Been a While

So, I haven't written in over a month. The temper of our group has not changed much nor has my opinion of this distance education experience in project-based learning. Constructivist activities like this are all the buzz in education right now, but what it comes down to is just a different face for little willingness to think, apply, or create anything new. What started out for me as an exciting place for personal growth has become defeating. The other members of my group are, at this point, only concerned about meeting requirements and getting finished. We have accomplished little that required a real, cohesive group experience. Even the summary that we wrote for the front page of our Wiki, remains disjointed and fractured, just as our group has been. I will post a few discussions that I have had with other group members just to illustrate the conflict that goes on in these situations, but all-in-all I have given up. Except to work on my individual contribution, and help the others when asked, I am holding on to the ideas with Second Life and The Paperless Classroom. We could have presented our project in Second Life, and we would have atleast been different in our delivery method, but oh well.

This is an interesting site on rubrics: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rubrics.htm
I was in support of them until this experience. With this project they have been used only to "make sure we've covered everything" and take all the creativity and originality out of the project. Look for the conversations...

Until next time.

Conference Call

We had a conference call last night. I have decided to take a backseat, and see what manifests. We assigned group roles, and I am working with the other "Lisa" in the group doing outside research, that means research other than from the Woolfolk text or Pink's book. She emailed me this morning to let me know a bit about herself. I was grateful because she is one that I felt like was ganging up on me over proposing the idea on WebCT last week. I thanked her and responded reciprocally. I am currently still working on "The Paperless Classroom" idea, but yet to see if I will use it in the end. All the research that I do can come under the umbrella of "virtual labs," or most of it, so I am going with the flow. I don't want to be extremely different in the information that I present from the group, but I really have liked looking into the whole deal. Several classes all over the nation have experimented with this, it was not an original idea come to find out...as any idea is today. I will post some links with pertinent information to "The Paperless Classroom" next time.

Also, I set up a website www.constructechvist.com to post my Philosophy of Education, Resume, and other supporting materials for my interviewing process. Schools have already begun to post there openings, so I have to get crackin' on this as soon as possible.

Until next time...

To be tied and burned at the stake

Well, at first I had a positive reaction from the "Paperless Claaroom" idea, but my excitement was short lived. FIRE. FIRE. FIRE. Alarms were going off all day today. I now regret even suggesting the idea. Two other group members and I debated about it most of the day on the discussion board, and I ended up losing my temper, not at their objections or considerations to the project, but at how they were talking to me. We haven't held a vote, but I consider it a void proposition for the group at this point. I did ask one of the group members, that is the most even-tempered and a thoughtful supervisor, if I could nominate her for group leader--she probably does not want my endorsement at this point. It would be like the Osama Bin Laden endorsing Hillary Clinton. Anyway, one group member went to our professor and pleaded her case. Dr. A said that she thought we could both do as we pleased as our ideas fit under the same umbrella of "virtual labs." So, I can proceed as I wish, and the others can proceed as they wish.

I still feel like I have again separated myself from the group, and I am just really confused at how to navigate the people and personalities of the group. I am struggling with how to get along in this situation. I know that I have very high expectations of myself and others, and that frustrates people. I know that I am hyper-sensitive to other people's emotional and mental states...I tend to absorb people's energy like a sponge and react on a personal level to it all.

I am going to have to practice stepping back, not always being the one to ask questions. I just single myself out by doing that. A physicist friend once told me that he never asked questions in High School. He said it was not that he didn't want to discuss, explore, inquire; but, he was told by his classmates to be quiet and don't make things "more complicated" than they have to be. I feel like this. I have to learn to just keep my inspiration to myself and only share it with those who can dialogue about it without feeling threatened. Tomorrow, I must forward. I am going to start writing my Educational Philosophy and stay off of WebCT for awhile. I need a psychological break.

Until next time...