Using Piktochart

I have mixed feelings about Piktochart. I like that it was easy to sign up with a Google account. As a free user there are not a lot of themed pages for you to access (just seven) and you have to move to a pro account to get access to more. I chose the minimalist theme since it was the first time I had used the program. There is a tutorial, so to speak, on the page that shows you where all the buttons are, but while it was helpful it wasn't enough for a first time user. I did struggle with this program on a few key issues. I ended up having to create a second presentation because I messed up the first one.

So what can you do with Piktochart? You can move around all the lines, remove all of the pictures, add icons, move around the banners and headings, add another block of colour to extend the poster if you want, move graph bars, change numbers into letters, etc. It really is flexible that way.

Where did I have my problems? I had enough information for a page and quarter but not enough to justify adding another colour block. So I ended moving everything up the page a bit to make room for my thoughts. It was clunky to move all of the design elements up the page. When I wanted to leave the text but get rid of the picture, they were coupled together. I know there was an unlock button but the tutorial didn't cover that. I still don't know what the unlock button does- that's for next time. So I moved everything up the page and then tried to copy one of the banner headings to use further down on the page. You can copy elements alright but they just remain on top of each other. That's when I tried the unlock button so that I could move the second banner off the first. I pulled the banner apart but not in the manner I intended. I gave up after about 20 minutes and just created a text banner for the last element. Just don't remove the design elements if you want to keep using them as they are not found in the  icon bar in the same way. You have to build your own icons then (a circle, then layer another icon on top, etc) and I couldn't find the banner I wanted to reuse within the icon bars (and there are a lot of icons.) So that part of the program was frustrating. You also have to double click to edit but sometimes I felt like I was quadruple clicking to be able to open up the design elements so I could type in my own text.

 I know there is website to visit but the link is embedded in the icons so you have to double click to edit, then copy the link into your search engine and then try and decide which tutorial you need to view to solve your problem (so you have to know what your problem is, then how to express it, then search for the solution- if it is there.) You also have to do that before you start working on the chart because once you've removed that design element, the link to the help page is gone.

So will I use Piktochart again? Probably, but I know that there will be times I will be frustrated with the program. Can you use it in the classroom? Yes, but be prepared to provide lots of support.

On the last day of clmooc my true love gave to me....

Sung badly and off key...

Well, this is "officially" the last day of clmooc but if I know anything about community I would say that we'll be meeting, making and reflecting together in the future. I certainly hope so. I still have to make a stop action film that I look forward to sharing. (I do have the photos so I'll try to do that in the next few days and I'll post about it too.)

So here's my list of twelve gifts (in honour of the song) that have made my journey through #clmooc so memorable:

1. New connections, old connections renewed and deepening of connections. There is something so lovely about meeting new people and being exposed to new ways of thinking and doing. It also wonderful to interact more deeply with those that I've brushed up against in the past. The generosity in sharing has been tremendous. Thank you to everyone for making this a great community.

2. Feedback. This community has been wonderful about giving feedback, which helps me to reflect and look at something I've created or said from a different perspective, as well as reflect and think on what others have said. As someone who needs feedback to round out my ideas this has been invaluable.

3. Makes. The ideas about remixing, creating, the choice of topics and the ideas have been wonderful. I am so impressed with the creativity of all participants. Great makes deserve to be shared and there have been some wonderful makes. Hopefully I'll get a make into the make bank soon.

4. Software. The range of software being produced to help create and share is mind boggling and can be overwhelming. The clmooc facilitators made inspired choices for getting us out of comfort zones and into new ways of looking, creating, thinking and sharing about the world around us. Thank you so much for expanding my repertoire!

5. Networks. To everyone who is brave enough to network, and share something of ourselves digitally, thank you for being part of my connected learning network. I so appreciate being invited into the clmooc space. I feel like I could go into a classroom tomorrow and have all of you as back up if I run into problems. What an empowering feeling.

6.  Lurkers. Thank you for thinking about lurkers and what they bring to a mooc or any other learning situation. We've all been a lurker, whether in person (does everyone put up their hand first to do a task? volunteer? etc.) or in our digitalverse and it is right to acknowledge their contribution. Fear in a learning situation needs to be acknowledged, not as a negative, but as the first step towards learning in a new environment.

7. Power. Who has the power in a learning relationship? I've been fascinated with this discussion and the idea that I don't have to have the power to be a successful teacher. I look forward to having the opportunity to put this idea into practice. 

8. Open ended community. The idea that we can continue to make and share, make and share has a powerful allure. I hope that even once we've gone back to work that we continue to make time for each other and continue our connection.

9. Experts. Thank you to all of you who shared powerful ideas and creations, plus provided support and inspiration to us all on this journey. Your making expertise and encouragement allowed the rest of us to be successful and become experts in our own right.

10. Organization. Clmooc has been very well thought out. The care you have put into creating a digital learning community is very evident. I appreciate being a beneficiary of that thoughtfulness.

11. The acknowledgement of my own gifts as a creator. Through clmooc I have recognized that I am, indeed, a good writer and creator and that I should foster those talents. How can I foster and nurture the talents of others if I cannot do it for myself? Thank you clmooc for making that so much clearer.

12. The opportunity to write with purpose. Purpose helps fuel my writing. Because of the reflective nature of clmooc I've re-read my own blog to see how far I've come. Certainly many of my attitudes have changed over time this year as I've been exposed to new ideas and new ways of making and sharing. I'm still resistant to the term curation for anything other than museum/archival work but other than that I can seen I've grown tremendously as a person and a teacher.

Thank you clmooc 2013!

Liebster Nominee

Well Sheri Edwards has sent me a challenge!
She's nominated me for a Liebster so I have to follow the list below and answer her list of questions too.

Liebster Nomination Rules
1. Link back to the blog that nominated you.
2. Nominate 5-11 blogs with less than 200 followers. 
3. Answer the questions posted for you by the nominator.
4. Share 11 random facts about you.
5. Create 11 questions for your nominees.
6. Contact your nominees to inform them of their nomination.

So with the intent of completing the list above I started to look though my network to see who I should nominate that has the all important "less than 200 followers" ( and I know I am on that list!) portion of the challenge. Stumbling block #1: where do I find that? Does every blog have a location for the # of followers? I am tempted to just change this portion of the list to: Bloggers I think everyone should be reading but have yet to find. And if I nominate someone and they have more than 200 followers will they be insulted? Sadly, because I am deficient in this type of internet/blogger knowledge it almost stops me from completing the challenge.

I have chosen to nominate people were participants in ETMOOC, Open Spokes or clmooc. Sheri Edwards would be on this list if she hadn't sent the challenge to me. 

So in no particular order:

Christina Hendricks who writes a wonderful blog and who is brave enough to have a True Friend relationship with IamTalkyTina.
Glenn Hervieux Always a reflective thinker. Glenn has teaching experience at all grade levels.
Brendan Murphy Brendan is a math teacher who drifted over to the educational technology side. He's currently getting all of the mentors organized prior to launching OOE13 this fall.
Susan Spellman Cann: A teacher who is always mindful of the impact she has on her students.
Gallit Zvi:  I'm always interested in what Gallit has to say as she and I share a lot of common traits (including talking our way to learning!) She's a person who is not shy of starting new challenges.
Bart Miller: Because anyone who can write a symphony deserves to be on this list!

I'd love to include Jeremy Inscho in the list but I'm not sure where he blogs.


So here is the list of questions Sheri posed to me. Now some of these I won't be able to answer as I no longer work in a classroom, but once a classroom teacher, always a classroom teacher! So I will write about it as if I was still in the classroom.

1. Why do you blog?
2. What’s the most important thing a teacher can do for his or her students?
3. What’s the most important thing a teacher can do for his or her colleagues?
4. If you could change one physical thing about your classroom, what would it be?
5. Describe one of your most memorable classroom experiences.
6. What memorable experience do you hope your students have?
7. How many students/teachers do you have at your school?
8. What is your favorite classroom use of technology?
9. Who/what is your teaching inspiration?
10. What is 1 teaching goal you have for this school year?
11. In six words, what is your teaching philosophy?


1. Why do I blog?
Initially I began blogging because it was a course requirement for MOOCMOOC. I'd never blogged before. I've always written, just jotting down thoughts about different things I was thinking about as well as personal letters to my husband (when your spouse is away as often as mine is, written communication is a must to maintaining a decent relationship. It is often easy to misconstrue what is said, but writing requires/allows for  more thought and clarity.) I blog more frequently when I am in a course and that course is asking me to think, make and reflect. I do not yet blog as an outlet for my personal inner workings (still shy about that!) but I have no barrier to sharing my professional ideas and thoughts (though they often veer into the personal.) I have started to blog as a matter of habit, as the education world shifts to accommodate the rise of social media, the idea of remixing as legitimate art ( and when wasn't it legitimate?) and the impact that creating will have on teaching and the field of education. 

2. What’s the most important thing a teacher can do for his or her students?
 This question is a blog post on it's own! I think the most important thing you can do for a student is believe in them. Trust them as learners. Allow them to be learners. Don't dismiss their love of hockey cards, or manga or dinosaurs or novels or kittens as something not worthy of knowing. Use their natural interest in a subject to allow them to explore. Join them in that journey,encourage them to widen the net but also to delve the depths, validate their search for knowledge and appreciate the product.

3. What’s the most important thing a teacher can do for his or her colleagues?
Share. I was thinking originally about empathy but classroom teaching can be quite isolating and I love the idea of connected learning not only for our students but for ourselves. We need a strong professional network, a sounding board for ideas and a place to experiment for ourselves as learners. Hard to model being a learner if you're not learning with your peers.

4. Now this is a tough one since I don't have a classroom but I think it may be getting rid of individual desks. Desks make it hard to share and collaborate. I'd rather have a cubby for everyone and a flat surface that we can write on together. If I was in a classroom with desks, I might get whiteboard paint and paint them so we could write on the surface.

5. Macbeth with my Grade 6's. I love plays and drama as a way to help students explore stories and so I chose Macbeth. We started with Greek mythology and I had the students convert them into a play that they then put on. I worked up to Macbeth by first showing them a cartoon movie, then a one page cartoon, then a seven page dog cartoon, then a historical story about Macbeth and then the actual play (which I had edited and hung together with choral speech.) I invited actors and directors from the local area  into the classroom to talk to my students, and one of my students designed the set and we built it out of boxes. I'd write to them as Macbeth and have them respond as Lady Macbeth.The music teacher actually taught them Elizabethan music and dance which they also performed. I had them create a website and design the invitations as well as write reviews of the play. We put the play on and the students were giddy with the excitement of accomplishing something amazing. 

6. I wish them the joy of exploration where they are able to see that they are capable of great things, big thoughts and seeing connections. I want them to have that ah ha! moment that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

7. N/A

8. I love using presentation technology that allows students to create and share something that they have learned. PowerPoint, Haiku Deck, Prezi, YouTube, Storify are some of the different software students can use to illustrate and share.

9. My mother is my teaching inspiration. She was a teacher when I was growing up. She completely understood my need to explore and helped foster my love of learning. She gave us regular opportunities to explore new places and answered all of questions with enormous patience.

10. My number one teaching goal is to be in the classroom again. I miss it very much.

11. Learning together helps us all grow.

11 Random Facts about Me:

1. I have blue dot tattoo on my left knee from where I accidentally stabbed myself with a pen when I was a child.

2. When you put a dandelion under my chin my skin glows yellow. Supposedly this means I like butter. This is true. I do like butter.

3. I have made Peking Duck from scratch. Since I didn't have a meat hook to hang the duck on to dry (this makes the skin crispy) I used a large empty bottle of Quebec beer. It worked well! The duck was delicious.

4. I went to university instead of art school. 30 years later I still wonder if I made the right decision.

5. I have seven different cowlicks on my head and a double crown. If I cut my hair too short I look like a mad professor (or that I have been sticking my finger in a light socket.)

6. I am the shortest person in my family (even shorter than my parents.) That wouldn't be so bad if I also wasn't the heaviest, the blindest and inherited my father's colour dysfunctional-ity. I also had 6 wisdom teeth. I told my mother, that as the eldest, I was the clearing house for all of the bad genes (she thinks I'm kidding.)

7. I passed my six wisdom teeth problem to my eldest son. He had his wisdom teeth removed- twice.

8. When I was eight I could swim 50 laps of the racing pool in 30 minutes. When I was 30 I could do the same. I swim like a stately barge up and down the pool ( my mother's description.)

9. I read in the shower. (If you wish to know how to do this successfully without wetting your reading material send me an email.) I still haven't figured out how to complete puzzle books in the shower so if you have, send me an email with the solution.

10. I love to garden. There is something so renewing about seeing the birth of spring, planting in the soil, the texture and smell of the earth and seeing the first seedlings poke out of the ground. Gardens sooth both the mind and body.

11. I put ketchup on my French toast in the morning (unless I am at a restaurant and they've mixed cinnamon into the egg batter.) My parents are from England and Australia and that's how I ate it when I was growing up. My husband (of Canadian background on both sides) thinks that's disgusting and eats it with maple syrup (as do my three sons.)



11 Questions for my Nominees

1. Why do you blog?
2. What’s the most important thing a teacher can do for his or her students?
3. What’s the most important thing a teacher can do for his or her colleagues?
4. If you weren't a teacher what would you do instead?
5. Describe one of your most memorable classroom experiences.
6. What memorable experience do you hope your students have?
7. How do you incorporate connected learning into your classroom?
8. What is your favorite classroom use of technology?
9. Who/what is your teaching inspiration?
10. Where/what do you hope to be doing ten years from now?
11. In six words, what is your teaching philosophy?

Communicating, connecting and networking

So I'm still in reflection mode about my own learning so you'll have to bear with one more clmooc reflection. And it's not really so much a clmooc reflection as it is a reflection about 2013 so far, my "mooc" year. Since we're supposed to be blogging and sharing I've had a bit of time to review what I've been writing this year. And I've noticed a trend. I write more when I am making than I do when I am supposed to be thinking. In fact, I am beginning to think that all of my writing is dependent on making. I use the make as a springboard to further my understanding of the process of making, the resulting make and how it has impacted my learning. I use the make as a tool to communicate my ideas, and use the sharing of the make as a way to build connections. From my connections, I receive feedback and new ideas for makes, which increases the number of products I make, which foster new communication and new connections. Loop upon loop. Eventually, the connections become a network.

Now, as I am relatively new to the idea of networking my network is not extensive but it is there. And while three months ago I was nervous that I would not maintain my network I realize now that while I might leave my network to go on vacation or because of computer issues or work pressures I will always return. Being connected has become necessary. And that connection requires communication and making to be maintained. Make and share, make and share. My new mantra.

Using the tools of the web

I am continuing to reflect on my learning within the clmooc environment. The learning curve in clmooc has not been as steep as either MoocMooc or ETMOOC as indicated by my prezi contribution of a few weeks ago. I'm not feeling guilty anymore because I don't post on everyone's contribution, I don't always do all the work, and I am more forgiving of my mistakes. I used to feel guilty though.  It's hard to break old ways of thinking and doing.

2013 has been a year of tremendous growth for me. I`m much more comfortable in the socially networked communication environment and more willing to take the risks of creating and sharing. I want to connect and I am willing to make those connections. As George Siemens says "Our connections are now global," (Thanks Diane Samson for sharing this video.) I don't think it is because I have removed my super-ego from the equation, but that I realize that much of the negative views I have of my work are my own. So while I am still very critical of what I make, being in this environment gives me the push I need to produce work that is NOT perfect. In this environment it is not expected. And that is so freeing.

I'm more willing to try a variety of tools that the web has to offer now. Since starting clmooc I've used Animoto, Prezi, and Infinite Monkeys for the first time, gone back and used Popcorn Maker again (which has already been updated since I used it last! That was only four months ago!), tried my hand at Thimble again (baby steps, baby steps), and attempted to attach my blog RSS, which I have 50/50 chance of doing successfully- who knew this would continue to plague me after all these months! Perhaps it is because I don't want to create a new blog just for clmooc. But that's ok too. I'll get it eventually. And when I get my new computer, I will make a stop action film!

I love learning the new ways of making, but that is because I enjoy the process of learning how to use a tool as much as I love the creation that results from the use of the tool. It melds both my analytical nature of "How does this work?" with my creative side of "What can I make?" And what finer type of learning is there? Thanks clmooc for giving me a summer of makes!

Connected Learning and reflections on making

Well I've hacked Chad's Thimble page. Unfortunately, I am not thimbley enough to be able to alter the map so I've added in what I thought originally was superfluous information (my children, my siblings, etc.) However, on reflection, my place in the family as the eldest of five, and the impact that my children have had on my growth and learning over the years had to be included. It's connected. It's connected to my emotional well being as well as my need to learn. There was no spot for my husband specifically but he is the long pink line (and I included the times he was away that impacted most heavily on our family- not all- my tube map would then run out of London and into the country side.) Sometimes I wonder why I have invested so much into formal learning, since financially it hasn't always been the smartest thing for me to do. My resume is littered with incomplete transcripts from universities I've attended but left because we've moved. I've commuted over 6 hours a week to get to class and then had to pack it in because we've moved yet again. Thank goodness I am stubborn. It took me over 15 years to get my Masters at more than three universities.

What is the power of making? The power of understanding. The power of reflection. To create this map I started first with Sara Green's titles and filled them in. But I hadn't entered more than three titles before I realized I needed to think and reflect on my learning, not Sara's. Not to treat this as an exercise/fill in the blank opportunity, but as an exercise to study how does everything I do (pottery workshops, moocs, classes, cooking with my mother) impacts on everything I teach and learn. How has my personal life impacted on my professional life? They are intertwined and cannot be disconnected, just as my interactions in moocs cannot be disconnected from my work as an instructional designer.

For me, I pursue both formal and informal learning opportunities for a number of reasons: employment, curiosity, enhancement and/or exploration of new skills, and for the needed external push to keep on improving. But why connected learning? Because I am someone who recognized early in my life that I need feedback, conversation and exposure to different perspectives to make my learning happen at the highest level. It is when I connect the most, that my brain is firing the fastest. I literally could spend my life just conversing about ideas with others. In the end though, while my learning is socially driven, the satisfaction is always personal. And perhaps, that is why it is so important to me to share. Wouldn't it be nice for all of our students to be connected and have that sense of personal satisfaction from their learning?

Infinite Monkeys: Part III

Well here it is: My first app.

Feedback welcome!

I ended up making a document with links to my YouTube playlist and a number of blogs so that I could add some more information to the app. Publishing the app is very easy.

So my overall rating for using the program is mixed. There is an assumption of knowledge (like how to submit RSS feeds) that did make it challenging, but having created the app if I had a particular subject I am interested in sharing I can see using this again.

If I was teaching this (and I did use this video for support) I would have structured it differently. I would have talked about the gathering of resources a little more and perhaps how to choose resources (since your limited to nine icons) and different ways to stretch out the content through the use of documents, etc. Many of the resources that are used in the video were not relevant to the building of my app. As you work through the video, you can see how he is embedding already made content (calendars, etc.) with the words, "Real simple." I loathe those words as it always makes me feel 'real dumb' as I struggle to build the content required to make the app at least somewhat useful. This would be an extremely useful app builder if I was a business owner.

All in all, I learned a lot!