Individual vs. Team Assignments

The semester has been filled with opportunities to complete assignments both individually as well as collaboratively.  I found those experiences with the team to be intellectually rewarding.  Through those experiences I engaged in dialogue that required me to at time hold my tongue and allow my colleagues to express their point of view on a particular concept.  It was during those times I gained a wealth of knowledge and understanding because their point of view was from a different perspective.  Often while completing individual assignments I felt compelled to contact my team member and get their perspective on the assignment.  There were occasions where gave into those compulsions and there were occasions when I did not.  It was during those occasion that I did not I had to sometimes read and reread information on a topic to gain complete understanding.  Overall, I believe that those experiences with the team were experiences where meaningful learning took place and ideas and concepts were meshed.

Alice post 2

During the creation of my Alice video I encountered several different challenges. The first challenge occurred in selecting the appropriate world to develop my idea in the video, changing three times I finally settled on the beach/sand terraine. My second challenge was manipulating the objects in the video to relay the message I wanted to convey. To fix this problem I manipulated the methods until I found the one that suited me. My biggest challenge was sound. After I incorporated the sound and I played it back, it was there. However, once I submitted it and tried to replay, the sound was not there. To overcome this, I solicited assistance from my peers.

Alice

The Alice tutorials went step-by-step in a backwards process to show you how to create a video. That was slightly confusing to me. However, after I consulted with my team, the process became clear. After collaborating with them, I realized that each of us had a different understanding of the completed project. From this point I began to work on my individual assignment, in hope that the information I aquired from the tutorials and my collaborations would guide me through the process.

3rd World Farming

When playing 3rd World Farmer, I bought more crop than livestock. I learned as the simulation progressed that the livestock was more costly and caused a greater deficit when lost. I also learned that purchasing the toxic waste was not a good idea, even though it provided revenue. It destroyed the soil for farming and grazing. Because of draught and famine the family suffered great personal lost. By the end of the simulation, only one person survived because of the descissions made.

Week 2

In this weeks group assignment, team one, collaborated together in google.doc. In this evaluation of the diagrams the team concluded that the level of Bloom's Taxonomy demonstrated is the creating level which
includes all levels below.We came to this conclusion by evaluating and analyzing the content of the text. We create a chart that included the simularities and differnces of the exisiting diagrams.

What is TPACK?

TPACK is a framework used by educators to assist in the successful process of integrating technology into the classroom. It speaks the convoluted, multifarious, and situated nature of teacher knowledge. The complex relationship of three principal forms of knowledge, Content (CK), Pedagogy (PK), and Technology (TK) are all at the core of the framework. True technology integration is to understand and navigate the relationships between the three components of knowledge. A teacher must be capable of negotiating these relationships in order to embody a form of expertise atypical of yet greater than that of the knowledge of a disciplinary expert (i.e.; mathematician or a historian), a technology expert (a computer scientist) and a pedagogical expert (an experienced educator).