trello – Julia Falzon

Today in EDCI336 we had the pleasure of video-conferencing Verena Roberts. Verena is a teacher and an expert in open pedagogy. In her own teaching, she values inquiry, active participation, and community engagement. I have included some notes that I took during her presentation below:

Open Education Practice: intentional design to expand and share learning opportunities for all learners across classroom walls encourage network participation from different cultural groups

Designing for sharing
Multiple perspectives (everyone has a voice)
Participatory learning
Develop and encourage personal learning networks (PLN)
Design and value safe learning spaces
Expanded learning environments do not just have to be online
Creating resources with the intention to share them openly (Google Classroom makes it hard to share resources–use Trello instead!)

RELATIONSHIPS: intentional interactions, collaborations, connections that facilitate digital literacy

Verena used an innovative polling tool (polleverywhere) in order to interact with both of the groups and get to know us all before she started her presentation.

Verena’s research questions:

How do I search & communicate online? Finding credible content, communicating online
Who is my online audience? Data, security, digital mapping, data analysis
How do I solve a community problem? à Authentic resources, using social media, connecting outside the classroom, using open content
What is my story & how does my story inform my identity? Critical thinking, storytelling/perspectives (Indigenous lens)

Find Verena on twitter: @verenaz

Trello is a tool that allows students to take charge of their own learning. Trello helps students (or anyone, for that matter) to organize their projects. It helps students break down their projects into manageable components. It also facilitates collaboration. Trello users can invite others to be admins of their board. This makes working in a group much easier because you know what needs to be done, what is currently being done, and what has already been completed. This takes some of the anxiety that many students feel out of group work. Trello also ensures that users can take care of every tiny detail, while not losing sight of the bigger picture. Trello user friendly and highly visual. I love finding new ways to be organized, so I am very thankful that I have been exposed to Trello!