Reflection on the July 9th EDU504 class

I really enjoyed the class, (ok, 90%) it was long, yes, but it was fractioned into totally different ways to stimulate learning. I suppose my reading and take on Dewey as a quasi-religious reformer was a bit heavy handed in my last blog. Upon further reading, it seems that all of the "psychology of education" theorists, or at least almost all, had seminary backgrounds. It was a stepping point or stumbling block one had to traverse in order to prove that you had value and morals. Pretty much all successful men were Masons at the time, too. All very clubby.

So, deconstructing my modernist view to account for historical mores, I have to view Dewey as a progressive in his day. I particularly liked his letter to his editor, (from the reading for EDUC606, "the 100 year journey of educational psychology") where on page 5 in a letter to his editor, he excoriates his own writing as, "loathsome, distended, tumefied, bloated, dropsical mess"! Very human, and makes me like him more.

The other part of the class had us working to create a wiki. My first time, and I was nervous, and couldn't get the wiki to scroll over....I hate when that happens, made me very cranky. I feel very anxious when technology won't work seamlessly, and then I get behind and have problems catching up, don't listen to further instructions, etc. I do see this as a real problem when I may have to teach students, and their issues regarding technology or content. Bummer. It looked great at the end, thanks to Katie's great typing skills and our groups inputs. I was cranky and and bossy during input and realized it later and apologized. I really need to track myself when I am feeling anxious about the tech, can be a big problem if it interferes with communication skills, which it does for me obviously.