Some of the more than 2-3 takeaways I got from the reading this week that I didn't realize were hiding in plain sight within good old Word, Excel, and or PowerPoint were:

• In Word, creating my own style.  What a great tool!  You can set up a document that is UDL compliant shall we say, then save it so you don’t have to adjust style and format every single time!  Big time saver too!
• In Word I also like the table of contents tool.  It makes me laugh to think about how many times I hand formatted tables of contents when it was all right there already LOL.  Ah well, better late than never, right?
• In PowerPoint I use text boxes all the time!  I learned that these can disappear or get wonky when you transfer the presentation to other formats which I’ve never come across before.  But to truly be UDL compliant, a presentation needs to be able to be able to be converted without loss of formatting.  Lesson learned!
• Narrated slide shows, I was not aware that this was a thing!  I will definitely play with this because I put my PowerPoints into Google classroom for students who were absent to use as reference.  Though this beats what I used to do which was nothing, it never felt enough because when I present my presentations I augment them with my narration.  The PowerPoints in Google classroom lacks that narration thus reducing the efficacy of it.  This is another thing I will begin adding in the future – especially when I flip my classroom again in the future which I will FOR SURE be doing!!  I loves me some Screencast O Matic !!!!!!!

  
As for what simple, non-flashy tool or resource I go back to time and time again because it empowers me to accomplish your task or goal, I revert back to PowerPoint once again.  I just love that program, I love making PowerPoints and I create strong presentations!  I feel like it gives me a vehicle for my teaching voice.  It allows me to incorporate my creative side but also my humor side.  I use a lot of humor in my practice you see and PowerPoint supports and aids that.
 
As for “why do we tend to overlook the simple, everyday things for something sleeker or more polished?” I think it’s just the nature of the human beast.  My arrows are better than yours because I made them snazzy.  Both arrows work just the same, but the appearance of mine makes me better.  It’s that same yearning, in my view, that keeps technology and gaming moving forward so rapidly.  We yearn to, and please pardon the cliché, keep up with the Jones’ if not surpass them!  It goes beyond practicality to vanity really.  But again, I believe it’s part of being a human animal – the nature of the beast.

​I see both TPACK and SAMR as important and valuable but SAMR has already been happening for most of us I think.  I mean who among us hasn’t been doing SAMR just to be able to deliver some semblance of our curriculum?  I know I have and I also know that along the way I’ve been augmenting and modifying.  I must say, it’s largely been good!  I think my best example is my Fallen Stars project which I’ve been doing for years now.  Back when life was real prior to COVID, when a significant actor passed away I would hit their iMDB site and make a sign-up sheet.  Every movie or TV project they did could be chosen and signed up for by students, also 1 student could sign-up for biography.  Then students were given a bullet point list of items to research on iMDB and elsewhere.  This whole thing would culminate with each student standing up in front of class and presenting the film/tv show (or biography) that they researched.  Now, started with the tragic and untimely passing of Chadwick Boseman and the not untimely but tragic passing of Sir Sean Connery, we took the same approach except, SAMR happened.  Now students all create slides to do their presentation; a collaborative Google slide deck.  Criteria has been added that asks them decorate their slides with artwork from the TV show or film they’ve researched.  Then during a class session, I scroll through the slides – the students unmute and present their slides when they come up.  It’s worked out GREAT and now there is an artifact as a product that I’ll be saving and perhaps using in the future.  I think this is a prime example of SAMR and once again I was already doing it before I learned about it.  TPACK is clearly valuable as a concept and framework too, but feels more design based than re-design based, so my takeaway from this blog is SAMR for sure.

So I guess the overriding things I’d like to say to my pre 624 self are not all that dissimilar to Chris (blue robe guy in “Polar Express”).  I’d say to myself believe…take a deep breath…don’t let the tech part make you crazy…BELIEVE.  As it has come to pass, I’ve found that the things we’re discovering in this program, at least some of them, I’ve already been doing instinctively.  Even with 628, I’ve set up the whole semester to be super UbD and UDL friendly including students grading themselves and choosing their own semester long SDP (Student Driven Project).  I gained the confidence to take this approach from 624 and 625.  In those courses I both learned brand new, ultra-stimulating things – or I discovered that I’m already doing it and I just didn’t know the correct nomenclature all this time.  So, again, I’d say to my pre 624 self, chill….trust Dr. K….invest in her vision…all good.  As for prompt 2, I’m primarily excited that I have a safe place to f*** up.  I have an opportunity here to reach for the stars and potentially grab a lot of muck, but….I can do it here safely!  I can count on my peers to give authentic feedback that is honest a well-intended!  I can trust that my professor will give me feedback that is ultra insightful and beneficial, she really sees and understand me!  Honestly, in 624 and 625 I played it safe – I did the do.  In 628, with my peer students and Dr. K, I’m feeling safe taking a chance…  I’m accustomed to being excellent, above par in my higher ed pursuits, that’s just how I roll, but here and now, I think I’m feeling safe to really go beyond my comfort zone.  Wish me luck!!  As for “Where do you see the greatest potential for your continued growth and why that (those) area(s)?” – for me I think it’s in feedback.  I want to put more depth in my feedback – funny I feel safe saying that now, in 628.  But it’s real now in a different way, so, ya – I was so struck by Dr. K giving individual, video feedback in 624 – each with our very own sign and prop.  WOW.  That blew me away – she missed nobody….  I understand the time that takes – but holy cow, does it make a difference!  I actually delivered a mid-term project based on a Dr. K idea – and I held it over until this semester, in terms of scoring, because I want to give super meaningful feedback to every student.  I’ll admit I’m still providing some of that feedback via typing text, but that’s just a technology issue.  I’m thinking Canvas might just help me do that.  I know we’re supposed to set up a fake sort of Canvas thing, but I think I want to incorporate it NOW!  If nothing else, for the threaded conversation component.  628 – 628…bring it!!!!!

So our final blog for Eduu625 is a self-reflection.  We are reflecting on our own practice in terms of how compliant we are to the 5 iNACOL standards we focused on in this class.  So each of the 5 iNACOL standards appears below along with a 1-2 point score for each.  Here’s how I’ve assigned point to myself:  2 points for Yes, I get this and do (or will do this); 1 point for I kind of get this and might do it (or I do this infrequently); and 0 for I don’t get this, I don’t plan on doing this (or I don’t do this now).
 
iNACOL Standards for EDUU 625:
 
Standard E   My self-score= 2
The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.  I am feverishly committed to quelling plagiarism but I also am careful to maintain student safety since so much of what we do in Drama is collaborative.
 
Standard F   My self-score= 2
The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accommodations into the online environment.  I’m no perfect teacher, but I have always worked hard to honor and incorporate each student’s diversity and I have been pretty good about accommodating online activities for those students who need it.
 
Standard G   My self-score= 2
The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures.  I used to be not so good in this area, but of late, I’ve been embracing 21st century tools such as flipping my classroom and making explanatory videos.  I’ve also improved the way I make rubrics – I blatantly “borrowed” the rubric format that has been used for us in these classes.
 
Standard H   My self-score= 2
The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals.  I have always been very standards aligned – I was trained to do that!  I also employ a variety of formal and informal, formative and summative assessments per assignment.  Students receive the benefit of my feedback, but also their peer’s feedback.
 
Standard I   My self-score= 2
The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning.  I have many times thrown assignments out because the majority of students didn’t do well.  When that happens it’s not their fault, it’s mine and I’m very open about mistakes both mine and those committed by my students

Though the link that was provided to access and read “Designing Curation for Student Engagement” (2019) never worked no matter how much time I devoted to waiting for it connect forcing me to search the internet myself for this article causing much wasted time, there was a payoff once I got to it.  The prompt for this blog entry begins by asking “Is there a difference between curating and collecting?” and I believe that yes, there is absolutely a difference!  The article, once I finally got to it, stated “studies suggest that curation can be more effective as a means to engage students in processes of assessment and feedback than almost any other activity (McDowell et al 2006).”  Curating in my frame of mind, suggests thoughtfully assembling materials to support a curricular goal.  Collecting in my frame of mind suggests, gathering materials not necessarily to support a curricular goal or even an overarching goal of any kind.  One curates a collection of images to make a certain point, all the entries of a curated collection work together to express the curator’s intent.  One creates a collection of materials for the fun of it, or perhaps to keep those materials in one place for their own use.  The bottom line point is, a collection doesn’t have an agenda, a curated collection does.  This is how I would explain it were I to be mentoring a teacher who is focusing on meaningful forms of assessment and multiple tools that may be of value to us and our students.  A student curated group of artifacts can be very much similar to a portfolio or could even be a part of said portfolio.  A curated group of artifacts that is student generated and curated over time with formative feedback from us as learning facilitators, is great for students because it allows them to express their learning in their way, and it’s great for us because it gives us insight into the mastery our students have gained (or not).  The article, that my browser is STILL as I write this trying to access LOL, states “curating is an exceptionally powerful way to engage students. “it forces you to commit to your work’, asserts a PhD student at UCL, describing her experience of arranging and showing paintings.”  The next part of the prompt asks “How can curating be an authentic assessment tool or is this an inappropriate use of a digital activity?”  This a powerful question actually.  Is it ok for us to ask and/or require our students to put their personal learning experiences online?  Does that violate their privacy?  I can say very honestly that my jury is still out on this question!  I’m very interested in asking students, over the next semester, to curate a Pinterest board about Drama 1, but then again, I am concerned about student privacy.  I feel like some students will shy away from genuine, authentic engagement in a curation activity due to privacy concerns, but I also feel like it’s not really a privacy violation because nobody really knows the identity of the curator.  Maybe the ticket is in the criteria we provide for such a curation.  Maybe if we’re mindful and careful in what we ask students to curate publically, we can overcome student concerns.  I haven’t come to an absolute position on this yet.  But again, I am feeling VERY interested in asking students to curate.  We were asked to include “3 specific concepts or comments” from this course which included the ability to reference a video that didn’t work.  So, I decided to do some research above and beyond the materials provided in this course and came across a fantastic article called “To Boost Higher Order Thinking, Try Curation” (2017) by Jennifer Gonzalez.  This article, which I HIGHLY recommend, states (among other gems including how curation fits into Bloom’s Taxonomy and specific examples of how you can ask students to curate) that ”The process can be applied to all kinds of content: A person could curate a collection of articles, images, videos, audio clips, essays, or a mixture of items that all share some common attribute or theme.“  This helps me address the final component of this prompt which is “One last thing to consider in this post: what kinds of legal and ethical issues could be an issue in curating? If you believe there are none, please state that and explain why you feel this way. If you feel there are or could be legal or ethical issues, please explain your thinking.”  I think there for sure could be ethical issues if a student curates plagiarized material in any way, shape or form.  But if we as part of our formative work with curating students stay on top of our students’ work, this can be averted.  Other than that, a curated group of materials could include materials that are already public, as described in the afore mentioned article, so as long as our student curators credit people properly, ethical and legal issues should be averted.  As I conclude this blog post, my browser is STILL trying to access the provided resource.  Sometimes you just gotta solve problems for yourself!
 
References
 
Gonzalez, Jennifer  (2017 April 15) To Boost Higher Order Thinking, Try Curation [Website] CultofPedagogy.com, https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/curation/
 
Hallett, R., Grindle, N. Designing Curation for Student Engagement (2019 November) [Journal] Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal Vol 2, Issue 3, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10085668/7/Grindle_Designing%20curation%20for%20student%20engagement_VoR.pdf
 
McDowell, L., Sambell, K., Bazin, V., Penlington, R., Wakelin, D., Wickes, H., & Smailes, J. (2006). Assessment for Learning: Current Practice Exemplars from the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning [Website] www.academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/23651832/Assessment_for_Learning_Current_practice_exemplars_from_the_Centre_for_Excellence_in_Teaching_and_Learning
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​The data being gathered by students in these immersive simulations, primarily, is real time feedback on how they’re doing.  This is integral to the 21st century learner as we learned in the Brown video we saw in 624 (2013).  On a completely off-topic side note, John Seely Brown is a hero to me!  21st Century learners want immediate feedback like they’re used to getting from video games and the like.  They want to, as soon as possible, understand clearly what is needed for them to level up in their learning!  In my world, the world of drama, it’s hard to imagine how to use an immersive situation as shown in the video we watched, but I suppose such an environment could potentially be used to facilitate certain kinds of learning in the drama world.  Specifically, set, sound, light, prop and costume design.  They could conceivably actually create designs for a virtual performance to be given on a virtual stage.  I could guide students through how to make design choices based on information from the script and have them journal their experience experimenting with design choices.  I could serve as director of the virtual production and give notes on their design choices, send them back to the drawing board, and receive updated design concepts.  Production design paperwork could be included that could be altered as the design process happens, then at the very end they could present their designs explaining how they came to their final design choices.  I would also, for sure, have a reflective element so they can reflect on their experience and share insights on their own learning.  On top of all that, I would provide feedback on things I had seen in their process, so they’d get a variety of feedback; from peers, from themselves and from me!  Ya, I think that could work.  I would likely take quite a bit of time to set up, but once set up, could be a very valuable medium for student learning that would encourage engagement, reflection and mastery of design concepts and the creative/design process in general.

I chose to look at Lori’s resource, ePortfolio rubric.  I followed the URL and played around on the site a bit.  I found that you can’t edit criteria directly on their site, BUT, I also found you can copy, paste, and edit their rubrics freely.  That makes it a valuable resource in and of itself because 1) you have a time considered, developed rubric resource that could conceivably help you plan a learning experience, but also because 2) it’s a big timesaver.  It takes a considerable amount of time to make a high quality, effective and meaningful rubric!  I agree with Lori completely, the rubric is clear and concise and could be adapted pretty easily for any age group.  I also agree with Lori that the criteria should start with Exemplary, then work down the scale to the right.  The highest level of achievement should be at the top left – that’s where start reading, we want to be as positive as we can.  We want our students to assume we anticipate they’ll do well and anything we can do to contribute to that support and encouragement we should absolutely be doing on a regular basis!  I do think that there is a flaw on the rubric and that’s in the points available.  This rubric has no inclusion of how many points each criterion offers, so students don’t have the full picture of expectations.  We want our students to understand the aspects of any learning experience that we feel are most important and so forth.  For example, if I’m asking students to review a performance, I will ask technical questions like was there blocking, did they utilize voice & diction well and the like.  But I would also ask how do YOU feel the performance was, what worked for YOU, what would YOU change, if anything.  Those questions always carry the most weight.  I would recommend this rubric, or some variation thereof, because I am very fond of the idea or portfolios.  I’ve often employed them and careful, meaningful assessment of them is critical to their value as a learning experience!  But even more so, I’d recommend this rubric to someone outside of our class who is seeking greater understanding of rubrics because it makes very clear, very digestibly what a rubric does for both the learner and the assessor.

​I liked the design of this assessment quite a bit.  Not only did it mandate expression of our mastery because it put us in Dorothy Heathcote’s “Mantle of the Expert” but it gave us an artifact that who knows, just might come in handy one day!  Once my colleagues and I complete this program, why wouldn’t our districts lean on us to share the wealth?  Why wouldn’t they ask us to do PD’s etc.  If I were a superintendent and I knew that several teachers within my district were in this program, I’d absolutely want them to share the wealth to all the others within the district who did not have the same opportunities as the teachers in question.  This assessment actually inspired me to experiment with an alternative assessment in my own class.  Instead of giving a quiz to check for understanding that students paid attention to the movie I showed in class “Beetlejuice,” I’m going to ask them to conceive and bring to life a “Cutting Room Floor Scene.”  That is, a scene that was cut from the final edit of the film.  I’m providing specific criteria that they have to plug in to 3 Google Slides.  In the first slide they must identify where their scene happens and how it fits into the flow as well as what part of dramatic structure their scene falls into (exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) and they have to give accurate examples directly from the film.  In the second slide they have to describe the setting (time & place) and describe the things in that setting as they’ve witnessed them from the movie in a way that meets provided criteria.  The third slide they will produce simply has an active URL link to a Google document with a properly formatted (example provided) script of the edited out scene they’ve conceived.  I’m thinking I’ll have students put their slides into a collaborative slide deck as we do for Fallen Stars (like Sir Sean Connery) and present.  I’m thinking I’m also going to ask students to chime in and give feedback, based on criteria I provide, to at least 2 student’s Cutting Room Floor Scene.  In their critique they need to address at least 1 direct, accurate reference from the movie probably in a threaded conversation format.  I’m only asking for 1 this time because it’s the first we’re doing things this way.  This assessment will become available later when they take on their final which has everything to do with self-assessment and self-grading with SPECIFIC EVIDENCE OF LEARNING.  I had to do this when I was at NYU in one class, and it was a pivotal experience for me!  As for this assessment being “built in a fashion that supported academic integrity” I’m not so sure I agree that this assessment was cut and dry doing that.  I feel like I could have plagiarized the words of others pretty easily actually.  Since we had to write the bullet points for 5 slides, I could have pasted the words of others then changed a few words around, aligned formatting and probably would have been good to go.  I spent WAY more than 4 hours doing this midterm assignment and plagiarizing might have taken less time.  I’m good enough with academic language that I could have pulled that off had I wanted to.  Just being real.  I don’t think there is any way to always prevent all plagiarism all the time.  I just don’t think that is, for the most part, doable especially in the times we’re currently living and teaching in.  Though, I do think that the assessment strategy I’m testing out right now comes pretty close to doing that – I’m looking forward to facilitating that assessment!  As for do I have any suggestions or not, no, I don’t.  I think the activity and assessment we took on was a powerful experience and I liked it.  I think it’s as plagiarism proof as can be, but again, not sure assessments can be totally squeaky clean when it comes to academic integrity and plagiarism prevention, again, especially in the times we’re currently in.

​I had the pleasure of reteaming with Teresa and Jefferey for this project and as I had anticipated, our three very different perspectives brought about some great conversation!  For me the revamping of the lesson actually produced some unanticipated but quite wonderful changes to the learning experience I was working with.  I had done the lesson multiple times for multiple years, but I hadn’t done it this year because I couldn’t figure out quite how to adapt it.  But, when I actually sat down to work on I found that ideas came very naturally and pretty quickly.  The lessons I’ve learned between 624 and so far in 625, I was able to adapt a performance based lesson to be meaningful and enriching in a virtual learning environment.  Perhaps ironically, the bulk of the changes happened in the assessment phase.  Rather than just me assessing the activity as I’ve always done in the past, I incorporated peer feedback and self-analysis.  One of the changes that adaptation to a virtual setting uniquely brought about was the recording of each student’s tableau performance.  This adaptation affords students the rare opportunity to see their own performance!  This is a hugely powerful element that was absent previously and improved the activity very significantly.  It’s funny, I’m sort of becoming a 21st Century Learner by osmosis.  I hadn’t anticipated that and recall how frustrated I was at the onset of this Brandman program.  But, with support from Dr. K and my fellow COP partners, I stuck with it and it seems to sinking in!  I really can’t see myself going forward without using technology is a vastly different way than I have before.  So many of the unforeseen takeaway and A HA moments that have happened for me will (and have) become an indelible part of my practice.