Teacher Development

This week in Digcit we participated in a teacher development. Normally the teachers of a department come into a room and they listen to another admin or teacher tell them new things to incorporate in there class room.

This week, instead of a teacher telling them what to use. We did. We though of fun and interactive ways we could use our ipads in class. We used different apps and websites and platforms on the ipads to accomplish this. It was a really cool experience to be able to teach the teachers. It was like our roles flipped for a few hours. It was also funny to see that the teachers acted the way students normally act in a class room. They were talking and messing around on their ipads, and sometimes it was actually really hard to get their attention. I guess we now know how it feels to be a teacher.

We introduced them to a lot of different tools and hopefully they will be incorporated in the classroom. The theme that we came up with was collaboration. We decided that we wanted more ways to collaborate with other students in and outside of the class room. It was really interesting to hear the ideas that we came up with during our planning. 

Now it wasn't all just teaching. The day was a half day so instead of going home we just stayed after school and waited for it to start. It was a great time because our teacher bought us pizza and soda and a few of us went to cookout and it was just a fun experience before and after the event. 

Passion project Progress

I know this post is a little later than normal but I want to update you on how my passion project is going and the progress I have gotten.

So, so far I have not had as much progress as I would have liked but, that is partly my fault. I have not been as focused as I need to be. I have what I want to do layed in front of me, I just need to execute. So, tomorrow I have a meeting with the head of the organization I am working with, Crisis assistance Ministry and we are going to talk about my project to come. One of the requirements for this project is to have a mentor. I am hoping that she will be able to become my mentor because, one, she will be a great help because of her experience in homeless outreach, and two, because I have no one else to ask.

I will also be getting my collection location set up soon and getting ready for the weeks ahead of hoody collection.

I know that this blog is a lot shorter than normal, but I haven't had much progress on my project yet. I will update next week with more detail.

Twitter Chats

This week in DigCit, we were introduced to twitter chat. Its a way where people from all over the world can talk through twitter by using a hashtag everytime we post. We use a website called tweetdeck so we can manage the feed by keeping columns where we can get tweets that use that hashtag. 

If I were to create a twitter chat I would do it on the problems of homelessness. I scrolled through a resource that had a list of a lot of available twitter chats and I didn't see any that were on homlessness. Not to say that their aren't any, but there are just not a lot. I saw a lot on the topic of business and socail media. If I were to use it as part of my passion project I would create the hashtag and then I would promote it through all other forms of social media and get people to join. I would ask people to retweet it on twitter and tell everyone they know to join the chat. I know that I probably won't get all that many people to join, however the more people that know about it, the more chance I have of a bigger audience. 

Twitter chat is a really effective way to communicate because it is an easy we to reach anybody. Anyone can create a twitter and anyone can use the hashtag. Twitter is an international website and it is just as easy for someone next door to me to join as it is for someone in France to join. I think of it as a central platform in which everyone can participate.

Shark Tank

Week three. It has been great. Earlier this week did a "Shark Tank" propasal project where we pitch our idea to the class and get feedback. It was a really great experience where I was given good and bad feedback on how to make my projecty better. It really helped to narrow my focus on a couple of things. Before I did not have any idea of who my mentor could. Now I was given the idea of asking someone at the organization I'm working with to be my mentor. I realized that it was perfect. All they do there is help the homeless and the poor and will be able to give a lot of good guidance.

I also learned a few things on how I should approach my video. Before I was going to just walk around town and find some homeless people that might talk to me on camera and tell me about their story. I then learned that one, it could be a little dangerous, and two, that I should try to form relationships with people before I ask to get them on camera. I want to go down to the organization I am working with and ask them if there are any people that frequent the place. If there are then I will be able to talk to  them every time they visit.

In the future weeks ahead lke next week, I plan on having contacted my organization, a contact my teacher gave me who does a lot of outreach work in California will have been contacted by me. I plan on getting a little guidance and a push in the right direction from him. He most likely can't function as a full time mentor simply because of the distance of 5000 miles but we can skype and talk some things out. I also plan on having contacted a few places to see if I could place collection boxes in a few spots to start the collection going soon.

This should start getting exciting and I will keep you posted next friday on my progress. See you soon.