Toons and AR work: getting to know our LCs

Cartoons to get to Know Someone
When we were first given the syllabus for 665, we had to create a Learning Activity that would be a small part of a larger course in which we would work at using the planning of Understanding By Design. My group spoke right away of what we wanted to do, and after talking with Melissa, came up with some greater clarification and direction that we wanted to proceed. We all decided that for us, Virt Camp was something although meant to be well designed, lacked design. So, we put our head together to create a new improved vision for Virt Camp or an introductory camp like it. What we soon realized, given our LA was that our focus and G7’s focus were very similar. We both valued getting to know people in our groups before we opened up to them. They created a really fun activity that I can see using in my own classroom not just with getting to know others.

As students of OMET, we are conducting research in our field of work. Each semester, we are asked ot switch learning circles in which we learn, support, and challenge one another’s research work. The challenge in switching LC’s so much is that you have to relearn someone else’s project and how far they have come. In order to make that process simpler and more clear, G7 developed a cartoon acitivty where I would create a toon of my AR without captions, then in our LC we would exchange toons and another of my LC members would add the captions to go with my AR work. The three toon programs we could use were ToonDoo (web-based), BitStrips (web-based) or ComicLife (download free trial software). We were also asked to read an article about building trust in online learning circles.

It was fun to see the hard work some put into their toons and as usual how others would not contribute. This was a fun activity and was nice to see a bridge between our 665 class and 638. I thought their activity was very effective as did Margaret because she is adding this as an activity to assist in our LC work.

The followed their activity with a survey for us to complete looking at the connections between this activity in their essential questions and learning goals. I think it did an effective job and is something I am going to use in my own classrooms.