Week 3 - AR Project

This week we were asked to create a summary page for our AR project. The point of this is to take the time and truly think about where we have come over the past 11 months. It was sort of surreal to be putting the final thoughts on the work and this program. In writing up the summary, it brought out frustration and joy reminding me that all though I am done, it did not turn out the way I thought. My expectations are so much higher for myself and my work, yet on this, I feel as though I compromised. I lowered my standards and gave into the pressures of time. If I could continue on in this program, beginning my project now after all the course work, I believe things would have been very different. I think I would have had a better foundation for researching literature as well as an idea of what meaningful project could be tested.

We work so hard during our monthly courses that I found myself loosing sight of the AR project. However, there are many of my classmates who have done extraordinary work and should be considered model examples. Lina Varley did a phenominal job with her project on home schooling and the role of technology. Therese Josephson did a great job of demonstrating how technology can help one of the biggest issues in education, communication. Another favorite of mine, Alicia Kalb took a very realistic problem, finding a job as an educator, and presented a unbelievably useful solution with her portfolio site. There are so many others that I don't want to overlook, but I think you get the point. These people have something they should be very proud about. I, in attempting to do more attitude, actually over thought this so much that in the end I created junk.

The worse part about all this is that I could have simply done research on all the things I do everyday in my classes. In my upper level classes I promote project based learning. In my lower end classes I do the same thing but I on a much more managed scale. All classes keep a digital portfolio, use blogs, screencasts, podcasts, videos, etc to present their information. Student collaborate virtually and provide feedback and guidance on assignments and yet I decided to over look all of this and do something different. So my advice to anyone attempting to do AR would be the same I tell my students, keep it simple stupid (KISS)! Lesson learned.