Wisdom from the eMe

During my time here at the University of Minnesota, I have been through many classes where there have been some sort of online component or technical aspect that was either required or was provided for additional support for the students. In Aaron Doering and George Veletsianos’ article Conversational Agents and their Longitudinal Affordances on Communication and Interaction, I had a very personal reaction to this piece because I recently completed the EDHD 5007 class through the I.L.P./M.Ed where I was required to create my own eFolio to record my personal accomplishments and what I did to complete all of the various standards and benchmarks in order to receive my Minnesota board approved teaching license. As the paper noted, the class only met once, every other week, for about three hours at a time, and the amount of time in the classroom was dedicated to learning about the new technologies that we could possibly be encountering or instigating as new teachers in our future teaching placements. This left little time for us to actually learn about how to use the eFolio site and how to go about creating the most effective portfolio. Because we learned little more than how to upload a photo or a document, most of use had to figure out on our own time outside of class how to navigate this non-user friendly site. Our instructor made sure to inform my class that there were online-help tutorials, but I don’t ever remember being told about the Conversational Agents to help out with this daunting task.

While I was working on my own eFolio, I was able to figure out what to do for the most part, but it did take hours upon hours of trial and error to actually get a decent looking semi-final product. If I had known about the Conversational Agents before I started to work on it individually, I wonder if the process would have been much easier for me? Would I have taken full advantage of them? Would I have saved time? Would I have a better-finalized eFolio? I don’t know if the Conversational Agents would be the best option for me, as I like to have quick and direct instruction. When I’m not talking to a real person, it becomes very easy for me to zone out or not completely understand what the avatar tells me. I know this because when I was listening to this week’s assignment through the Gizmoz avatar that Thom sent to us last week, and had to repeat it several times before catching everything I needed to know. I prefer to either have the directions right in front of me, or to have a real life person whose body language I can read at the same time. I rely on so much more than just a floating head talking to me. I can definitely see how the Conversational Agents can be more beneficial and supportive than if the user had no help at all.

Speaking of Gizmoz, after trying my hand at creating my own avatar, I spent some time trying to think of how I could use this program as an assignment in my own future classrooms. At first it was really hard for me to think of ways in which this product could be used in the classroom to ENHANCE my lesson, rather than just use Gizmoz for the sake of using them. I had a classmate who informed me that she tried using the Gizmoz in the class she will be teaching, by using it to introduce an assignment. Her students were surprised and slightly confused as to why she was using it (and in my opinion, I was a bit confused as well. I couldn’t figure out how using it to introduce their free-writing assignment really enhanced her lesson). Here is a layout of an assignment that I came up with for how to use the Gizmoz/avatars with my future students:

Digital-You Book Reporting

In today’s day and age, so many things are resorting to using the digital world to get their points across. In this assignment, you will be creating an avatar and reporting on your independent reading book through this innovative technology!

1.) Write your book report. Make sure to include a quick plot summary, 3 important findings from the book, if you would recommend this text, and why or why not? Make sure that you have this completed before we go to the computer lab.

2.) Practice reading this out loud. This is what your classmates will hear during your presentation on the book. This part must be clear, understandable, and loud enough for us to hear what you are saying. When spoken, the book report should be 2-4 minutes long.

3.) Create an avatar- this is the digital-you who will be presenting your book report. Be creative; make it you; be appropriate. If you have to ask me if it is appropriate for school, it’s probably not… (See yellow handout with instructions on how to create your avatar!) We will be in the computer lab on _____________ and ______________ to work on this.

4.) Bring your avatar to life! Using the avatar program, record yourself saying your book report aloud. It may take several tries to get your recording just perfect, so take your time, and have fun with it. Write your book report. Make sure to include a quick plot summary, 3 important findings from the book, if you would recommend this text, and why or why not? Save often. Once you have a finished product MAKE SURE TO COPY DOWN THE URL HERE:

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5.) Presentation: Let your avatar do the talking! On the last day, each student will have the opportunity to play his or her avatar for the class.

**After the presentations, we will have a short discussion on the pros and cons of using avatars instead of paper copies of reports like these.**



DUE DATES:

Written script of book report: ______________________

Presentation date:______________________