Week 1 Wrap; Week 2 Preview

Thank you everyone for a terrific first class. I’m very excited to be learning together this semester. A few odds and ends to wrap up the week and get ready for the next.

Project Matching

To clarify a process question that has come up. If you want to submit an independent project, you’ll need to submit an initial proposal by 9/12. If you want to apply to a partner project, you will do so via a survey that will be released on Wednesday 9/10 after class. There is no need, at this point, to contact the project mentors directly. We are waiting to release the survey until after we describe the projects in class. Definitely be thinking about what you are hoping to do, but you won’t need to take action until after Wednesday.

Materials from Last Week

Everything that I or we created together is now shared on the syllabus, in the first week under Class Sessions. Some documents (like our list of twitter resources) is only shared in the Harvard domain. Request to share if you can’t access.

If you created anything that would be of use to your fellow learners that you would like added to the syllabus– class notes, reading notes, later reflections– link to it in a syllabus comment and I’ll add it. I’d love to link out to your resources from the syllabus.

Office Hours

I’ll get to class early next week, maybe as early as 3pm for my pre-class nervous pacing around the room. Please join me. And again, I’ll stay after class as late as need be to chat with folks, especially about project ideas.

John Hansen will have office hours–tentatively in Longfellow 324–on Thursday at 1:30-2:30pm.

TF’s will post more office hours soon as we all sort out our schedules.

Preparation for Next Week

Next week we’ll look at the history of EdTech from two perspectives– the history of distance education and the history of teaching machines. Just a reminder that I encourage you to read either one of the Rabbit Hole readings from Audrey Watters or some of her recent posts on HackEducation.com. Her last post Beyond the LMS, addresses a number of the issues that Jim Groom raises in our later readings.

I was struck in re-reading the readings for this week how I managed to choose some quite celebratory and some quite disillusioned texts for next week. So stake out your own claim, or come deeply conflicted.

We’ll also discuss and practice starting blogs, or dusting off old blogs to be used for this course, and connecting them to our syndication engine.

Also, please bring and use your name cards. Super geeky, but I really want to learn your names more quickly, and this will help me.

Network Participation

Be sure to check out The Flow tab on this site or the #T509massive hashtag as the days go by to see what folks are sharing and thinking about. And I’d encourage you to follow each other to see what else people are learning and thinking about in the rest of their lives. As you create things to prepare for next week or reflect on this week, please share. There are rumors of a twitter chat, and live discussion of readings, on Tuesday night.

Final Thoughts

A story:

The first class I attended my freshman year of college was about Rhetoric. I thought I’d be really interested in it, and the first class left me confused, unsure and bewildered. What was this new field? What were some of these words the professor was using? What was all this about? I approached the professor at the end of class with my concerns and he said, “Perfect. If you knew all about this, you wouldn’t need to take this class. Uncertain is a great place to start.”

I’m really excited to be working with all of you, doubly so if you are feeling a little uncertain. Please reach out to me if there is anything I can do.

-JR