Dear Future President I chose to do my reading response on an article “Dear Future President.”  I enjoyed this article and thought it shows young students the power of writing in public. We so often look at the negatives associated … Continue reading →

I just couldn’t get ahead this week. I wasn’t particularly busy, or anything. Lack of mental energy, so everything seemed like a struggle. I …

http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/people/historical/roosevelt/ I went back to PBS for this weeks digital story critique. They offer amazing content always, and overtime I watch one of their productions I learn, so it is a great source for me. Our family is still on … Continue reading →

Whew! I knew this was going to be a very busy week for me outside of class and I’m glad I planned accordingly. Here’s a summary of what I completed this week.

• TDC 1 – Then and Now
• Story Critique

Read more...

The post Week 5 Reflective Summary appeared first on Robert Grotans - Professional Website.

OMG… I just have to say that this was not my original story, but after fighting with embedding a Facebook video for three hours… I am giving into my second choice. Okay,the vent is done! I would like to welcome you to the Shetland Islands, where my parents and I immigrated from. I am biased, … Continue reading "Week 5 Story Critique: Because Being Silly Matters Too!"

Heavy would be the word for this week. Followed by the emotions of fear, shame, hate, love, kindness, and hope. You can see and feel the tensions in this country; our differences feel palpable. It’s an uneasy place to navigate. Some of use based on the color of our skin are able to navigate with … Continue reading "Week 5 Reading Response: Literacy Matters"

This weeks required reading: Communities of Readers, Clusters of Practices by Henry Jenkins, focused on participatory and collaborative learning.  He talked about a myriad of reasons why and ways for students to learn together.  Collaborative learning groups have obviously been around as long as people have.  However, in our recently much more easily connected world, it … Continue reading Together We Are Brilliant!

Daily Create:#tdc1642 Today is a national day of… coming together, black lives matter, blue lives matter. #ilt5340 pic.twitter.com/4vqR8xG8pD — Kzetland (@kerlass1) July 9, 2016 This week has been a heavy one for our country. I’m looking at the theme of vulnerability. I don’t think anything can make a human more vulnerable then being forced to … Continue reading "Daily Create 1: Week 5"

To Vegan or not to Vegan? That seems to be a current question. It seems like you are either a hardcore vegan or you hate all things vegan.  Is there a middle ground?  I’m not sure as I have not found one. This week I will be critiquing a YouTube video called “If Meat Eaters Acted … Continue reading “If Meat Eaters Acted Like Vegans” – Week 5 Story Critique

We created a ghost in the shadows!

It has been an interesting week in America--and a tragic one.  As I reflect upon the course readings, it occurs to me how very much our entire culture has shifted away from hope and toward fear.  Several weeks ago, I had the privilege to spea...

“Thought can’t go where the roads of language have not been built.”  -Terence McKenna Words hold the magic of world-creation, yet so often we overlook the power they hold. So powerful are words that knowledge acquired over the course of millennia can be lost if their words are lost. Conversely, new courses of human evolution can […]

I browse around the Art Station site from time to time for inspiration and to see some great pieces of digital art. There is one …

Can what we consider as popular culture really be considered ‘culture’ or simply fandom? That is to say, if cultural artifacts originate from corporate products are they, in fact, ‘authentic’ cultural expressions? An interesting distinction was made in this week’s reading, Henry Jenkins’ “Afterword: Communities of Readers, Clusters of Practice (2008). Jenkins made a clear distinction between the ‘participatory […]

This week I’m looking at the “Future Cities” photo contest and story from the National Geographic YourShot site, edited by Monica Corcoran. The general concept is this: YourShot runs a contest with a theme for which anyone can submit a photograph and an optional amount of written explanation of their photograph. In the case of … Continue reading Digital Story Critique: Future Cities

This ds106 mashup assignment was fun to do. I have wanted to do something like this for some time. The first time I saw …

I’ll admit it: I am geek and I geek out a lot about things that most people would have absolutely no interest in. I, and a few of my friends, are big fans of classic kung-fu movies. We’ll debate which series of movies are the best and, within each series of movies, which movies are… Continue reading Geeking Out – Week 5 Reflections →

This week's mashup assignment is inspired by my eleven year old daughter who is actually typical tomboy by day and clearly a mad scientist by night.  She received her owl letter as expected on her eleventh birthday and caught the train on track 9 ...

Our assignment for Week 5 involved choosing a Mashup assignment from the DS106 Assignment Bank. I have to admit that I had no clue what to choose – nothing was speaking to me. I finally went with the Vine It Then Combine It challenge as I haven’t worked much with Vine. My subject matter, pretty … Continue reading Mashup Creation: My Future Library

http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1202&context=lajm Very interesting article that I suggest you all take a few minutes to read. It was definitely an eye opener to me. When you look at the statistics that were found on how much time was spend on informational text, and how many resources were available in classrooms it is so scary. It also […]

This week for my digital story critique, I am actually using a digital story I created for work.  I believe this fits in with the idea of the digital story mashup as well as my personal interest theme of building self confidence. How does this project fit into my interest theme? I began this job … Continue reading Week 5 Digital Story Critique

This was a very interesting review. I would love to share it with my students some day. I would also love to read the book, but of course have added it to my never ending list of books I need to pick up.   Research- As far as this review piece there was not a […]

This week I finally got to use a story that I have been waiting to watch.  I found this a couple weeks ago but felt the title did not fit in with the theme, so I waited. The story I chose was entitled: “The Meaning of My Life” This turned out to be a very […]

I love that this article began by stating that the book is a “why to” guide. This is so meaningful to me. I have to know the why behind the what. How do we immerse the powers that be how important this digital movement is? Not only is it important for teachers to include these […]

Week 5: Story Critique Life Balance For Teens: https://youtu.be/geMUicEId9k         After reading about the effects of overscheduled children for my interest driven scholarly research this week, I thought a lot about work-life balance (my focal theme) of … Continue reading →

 

I have to admit this week I have struggled-the news is breaking my heart. It’s made me think a lot about my students and how difficult these terrible events are for me to process, never mind a child. My search for this week’s story critique along with the range of emotions I am experiencing led me to Teaching … Continue reading "Week 5: Story Critique"

It is time to be a participant, and not just the ones that get a participation award for showing up. The reading this week was focused on being an active participant in one’s learning environment. This means collaborating and discussing learning and how teachers need to do more than bring in the Web 2.0 tools […]

While this Ted Talk does not relate directly to my focus I think it is so applicable to this class I could not pass it up! I chose to blog about the Ted Talk titled Linda Liukas: A delightful way to teach kids about computers.   The type of involvement I saw in this video&ellipsis;Read the full post »