Reflect about your experience this week with your partner on the Prezi activity. Deconstruct it through the lens of one of the Social Learning Theories we discussed. Get granular! What connections can you make between the theory and your experience? What more could you have done/tried/accomplished had you consciously applied all that the theory afforded before you began?
Well, it’s back to NYU and Drama for Special Ed Populations with Professor Granet. This week’s Prezi Collaborative project was a practical walk through the social learning theories but in particular, Constructionism, Constructivism and certainly Activity Theory and Reflection in real time! We were tasked with creating a product, a tangible product in the form of a Prezi presentation about how to use Prezi. What’s more we were asked to approach this in a meta cognitive way. At first I wasn’t clear about why we are making a Prezi in the grand scheme of things in this class. Now that I’ve begun the reflection process, I get it totally! Like Professor Granet at NYU, Professor Greene has put us in the place of our students! Brilliant stuff right there! Part of our expectations was to communicate with our partners as we progressed through the activity. In my case, Teresa and I communicated much! We spent considerable time charting this course, perhaps even too much. But in the end, I’m proud of our product and I’m proud of how Teresa and I collaborated so effectively. We were constructivist (v for verbal, v for Vygotsky!) in as much as we discussed, very deeply, our presentation before diving in. We also discussed much as we were working together to create the product. We discussed the perspective we’d take, we were able to bring to life a wonderful blend of what she had envisioned and what I had envisioned. It’s funny, in the moment of doing the project I was definitely feeling tension as most people would when confronting a new technology. That was a very big part of where I was at and it’s in fact behind the theme of our Prezi. I served as the poster child, the one doing the learning of Prezi because Teresa, being a tech TOSA, knew and had used Prezi in the past. But I also experienced a transformation, I am comfortable using Prezi. I think I want to convert some of my existing PowerPoint presentations into Prezi and I’m thinking about using Prezi to make some upcoming presentations that I know I’ll need to make. Thinking about it after the fact, reflecting on it, my own experience with tension and transformation was powerful! I get it – I gained insight into the experience of my learners when I ask them to embrace something new. All in all I believe I absolutely got the learning experience Dr. K had intended and I’ve come away with not only new knowledge about Prezi, but new insights into my learners and how they cope with the learning experiences I design for them. Mission accomplished Dr. K! As for what more I could have done/tried/accomplished had I consciously applied all that the theory afforded before I began, I honestly feel like had I approached this project in that way, it would have diminished my experience. I engaged with the expectation of the project in an honest way. Had I approached it with the theories in the forefront, I’d have focused on those and not experiencing what the theories profess. I’d have lost the experience from a student’s point of view which I believe would have lessened the impact of the activity and associated learning on my practice.
Well, it’s back to NYU and Drama for Special Ed Populations with Professor Granet. This week’s Prezi Collaborative project was a practical walk through the social learning theories but in particular, Constructionism, Constructivism and certainly Activity Theory and Reflection in real time! We were tasked with creating a product, a tangible product in the form of a Prezi presentation about how to use Prezi. What’s more we were asked to approach this in a meta cognitive way. At first I wasn’t clear about why we are making a Prezi in the grand scheme of things in this class. Now that I’ve begun the reflection process, I get it totally! Like Professor Granet at NYU, Professor Greene has put us in the place of our students! Brilliant stuff right there! Part of our expectations was to communicate with our partners as we progressed through the activity. In my case, Teresa and I communicated much! We spent considerable time charting this course, perhaps even too much. But in the end, I’m proud of our product and I’m proud of how Teresa and I collaborated so effectively. We were constructivist (v for verbal, v for Vygotsky!) in as much as we discussed, very deeply, our presentation before diving in. We also discussed much as we were working together to create the product. We discussed the perspective we’d take, we were able to bring to life a wonderful blend of what she had envisioned and what I had envisioned. It’s funny, in the moment of doing the project I was definitely feeling tension as most people would when confronting a new technology. That was a very big part of where I was at and it’s in fact behind the theme of our Prezi. I served as the poster child, the one doing the learning of Prezi because Teresa, being a tech TOSA, knew and had used Prezi in the past. But I also experienced a transformation, I am comfortable using Prezi. I think I want to convert some of my existing PowerPoint presentations into Prezi and I’m thinking about using Prezi to make some upcoming presentations that I know I’ll need to make. Thinking about it after the fact, reflecting on it, my own experience with tension and transformation was powerful! I get it – I gained insight into the experience of my learners when I ask them to embrace something new. All in all I believe I absolutely got the learning experience Dr. K had intended and I’ve come away with not only new knowledge about Prezi, but new insights into my learners and how they cope with the learning experiences I design for them. Mission accomplished Dr. K! As for what more I could have done/tried/accomplished had I consciously applied all that the theory afforded before I began, I honestly feel like had I approached this project in that way, it would have diminished my experience. I engaged with the expectation of the project in an honest way. Had I approached it with the theories in the forefront, I’d have focused on those and not experiencing what the theories profess. I’d have lost the experience from a student’s point of view which I believe would have lessened the impact of the activity and associated learning on my practice.
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