Class on Friday got a mix of reflections from the Emily corner.
I felt the student run conversation was great; I think people truly said what they wanted to say, and comments led to a productive and insightful conversation. I was unsure how the "changing of the guards" as it were would go, but I thought when people wanted to switch speakers it went relatively well. One thing I did observe, however, was that when someone else stood up to take a turn leading discussion/asking a question, I felt the person that already had the floor ended their conversation prematurely. I think this reflects a real classroom environment, though (since it was, in fact, a real classroom environment...) because as teachers we have to decide when a conversation stops furthering knowledge and being productive, and when to switch topics.
The twitter and webinar portions of class were, i felt, more distracting than helpful. Once people made twitter accounts, attention was paid more toward finding other people to follow and what background to choose than to the class discussion going on. (Hi, I'm the pot, and you kettle, are black.) The webinar didnt go as planned (at least, I dont think) and the technology issues that we did have distracted me and caused me to become even more distant from the conversation. I wasnt engaging with the discussion well, and I wonder if that would have been different had I been able to personally interact in the conversation. Yet, on that note, I dont really know why there were so many people in the webinar. Kristin + Jeff clearly talked about the bandwith capabilities of the webinar, yet, there were way more people involved than there were tables. This obviously negatively contributed to our easy of listening to the webinar, and even when Kristin asked people to get off... most either didnt, or got off and got back on. I think its just an interesting and telling piece to what my classroom may look like -- explicit, pointed instructions are necessary or things wont work right. And, in the end, some people just wont listen to you anyways.
Grace&Peace,
Emily
Yeah, I think it's a valuable lesson in that, no matter how many times you repeat yourself or how explicit you are, some people are going to ignore/not listen to you. Part of why my sister thinks I'll make a good teacher is that I like to repeat myself. :)
ReplyDeleteI also think that this is one of the best and worst parts of human nature - always thinking 'I'm the exception to the rule.' It can lead to real stupidity (like thinking that you won't get cancer if you smoke), but it can also lead to great things when you prove yourself right.
Definitely. The minute twitter entered the classroom on Friday, everyone seemed to become monumentally AWOL from everything else. I wonder if the twittering/etc helped contribute to the lack of paying attention later? Were people still twittering then or was it more 'oldschool' facebook, gmail, etc? I noticed that even when I tried to pay attention to the webinar, the quality turned me off and I was back doing something else.
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