Week 10: Organization and Conference

CFY is an organization I have volunteered for many times. I got involved when my wife was trying to look for a job in the educational field and a friend told her about it. I did not know what I was getting into when I signed up for their upcoming event. When we arrived we were greeted by one of the events organizers who was very cheerful and friendly. After the introduction I was in for the long run. I thought to myself, this is something I would enjoy spending my weekends on.
So what is CFY? This is an insert from their web site at http://cfy.org/
"CFY is a national nonprofit organization that helps students, teachers, and parents use digital learning to improve educational outcomes." Video http://vimeo.com/49477789
As a volunteered, I was able to be an assistant to one of the presenters and helped with the informational and computer set up process. I worked directly with the parents and student. This organization not only helps students and parents learn and interact with technology, but also provides every single student who attends the workshop with a computer, which they are able to take home. The presenters encourage student parent interactions throughout the workshop and it is a joy observing parents and students communicate and learn together.

 I have heard many teacher talk about CUE and it has piqued my interest enough to want to attend to one of their conferences. Many of the teachers who have attended the conferences raved about the many workshops, educational technology innovations, and the many freebees they acquire.
CUE's Mission and Vision from http://cue.org/

CUE inspires innovative learners by fostering community, personalizing learning, infusing technology, developing leadership, and advocating educational opportunities for all. 

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                                       A community inspiring innovative learners

Week 9: Independent Class

This week we are working on our Organization Review. I have so many things going on but I’m glad things are coming to an end for this quarter atleast.

Week 8: Theory Presentation

Our Information Processing presentation is finally here. I’m not a great public speaker but I have gotten better. My group members are really good and I lucky to be presenting with them. All though we practiced I don’t feel ready, I tend to forget things and tend to hide by using the presentation slides too much.

Our presentation went well. I need to stop reading of the powerpoint slides. Learning about the Information Processing Theory was very interesting. Finding methods in which my students and I can retrieve information to use in our learning will com in handy for our futures.

Week 7: Veteran's Day

Having a week off should be productive but all I can do is stare at my laptop and want to do something else. I’m going to spend some time with my daughter and will have lunch with friends and family. Maybe I’ll catch up with some HW later!

Week 6: Theory Research-- Work in progress...

This has been a busy week. I started my research on our group theory presentation. I am learning a lot of new things and many of these practices that I’m learning about will be useful in my class. I have two great group members and they are very cooperative and understanding. Our ways of communication through email, texting, and Google docs has been a positive experience.

Week 5: Adobe Connect

There are so many ways in which we are able to communicate face to face if I can put it that way. I find it fascinating that we could be at the beach or in the middle of your living room, and as long as you have a good wifi signal, we can have a meeting with family members, coworkers, friends, and class mates. Adobe Connect was a good experience for me. We were able to have discussions and things ran smoothly compared to Moodle Chat. I find that Adobe Connect has many options to communicate successful. I found that the little icons that facilitated discussion were funny and useful. I would definitely will use adobe connect for web meetings, eLearning, or webinars in the future.

Week Four--Presentations

Learning about the many tools that our class mates research was a great experience. There are so may tools that we have access to. Prezi was my favorite, it is just a different way of using power pint. I almost seems that it is non-linear. Moodle chat provided immediate feed back on our presentations and that made the whole event exciting. Commenting and reading people's comments was like being in the middle of the class at times I forgot that I was sitting in the dinning room.