Week 5 down... Week 6 here we come!

Time seems to be on fast forward these days.  Either that or I have too many things to do, and not enough time to do them in.  When did week 5 just end?  Time flies when you're having fun, and when you have a ton of your plate I guess.  The past couple of weeks on EDDE 803 have been relatively 'quiet'.  We haven't had discussion forums, and our live session was cancelled due to unforeseen events.  The internship is fast and furious with a lot of discussion forum posts, and I assume that the short gradeable assignments will start to come in at some point soon in that course.


In the internship I actually ended up partly grading the first of the papers that came in. I grade it first, and the instructor of record looks it over does the final actual grading, this way the learner gets feedback and I get feedback as well. Since I've been teaching for a few years I am approaching this as an opportunity for peer review, so I am approaching my role as an intern in a mostly-an-instructor (but not quite) way.  It took me a few weeks to settle into this role, but this is what feels comfortable at the moment.  The only thing that's still a little fuzzy is helping this cohort of learners with their ePortfolio.  I haven't quite gotten around to making heads or tails of this fuzzy directive.  There is an ePorfolio moodle 'course' (more of a community really) for AU, so why not use that? I guess, phrased differently: what is lacking in that course community that requires my intervention, and how can I best address it.  I think this will be a week 6 and 7 goal for me (answering this question), which will give me  five weeks to do something before the semester comes to an end.

In terms of EDDE 803, the next big deliverable, due in a couple of weeks, is a paper and presentation on some aspect of teaching and learning.  I decided to go back to games and gamification.  Even though Jen presented on this last year (probably around this time of year too), I thought I could expand a bit on the subject.  Starting with her presentation as a jump-off point, I decided to read through some books on games and gamification that I acquired a few months ago and not tread the same path as her.  I was thinking of gamifying the presentation itself, but with the clock ticking down, I am not sure how successfully I'll be able to do this.  I think I will go back and review some coursera videos I have on Gamification (Werbach's MOOC), and Games in Education (Steinkuhler & Squire) to see if I am forgetting something (which I probably am at this point). Inevitably things will be left out because there is only so much you can include in a 4,000 - 5,000 word paper.

I guess keep on keeping on is the motto, until the end of the semester?



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