Winter Break Projects: Twitter, Self-Efficacy, HEART

I've got three big projects that I am working on during our (brief) winter break, and luckily they are all three related to the #HumanMOOC as well, so I will be using this blog to document those projects and share them out with the HumanMOOCers also. Here are the three projects:

* Twitter Bootcamp. This is something I am doing for the Academic Tech Expo at my school (University of Oklahoma) which takes place on January 15; since I am not there in person for the Expo (I like in NC), I'm creating this pre-Expo asynchronous experience, hoping to bring more people to Twitter and... ideally... foster a Twitter backchannel for the Expo. I'm putting the materials at the existing blog for our #OpenTeachingOU chats, and I'll write some more in a separate post about my hopes for this project... and perhaps the Bootcamp can even be useful to participants in HumanMOOC who would like to learn / learn more about Twitter.
I'll label posts about this project both HumanMOOC and Twitter Bootcamp.

* Laura Ritchie's new book: Self-Efficacy. I'm writing a review of Laura Ritchie's book, and I'm so excited about what I am learning there that I need to take some detailed notes before I write the actual review. I'll be sharing those notes here, and I think they will be of interest to other HumanMOOCers also. Laura is active at Twitter and other social media spaces, so I'm sure we can bring her in to answer questions, share ideas. I just finished the book; now I need to re-read and take notes (no Kindle, alas, so the note-taking is kind of time-consuming).
I'll label those posts both HumanMOOC and Self-Efficacy.

* Learn by HEART. In addition to lots of little changes to my classes for the new semester, I have one BIG change, which is building on the Growth Mindset project from my last semester (such a big success! best new component that I have added to my classes in many years) to add some additional types of challenges for students to do: HEART: Health/Happiness, Empathy, Attention, Reading, and Time. This will still be a work in progress when the semester gets started, but since I am feeling confident about this based on the students' reaction to Growth Mindset, I am not worried about building that with the students' help as the semester goes along.
I'll label those posts both HumanMOOC and Learn by HEART.

Today is the first Monday that I am not "at work" ... and instead just working on projects I am really excited about. School starts officially on January 18, and I am opening my classes one week early as usual on January 11 which is also the day Twitter Bootcamp "starts" (insofar as an asynchronous thing "starts") ... which gives me almost FOUR GLORIOUS WEEKS to work on this stuff.

And since last semester went really well, I don't even need a few days to recover. I had a totally fun weekend... and now I am ready to enjoy the break by learning all kinds of new things. Whoo-hoo!

HumanMOOC: first thoughts

I had learned about HumanMOOC from Adam Croom at Twitter last week and I had signed up, thinking it was starting December 7, and then by accident saw a Hangout announcement at Google+ already today, Saturday (Dec. 5)... it was a quick one, just 30 minutes, with George Siemens (Hangout link). I listened to the whole thing (which is a good sign) and it was interesting of course, but it also left me wondering: why would I want to do this course exactly? The item in the course description that had pulled me in was something about making things we can use in our classes or something to that effect, but the impression I got from the Hangout today was that this was going to be discussion. And you know, I already discuss this stuff all the time already in my networks, and I'm not sure I want/need more discussion.

So, we'll see. I'll poke around at the site and figure out just what it is that IS happening on December 7. If we are going to be creating and making things (and I have a pretty broad definition of what "things" might mean!), and then sharing the things we make, that would be GREAT, and I'll definitely stick around for the ride.

But if it's just reading and discussion, I'm already pretty maxed out on reading and discussion.

Thinking about this did make me glad for the emphasis I put on making and creating in the very first class activities in my courses, and I will think about that even more carefully for next semester. I definitely want the students to feel like their creating and making things and then sharing them is the whole reason for the course... because it is! :-)

Immerse yourself in a project, and create something new.

(inspired by Michael Wesch's Sleeper video)