Social Learning: Learning from Others

Learning from Others

It is impossible to say that I didn't learn from others throughout this course. After all, that is all this course is about: learning how to learn from others. Even each tech task had some foreign element to it, foreign meaning from outside the ECMP 355 class. Online and f2f classes provided us with the opportunity to learn from others through watching instructional/creative videos, experiencing screensharing, listening to guest lectures, and mass information sharing. Here is a highlight about my learning from my classmates:

Dionne's Blog
This post made by Dionne: So What's the Difference?, provided a wonderful opportunity to not only share my learning but to involve myself in a discussion of ideology and personal opinion. Having a family member with a mental illness, a misinterpretation of some of Dionne's language initially upset me. We then began to discuss and exchange information about our stance about mental illness and the justice system in regards to the Greyhound bus incident that occurred last year. The comment thread is loaded with information and mature discussion, so, you should check it out. As well, in this post: Final Project [Project #1 Done], we discussed censorship and learning. I was also able to check out her wiki to see how she worked through it. It is possibly something I would like to try to do in the future. I don't have any ideas yet, for a wiki. I already have my podcasts going, so, maybe I'm good for now?

Podbean
Just the other day, actually, I was reading Tessa's blog about podcasting and she mentioned she uploaded her podcast onto Podbean. After creating my first podcast I received this comment:
gideonburton - "I hope you continue to produce. If you do, then you could turn your audio work into a true podcast (rather than just a downloadable mp3) by embedding it in an RSS feed."
Tessa's method was a perfect way to syndicate my podcast so I created a Podbean account and have started to put up my podcasts: http://erikaspodcast.podbean.com/. Since the music I used was not through creative commons or with permission (oops..) I had to omit it. I also received this comment, which also lead me to make that decision:
Dan - "I wrote a post earlier this year entitled, 'Don't Let Your Students Use Music In Their Video Projects,' the general thrust of which is that students should establish tone and theme through editing and content, using someone else's music only as a last resort."
I realized that my podcast could also work without the music (PERFECT!), so, that is why it is slightly different on the Podbean podcast.

The Animoto Grandiose/Fiasco
At the time we had to create our digital stories, I think I was one of the firsts to post up my videos (inspired after my Skype chat with Teryl). After that a lot of people mentioned me in their posts and I was surprised to see that I (mis)guided others' actions:
Tessa - Frustrated
Amber - Animoto Video
Alej - Story in a Blink
Mickey - Ting bu dong!

Using Amber's Videos for My Mentorship
After chatting with Amber, I am going to use the videos she created for her final project as sources for my mentorship. I am glad my students can learn from her and I don't have to "re-invent the wheel" as Ms. Edwards stated.