The mighty interwebs have a bevy of information and resources for the internet-surfing individual and teachers alike. Anyone who has been introduced to Google search is cognizant of this, but not everything one may find is useful or exciting. This "Organize Your Online Life" assignment given in my Education and Technology class dropped in my lap something I was blown away by: Blendspace.
Blendspace is a web platform from which teachers can access resources and develop lesson plans in short order. This free site allows teachers to blend their classroom with digital content. Through this site, teachers can create lessons, share them with his or her students, track student learning through online quizzes and student feedback, and provide differentiated lessons that integrate text, video, images and web resources. The process of developing a lesson plan is intuitive and fast. All you need is 5 minutes and topic to search, and boom, there it is.
After exploring this site for more time than I had, I began to develop a handout—one that could appropriately represent and introduce this useful site—for my fellow teachers-to-be. Developing a handout was a new experience for me, in a way. Having spent some time digging into the site, this handout challenged me to change my perspective from which I understood and viewed it. I realized I had to ask myself, "If I knew nothing about this site, what would I need to know and what info-packaging style would be the most transparent?" These are good questions, I think, for teachers who, likely being the most knowledgeable individuals in their classrooms, will have to translate and repackage information in a way that students will be able to effectively digest it. This is the perspective through which I developed my hand out.
Clever assignment, professors. Clever assignment. I see what you did there.
In composing this two-sided handout, I focused on aesthetic design (I can't help it) and the ever present balance between text and image. I kept hearing a previous professor's voice in my head saying, "Less text! More images!" And so, like all I-want-an-A-in-this-class students, I obliged. You see, it is more aesthetic to the viewer to see more image than text, but the pressure to convey the meaning of the image then weighs more heavily upon the speaker. Another trick to this assignment: giving a fulfilling presentation that connects and makes sense of the images. Now, my handout was not solely images as tasteful and directive text made the cut. After all, handouts should be able to explain the Blendspace site to any viewer who does not have me there to provided deeper understanding.
This assignment introduced me to an extremely effective and user-friendly web platform that I believe will become a common resource for me as I begin me journey into teacherdom.
I agree with you, I think Blendspace is awesome! One of my favorite features is that it also syncs to your Google drive, so that you can also easily add your own documents to lesson plans. I like that you brought up how we had to think to the very basics of the website in order for it to make sense to someone who has never seen the site. I think this is something that we will have to do all the time as teachers. It is going to be really hard to remember the time when we knew nothing about our content area. We are going to have to continually break down our lessons into bite size, step by step pieces of knowledge that we have already learned. I think this will be a challenge, but it will also probably help remember how it was to be a beginner.
ReplyDeleteJesse and Anna, I definitely agree...Blendspace is pretty amazing! I had no idea such a tool existed for teachers until this class and I was extremely excited that I (we) were assigned this resource. I also agree that one of our objectives, making the handout for our presentation, was a great learning opportunity. Had we not been given this task, I most likely would have walked my group through the registration and lesson building process (similar to what I did), but with less content knowledge. Constructing the handout really helped me to understand the entire product flow and really get a feel for what its capabilities are. I can really see this being used and am excited to see it in action. I also think the possibilities are there for BYOD use, if such alternatives are allowed this year. Lastly, I think students will be much more engaged with a lesson that uses Blendspace and I can even see teachers assigning Blendspace assignments for students to create their own lessons/presentations for class. Nice!
ReplyDeleteJesse, I really liked how you were able to take a lesson or two from this assignment and relate it to your future as a teacher. I also wrote a similar blog post about this assignment and what it taught me about teaching. I think the most valuable thing I learned was about teaching a topic to people who have little to no prior knowledge about it, rather than just how to use different web tools. I also realized that making a handout is a lot harder when the audience has no knowledge of the topic, and we are all going to be faced with this problem as teachers. "Organizing Your Online Life" was a good exercise to practice this skill in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteJess, I appreciate you writing about your experience making the handout. It was a new experience for me as well, one that I actually enjoyed! I designed in a way in which I would like to learn about a website - so definitely did not use a lot of text. It was challenging for me to stay within 2 pages though. So what I ended up doing is using screenshots and using arrows to point to specific sections, and then use labels to explain what they are. How did you use the images to explain the features?
ReplyDeleteTahani,
DeleteThank you for your post! First off, I appreciated the fact that you developed your handout as if you were the one who would be learning from it. This is a great strategy, developing your work from the perspective of your students or an individual aside from yourself. Remember, however, that as you develop handouts and lesson plans from the perspective you identified, be aware of how your (higher) knowledge of the lesson's content may potentially impact the handouts design. Although you may understand it perfectly, your intended recipients of the handout of lesson may be completely lost. It is great that you are thinking about this so deeply!
Now, with regard to your actual question, like you, I utilized screen shots in my handout. But, unlike you, I use "boxes" or frames to highlight specific aspects of the greater screen shot that I wanted to draw attention to. Your use of arrows if smart. I will remember that.
"...being the most knowledgeable individuals in their classrooms, will have to translate and repackage information in a way that students will be able to effectively digest it."
ReplyDeleteCould not have said it any better, Jesse. Indeed, this is at the core of teaching and perhaps the most difficult thing about it: getting into the heads of your students. Creating a handout is truly an exercise in empathy. One good practice is to have a fellow teacher look at a handout/instructions and see if it makes sense to him or her. If not, you can be sure that your students will be lost.
Very insightful stuff here. I like that you reflected on the content as well as the process--key teacher move!