EDC 633 - Learning Theorist Final Project

Assignment Prompt:

Ok, the SL project is off (unless you really wanted to do it - then go ahead)

Here is the alternate:

1. Choose something that people learn how to do. Could be anything, from baking a cake to snow skiing. Something you know how to do, to something you know little about.

2. Create a lesson or lesson plan for learning to do the thing from #1 that represents how your theorist would teach someone to do it.

3. You will be graded on the following:

How well does it reflect the theory?

How creative is it?

How cool is it?

Does it represent your best effort for a class at this level, given the number of days you have to invest?

4. I'll leave it to you as to how to present to everyone. Please let me know how I can be of assistance.

This lesson plan is structured with the situated learning philosophy of Etienne Wenger in mind. One of the critical aspects of successful learning is its practical focus that can be maintained through situated learning model.

My Response:

Lesson Plan Presentation Tool: Prezi (http://www.prezi.com/)

URL of Lesson Plan: http://prezi.com/4mmpzsm1_sat

Reflection: While composing my lesson plan for this final project, I reflected back to my undergraduate years where I learned about PC Components and Operating Systems for the 1st time. My professor allowed us to "dig" in with hardware and software. He wanted us not to worry about breaking something. This type of learning made it easy for my classmates and I to maintain interest.

My initial look at Prezi: I was introduced to Prezi by one of my co-workers and she stated that this Web 2.0 tool was very dynamic and simple to use. To get started, I viewed the tutorials to become more familiar with this tool. Shortly afterwards, I just started adding text and pictures.

Woolah! Again, this tool is great! I felt like "a kid in a candy store" and so will you. ;-)

Have fun and be a contributor through your community of practice (CoP).

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts about this project.

EDC 633 - Community of Practice Ethnography: Dancing

Reflection of working on this project:

On October 10, 2009, we hosted a 30th birthday party celebration for my sister-in-law at the Omni Hotel in Charlotte, NC. All of our family and friends dressed very nice to make this event stellar and rememorable. The party had a DJ who played a wide array of music from Pop, R&B, Jazz, Rock, etc. This guy was great and he kept the party going all night long. As you'll notice from this video project, this event had attendees that included family and friends from all over the country to help my sister-in-law celebrate her night to the fullest.

Based on the theory of Wenger, this video project will include the characteristics of the CoP: 1) The domain - The gathering of friends and family, 2) The community - The participation of the joint activity: Dancing, and 3) The practice - Each person invited to this event has a connection to my sister-in-law to where they can share similar and different stories to express good and challenging times. These stories shared today will be added to another set of stories for years to come.

I chose this event for my project because I wanted to 1) Observe the interaction of guests dancing, 2) Observe which songs seemed more favorable for more people to dance based on the expertise of the DJ crossfading (mixing) songs to keep the party going, and 3) Observe attendees who just wanted to sit/not participate in the activity of dancing.

As the observer, it was a challenge for me to not be a participant in this event because I like to dance and have a great time, too. This event was a success and my sister-in-law truly enjoyed herself for her 30th birthday celebration. Overall, this project allowed me to further understand what a Community of Practice (CoP) is and have fun when composing the footage covered for this grand event to help celebrate 30 as the new 20.

Again, thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts.

Challenge faced while composing this project:

I was having a difficult time finding a media converter to convert *.3GP files to *.AVI. Thank God for Prism Video Converter. It's free and it works a whole lot better than other programs claiming to do the same thing. I'm just thankful for being able to get this completed.