Petland Playtime

Whenever we have some free time, my roommates and I like to go to Petland to play with the puppies. We all love dogs, and this way, we can enjoy the adorable puppies without the responsibility of having our own and the puppies get some play time outside of their cage! These are some of the pictures we took from our most recent visit.

Learning and Leading

The four dimensions J.P. Guilford used to describe creativity are fluency, flexibility, originality, and elaboration.  Of these four, I struggle the most with originality. Very rarely can I create something unique or unexpected.  I’m not the kind of person to think outside the box, and generally do things by the book. I struggle with assignments where I have to be inventive. From what we’ve used in class so far, I think Google Docs are a great way to inspire creativity. Many people can add ideas, which encourages fluency. Seeing other people’s ideas can inspire flexibility and make it easy to elaborate. Dabbleboard is another tool that is great to inspire creativity for the same reasons. With dabbleboard, you can even draw pictures or graphs to add to the idea. It also allows you to use previous drawings and collaborate.

Roomie Crafting

Yesterday after taking a refreshing nap, my roommate, Sarah, came home and decided she wanted to craft with me. Her mom loves sending us craft supplies, like buttons, ribbons, canvases, and all kinds of paint. We spread out a sheet in our living room and started painting. Neither of us are especially "artsy" so we both painted some of our favorite bible verses on a tiny little canvas. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable way to spend my afternoon!

Communication and Collaboration

The communication and collaboration tool I chose to make a commercial for was Pandora Internet Radio. Pandora is a free site that allows you to listen to music similar to specific artists, songs or genres you like. To ensure you are only listening to music you enjoy, they build your personal station based on the positive and negative feedbacks you give them.

Horizon Report Response

            I think that with all of the emerging technology, it is becoming more and more difficult for students to focus on any one thing at a time. Because of this, 21^st century classes will need to be more engaging and use technology. The learning environment should consist of each student having their own laptops or tablets, and with these they will read eBooks, do homework assignments, and even possibly take tests. Lectures should be given in conjunction with technology to be more engaging and interactive. Also, technology should be used more as a way to communicate with teachers or other students outside of the classroom setting. 

Meaningful Learning

       Meaningful learning is not memorizing and regurgitating information.  It is being able to take information and use it to problem solve and think innovatively.  Engaging learners to facilitate understanding and real-life application is important because many students are great at memorizing a lot of small facts for a test, but they may not actually understand what they are memorizing.  Many people can simply regurgitate words and definitions without really understanding what they are saying.  This kind of learning is not meaningful or helpful when in a real-world situation.  Students need to have experience applying what they learn to real-life scenarios.  That being said, technology can be helpful to facilitate this kind of meaningful learning.  Like the reading says, technology can be used to "actively engage" the learner and create authentic tasks.  When the technology is allowing the student to use what they have learned and apply it to real-life situations, they are more inclined to remember what they have learned long-term and actually understand it conceptually and not just through rote memorization of facts.  This is an important part of the learning process.  Learning is not meaningful until applied to an authentic task.