Blog Journal #9

I haven’t really enjoyed distance learning so much this semester. Zoom makes it difficult and awkward to interact with other students, and I’m in a few classes where class discussion is a key part of the course. I’m not sure how I’d combat this as a teacher, but cultivating a fun and engaging classroom environment would definitely be a priority for me. Something I like about distance learning is that I am able to go at more of my own pace with some classes. I have issues with auditory processing, so I prefer watching a video of a lecture, where I can pause and rewind as much as I want, to watching a lecture live.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are freely-distributed resources that are licensed for reuse, remixing, and redistribution. OER are specifically created for use by teachers, and can include lesson plans, tests, syllabi, and other educational media. This article, “16 OER Sites EveryEducator Should Know,” gives a thorough list of some of the OER websites thatare currently available online. This article is geared towards a higher-education audience, and includes resources such as textbooks, ebooks, and syllabi.

The first PowerPoint assignment was my first experience making a PowerPoint show and using lecture notes. I don’t think my lecture itself was very good, but I did an okay job utilizing the technology. The second PowerPoint assignment taught me how to make games on PowerPoint, which was surprisingly easy, albeit tedious. This is definitely a fun skill that I’d want to use in the classroom.