretty much revolved around my two assignments. I'd say that in all I've probably spent about 25 hours on my EDN113 assignment, doing research, building sites, building the Powerpoint etc. I'm very, very, very happy with the work I've put in. I have worked extremely hard on this, putting in time that I could have spent seeing "Hop" with the kids or playing "Halo" with Aiden and Georgie or having lunch out with Lee during his extended public service break.

And now, when I'm attempting to add various parts of the assignment to the website, I'm finding that Yola is down. Still. It was down yesterday as well. Yes, my paid-for website isn't as newbie-friendly as others, but at least it was always there when I needed it. No issues, at all.

I hate it when things are out of my hands.

Grrr. Okay, I have PMS today and it's possible that this is bothering me more than it needs to. Maybe. Grrrr.

I'm off to meet up with my assignment-buddies at 9.30 to see what they've got to add to our assignment. I'm doing this while Lee takes the kids to the movies and shopping. And I have PMS. All I can say is, I hope they bring chocolate. Those poor, poor people :)

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

A new skill put to use!

I have Endnote! And it works! Colour me freaking proud, dude!

And here's a snippy (or two) to prove it. I tells ya, I'm rocking the granny's panties in this unit. And, I'm loving it. Oh, and look. I've even learnt how to upload a snippy (aka screen capture) to my blog.

I've also chatted with my assignment buddies and we've changed the structure slightly. Podcasts are out. Skype is in. I love being in mum-mode :)

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

After bombing the termite investation in my garage, I then turned my attention fully to 2B. And, tada, I have created my real, first, proper teaching plan. Little happy dance for me.

I did this first by sending out a Facebook message to my teacher friends asking for advice on how to write a teaching plan. My good friend Tehani directed me to this site: http://www.lessonplanspage.com/WriteLessonPlan.htm

I highly recommend this site as it highlights simple steps to follow when drawing up a plan. I then decided to focus on Grade One Maths (I have a son in grade one so it seemed relevant.) I went to the Learning Federation page, clicked on Early Years, then chose the number train.

After testing it out myself I beta-tested it on Connor. First we sat through the tutorial together then I re-explained what he had to do. After one false start he got into it. He worked through three trains before I sent him back to work on Lego.

Yes, it's a winner. Love it.