Motivation is the Portal to Engagement (Barkley, E p. 15)

Seriously contemplating 'what is my motivation' and asking, "How does it keep me going through the sacrifices I make part of my work life balance?"

I am a planner -- I want to know where I am going in life. I do my best to set myself up so the future will include freedom to explore and enjoy -- I gamble carefully with the present moments.

For me, there must be a purpose to my efforts. When I have this I am motivated to engage. Learning this week was tough -- creating my digital project. I am proud of my accomplishments, see the   improvement over the last two digital projects. See the value in knowing how to create this type of learning material and am looking forward to sharing it. 

I truly enjoyed reading chapters one to four of the  Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (Barkley, E pg. 15, 2010)

Also, want to share this song sample from Kelly Rowland's album on iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/motivation-feat.-lil-wayne/id449075657?i=449075660

PIDP3250 Assgn_1 Instructional Strategies

PIDP3250 Assgn_1 Instructional Strategies: 'Quotes' Student Engagement Technique (SET) # 4

PIDP 3250 Assignment # 1: Instructional Strategies Digital Project

In the past few weeks I have been busy thinking about the new Student Engagement Technique (SET) # 4 titled "Quotes" that I learnt about from reading the course text: Student Engagement Techniques: A Handbook for College Faculty (Barkley, E, 2010 pp.167-169)

I am looking forward to sharing this with others and trying it out for myself. As, this SET is particularly useful for helping students learn foundational material full of facts, principles, and structure I bet it would be good for teaching workers about the structure and roles of Joint Occupational Health and Safety Committees.

This is because it engages students in collaborative discussion when their brains are in the ready stage. There are a few special tips that are important to utilize for success and I have included them in my digital project that you can check out using the following links:

http://my.brainshark.com/PIDP3250-Assgn-1-Instructional-Strategies-575431679

Creating a Digital Project

I was feeling like I was going to do alright...when I started out.

Heck, I have two previous digital projects under my belt just in the past year. I thought this would make it easier this time.

Being brave I felt it was a smart plan to notch up the learning goal by trying something new. I would use one of the programs other students had used for turning my PowerPoint into a digital video to post on-line. This coupled with the slight variations in the newer version of PowerPoint and for a Mac gave me lots of niggles to wiggle with.

Everything going well and I am feeling pretty good about it. When the smart advise from my PIDP 3250 Instructor Doug Mauger, pops in my mind: "Make sure you take a few minutes to make sure everything works". I think he said fifteen minutes?

Well that didn't work out so well!

I had trouble ...  capturing the part of my screen I wanted to show, then I couldn't get the slides to advance once uploaded. The few minutes had turned into hours then days...

By 11:00 pm last night I had to do some serious self-reflection. Maybe, it was time to change direction and revert back to the program I had past success with for uploading PowerPoint to digital video? I had to get the darn thing to work, so I made the change...

Voila, things fell into place and I fell into bed at 11:45 pm exhausted and my mind finally let up about it so I could sleep.

Worrying, that my contributions in building a learning community with my PIDP 3250 fellow students has been lacking. I managed to take the time to see the great work that has been posted in the 'Showcase your digital project' forum. Here is an infographic by Alena Buis that is really interesting, both in concept and design:  https://alenabuis.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/buis-assignment-1.pdf

Digital Storytelling -- Is a Good Way to Warm Our Hearts

Karen Deol, a fellow PIDP 3250 student is facilitating a Discussion Forum on Digital Storytelling. She posted a TED Talks titled Digital Storytelling by Jim Jorstad, Director of Academic Technologies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. An award winning journalist and filmmaker who reminds us to connect with each other outside of technology.

His message is to all of us to be present -- ask and tell the stories of the people we meet along the way. This includes our own family stories. When we open and share our hearts we learn about the many rich, warm, heartbreaking, wonderful lives going on around us. Best of all it connects us heart to heart.

Here is the link https://youtu.be/QhJDUIQ9EzY

New Blogger Blues

Wow, what a night!

One of my learning goals for this evenings study time was to post a link to my Flickr account. Along the way I experienced some difficulties (and frustration) and could not log-in to my Blog. The url worked in my browser?

Newly converted from PC to Mac and tonight of all nights Flickr required me to perform a software task. Then the trouble started! How I felt like giving up...so I thought about the consequences:

1. Embarrassment
2. Leaving behind something I put lots of energy into
3. Having to start again
4. A two blog assignment submission
5. Giving up on something I care about

None were options. Long story short I figured out where I went wrong, got back in, and got the goal accomplished ... voila! Here is the link to my Flickr account:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/seriously_suzie/albums

“Students must have confidence that, with appropriate effort, they can succeed. If no hope, there is no motivation (Cross and Steadman (1996), Barkley, E p.11)”

Emotions helped me maintain persistence and believe it was possible to overcome the obstacle.

It rings true for me, in spite of sometimes feeling frustrated, I am happy learning because: I am doing what I care about, and caring about what I am doing.

On that note, here is a link to another way to use emotion to learn and enjoy such things as new blogger blues:

http://www.guitarcontrol.com/blog/category/lead-guitar-ideas/

Self-Assessment and Reflection Using Visual Prompts/Symbols

Words fill my pages, pen in hand, focused intention to do everything possible to embed the learning into my long term memory...because it is safest there...safe from forgetting...or as safe as my thoughts can be.

Perhaps, I still have some researching to do to uncover the meaning of the mysterious clue instructor Doug Mauger is telling me:  

Susan (he writes)...

"When we look at visible learning in the discussion we will find what the research has to say about reflecting on our learning....it is most revealing..."

I googled a bit and found an interesting webpage that talks about self-reflection in the learning process. Near the end of the article the subject of visualization comes up and for me an 'aha' moment. I consider first the images I conjure up in my mind... and then those I can put in front of me through photography, art, or other symbols that represent what I am learning...thinking about...for the future, and how I would like to utilize that learning then or now on my way there.

http://www.shabait.com/about-eritrea/art-a-sport/16507-reflection-in-the-learning-process

Another, important technique, I read about tonight, for storing learning in long term memory is a good night's sleep... http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/p/forgetting.htm...time to do an experiment on that advice now.