Thank you ETMOOC, I Need To Connect

Wow, I miss you already. I am so surprised, I have been so upset that I have had no time to blog and stay connected with a new job in social media. I am doing what I love doing for myself for others and well. It's OK. Fun, yes, but can you imagine blogging and following feeds and composing tweets on a topic you do not love?? It is not an easy task, and I don't think I thought about that. Lesson learned. Oddly, I got the job because of my activity on #etmooc so thank you, my social media skills have increased two folds. I have also recieved gift certificates and new online promotional and early releases and tools from google blogspot, twitter and bufferapps. Pretty neat stuff. Who knew?

Thank you ETMOOC, you brought me out of my online shell. I'm actually quite loud and extremely excited when discussing education and technology in person, yet I can honestly say, I have officially gone from lurker to contributor and producer, again, Many many thanks.I created a lenthy reflection of etmooc here for you reading pleasure.

For the many connections, well that just rocks, I feel like there are at least 8 - 10 people, I would not be afraid to ask for help or to maybe webcast with one of my classes. You know who you are, or do you? I wonder if the connections I feel, feel the same way?

Alec Couros, Thank you so so much for an amazing learning experience that was better than any course I have taken, sorry Jeff... It's just that I had and was allowed to learn at my own pace and while I put a lot of hours in, I had a blast commenting, creating, sharing.

Heck, I created or borrowed new content for three master's level courses. Please check out my new emerging technology class here. I would love suggestions, I think the flow could be fixed/changed. Content is mostly from #etmooc and the thousands of amazing links, resources and the general OER environment, My diigo to read list is full and may take the summer and I am grateful. In my time of not teaching in public school and feeling lost, I found #etmooc, or it found me. Thanks to all, Wish me luck as I continue my journey and attempt to move back into public education. I miss the middle schooler's, I miss the engagement and I miss the relationships. While higher ed rocks, the teacher in me, needs the crazy I guess.

Connected Technology Educator is Seeking Middle or High School Position in NH or MA. Huh, the first time I used my blog for self advertisement. I think.

More to come, I found that I get literally sad when I cannot be myself, connect, blog and tweet away .

My MOOC Experiece: Etmooc

This has been an amazing journey. And I really wanted to sit down to see what I have learned or contributed during my time with etmooc. Well, please excuse me as I will discuss applications as they relate to concepts.
Session one already had me. I had a great time watching the etmooc sessions on blackboard; I switched my social bookmarking from delicious to diigo. I installed scoop.it and I love it. My switch in social book marking allows me to underline text, make things to “read later” and well, I really like the lists. Scoop.it, well, what an easy way to share. I have also enjoyed buffer for tweets and have become slightly addicted to pearltrees. See my social media pearltree here. I like that I can organize information in a visual manner and I like the branching, it reminds me of mind mapping which I have always taken too.
I ended up installing silver bird to twitter chats (see my post here). Oh, I learned I am not a fan of twitter chats and that’s ok, but I had no idea they even occurred.

I actually use my twitter account at least three or four times a day during what I have termed my “blogsphere” time. I literally went from tweeting 3 times to having over 120 tweets. That means I shared 110+ times, not bad. Oh, and I now dedicate 1 hr a day to commenting, blogging or reading and I love it. Why I did not take this time before is beyond me.

I learned to blog again but with passion. I’ll be honest, I was a disenchanted blogger, it’s the darn comments, I feel irrelevant if I share but no one is reading, That's me.

The topics we have covered really leave for reflection and in-depth learning if you choose to do so, but how could you not. We had/have great teachers/facilitators that engaged us in new ways to share, learn and engage. I was the disenchanted blogger which is a shame as I have taught it for years. I love blogging now and am really enjoy just opening up a post and considering what I have found to be significant or fun information I might like to share. Sue Water’s gave great presentations that reminded me to be a better blogger, link to people and reflect, some of the things I had forgotten. My blogging community has grown and I really enjoy commenting on blog posts, I find the more you comment, the more you learn, but that might be me. I’m a reflective learner.

I have come to know the power of comments and a community sharing thoughts on the same subject. It is a truly powerful thing and you cannot teach collaboration, you can only guide it.

I truly feel that my social media skills have been given a full make over. I learned that I love Google plus communities and it’s an amazing way to share and create circles of knowledge.

I finished my course proposal for Social Media and Responsibility in Education. I could not have done that without all of the sharing of knowledge and great content that was provided to us. It gave me and extra nudge.

Ah, and rhizomatic learning. I am a rhizomatic learner and the topic is so in depth and interesting that I could research and write about it for hours, luckily, Dave Cormier has already done that and I have read and blogged a great deal about this fascinating concept that makes so much sense to me. We spread so many different ways when we learn, we shoot off in different directions and we all take various paths when we are allowed to have a say in our learning. Each person will have a different outcome but it will definitely be in depth.

Digital storytelling took me down a very familiar road and reminded me why I love it so much, again, so many resources and great content, that I reframed a digital storytelling course proposal that span’s 12 weeks. Thanks Alan, your work in this field is already amazing. I redefined digital storytelling and have decided that if you really need to stick to the basics of a “story” before you digitize it. I’m sure many may disagree. I feel we are doing an injustice to ourselves and our students if we let them think any words with a set of pictures are a true story. It may be fun, it may be explanatory, but the story as the literary component and story boarding cannot be ignored.

I went outside my comfort zone and created a story about a very unpleasant experience. I haven’t done so much storyboarding in a while and it so reminded me of how important it is. My digital story took a lot of effort, time and pain but I think it was very therapeutic. Feel free to see my goanimate story here. I shared so much of myself, some may say too much, but I needed it and I was hoping to inspire some or get suggestions, I didn’t and that’s OK. I have to deal with things on my own terms.

I made animated gifs and played with gimp again, something I had not done in years. I like animated gif’s, I think they are fun and a great way to express an idea, thought, emotion.

I’ve decided to make this a series of blog posts as I had no idea this had become so long. I have so much more to reflect on from the past few months with etmooc, stay tuned. Thank you to Alec Courosa and friends for making my journey possible.