Communication and Collaboration online Project

I posted this in the discussion forum but it should have been posted here.

I have taken this course and am now sharing my reflection about the project plan.

Tech330.37
Ruby Stradford Johnson
stradford_johnson@yahoo.com
Beaufort, SC
August 3, 2009


Session 6: Part 3 Reflection Paper
My online collaborative project for the course is entitled “Virtually Speaking: What is Success and how do you get It.? It spans across curriculum which are English, career education, and virtual learning. The National technology standards and state standards are included. One of South Carolina’s guiding principles is oral language is foundational to literacy learning and development. I will be collaborating with adult education students that are currently using online learning as an alternative to education and my project will complement this learning.
In the course I learned about many web 2.0 tools for example Skype, Ning, voki, diigo, wiki, Flickr, really simple syndication (rss) feed, blogs, social book marking second life, podcasts and Google reader to integrate in my lesson for the project. However I chose Podcasts and blogs as my tools to develop communication and collaboration. My reason for choosing these tools is, 1. Podcasts remind me of the type of profession that I chose to go into. It deals with oral communication and audio learning. Being a Speech language Pathologist where my job was to improve students expressive (speaking) and receptive (listening) language skills and 2. Blogs deal with written expression and so does speech and language where expressive language can be through writing. Podcasting and blogging provides students with a sense of audience and motivation because the skills required of them are relevant to today’s world. Also my project will help the students expand their digital communication skills through a relevant and authentic medium. Podcasts can be taken with the students to play later and will help those students with impaired communication practice their oral skills. They could have the Speech Language Pathologist with them, literally.
Since I do not have a classroom, implementing this project was done with my fourteen year old niece who knew what podcasts and blogs were. The goals of my project were not changed because my trial student will be entering high school in the fall and she will need to begin planning her career. I will be collaborating with the Virtual learning/transition specialist. Teaching her the lesson before working with the students in the fall will have to happen first.
There were a few challenges trying to implement my project. I did not have a classroom or students to work with. I needed to get permission from the school district since I no longer work in the system.


After sharing my project plan with the Virtual learning/transition specialist, she asked that I teach her the lesson first. She also shared that we could have the students go further with the project by having mock interviews on the podcasts. My peers made suggestions of me having an annotated web list; I made corrections of some typos and changed some of the websites. My facilitator suggested that I discuss the pros and cons of using Wikipedia as a research tool which I will add to the plan. I also downloaded a trial version of the Adobe Sound booth to import the clips for the podcast. Since it is not cost effective to use the Adobe Sound booth, I will find free podcasts to use with the students. Voki is another web 2.0 tool that I plan to share because it will enhance the learning as well. The students will post their podcasts to the districts’ website and to the Taking It Global project site to communicate and collaborate globally on line.
This course really prepared me to plan the project by having so many excellent information sources and hands on activities that I could access on communication and collaboration online. Just the format of the collaboration organizer, online journal, and discussion groups was a great help. The feed back from the Facilitator kept me focused even though I felt that I was out of my league. This was the first time I really had an online course. The level of commitment had to be stepped up. Being able to use the rubrics to ensure that the project could be continued and “evergreen” as stated by the Facilitator is really my hope. I was able to view other projects and evaluated what I needed to include in my plan.
According to scholars like Glaser, O’ Reilly, Greenhow, the world is becoming flatter through global cooperation. Project based learning is an innovative way to achieve learning outcomes. My project has emulated what skills the students will need in the 21st century which is to be critical thinkers, effective communicators, self managers, team players, career preparation, citizenship, and technology literate so that they become global learners and survive in the real world.