Why do I love blogging?
Being committed to a weekly blog pushes me to look back on the week and reflect. This reflection is very active as I have to locate information and sites that I have come across and compile my new learnings. In doing this I am creating new possibilities.
Fo example, while I was writing a blog on our start of term PD, I reflected on the presentation by Phil Stubbs of Learnology. So I went to his site and saw that he recommended Atomic Learning.
This is a resource that I think is so useful and is essential to achieve 21 Century Fluencies. It includes short instructional videos on a variety of topics such a photoshop, YouTube Chop, iMovie, video story telling such as Story Bird, how to create a Flat Classroom, and the inspiring Inanimate Alice.
On a previous trial I taught myself Moodle which I successfully used as my LMS at St Aloysius College in 2010. Without this instruction I would not have had the incredible learning experience of designing my own LMS.
What I appreciate about Atomic Learning is that I can escape the desperate trawling of YouTube and instead have access to accurate instructional videos to develop my use of ICT and web2 and so avoid searching that can waste a day or more and end in despair. So I twittered how much I loved Atomic and Phill Stubbs got back to me with a free trial.
I was thrilled how Tweeting created possibilities to make things happen. Social media opens avenues of discussion and builds relationships that can result in real change and new learnings. Together with Sue Green we have invited other teachers to trial Atomic Learning to gauge the level of interest at the school. This is so exciting. Hopefully I’ll have time to learn how to use my Mac’s capabilities that until now have remained locked to me.
Meanwhile, it has been a lovely wintery weekend and hence the perfect opportunity to to complete my presentation for the Numeracy and Literacy Expo. To do this I used Atomic Learning to make my presentation more visual by inserting video with picture frames and I also did a quick course on iMovie to combine four Flipped videos to showcase my functional grammar videos. What a relief to be able to quickly locate information and apply instantly. Job done.
Looking at Atomic’s new videos I was impressed instruction on Infographics, Bird Story, YouTube Chop and others that have an Australian speaker, links to the Australian Curriculum and ideas on how to use software in the classroom. These visual thinking apps would be great fun to learn and address the media and publishing fluencies. They can also be embedded in Canvas for student to use as part of their course.
Back to my theme of blogging, I found an inspiring blog by Pip Cleaves Live, Love, Learn, Blog: A journey of reflections…this encapsulates my feeling about blogging. My reflections are stored in my blog and then remembered and recounted to others. The possibilities that occur each week and will not be forgotten.
