Week 7 - Reflection #7 - Start Picniking

This week you had a chance to think about delivering instruction through a technological lens. Why did you develop the learning objective you developed and what was your rationale for selecting the technologies you selected for integration?

When I saw this week's technology project, I knew what I wanted to do, or I thought I did. First, I went and created a full-blown lesson on how-to create an animated avatar to use on blogs, Facebook, etc.

Then, when I realized that we were only supposed to create a basic plan, and preferably on one of the Google tools, I thought of Picasa, but realized that I didn't know of anyone who really has a use for Picasa who does not already know how to use it. Suddenly, I remembered all the physical and digital photos that my mother-in-law has but does not know what to do with (especially the digital ones), and realized that what was needed for people like her and my mother is a simple, point-and-click photo editing software that almost anyone can use. That was about the time that I discovered Picnik. After playing around with Picnik for a while, I realized that it was exactly what I was looking for. Once I decided on this objective, I realized that many of the teachers at my school are at about the same level of technology use as my mother and mother-in-law, so I decided to put the lesson in my "Communication in Education" wiki so that it would become part of my professional development tools.


What are your expectations for the learning outcome?

Short-term, I plan to teach my mother-in-law and mother to use Picnik so that they can start using some of the pictures that they have laying around. Long-term, I want to use this program with my teachers in professional development sessions so that they can start making more creative use of the materials that are available to us and also so that they can start teaching it to the students, especially the students in art and technology classes.

How are you viewing your instruction differently now?

I am finding more and more tools that I can use to deliver basic and/or repetitive information and instructions, freeing myself to focus more on the deeper levels of learning. I now perceive many more efficient ways of teaching many of the basic items that I have previously spent inordinate amounts of time on.