Beth Cougler Blom

Hillarie it was so interesting to read about your proposed activity! I must admit, at first I thought thinking of my own name and was wondering, What would I say? There's nothing to say. Or That may be difficult for some people who don't know the origin of their name.

But reading through your example, my mind started to broaden. It was really wonderful to see what you said about your name, but also - and maybe very importantly - how you felt about your name and what it might or might not say about you - in your eyes. It gave me a tiny insight into perhaps who you are and what you think about yourself and what you think about the world and important things within it (gender divide, striving for great heights, etc!)

In fact, in the end, what you said about your own name encouraged me to think more about what I would say about mine. And you know what? I think I would have a LOT to say! (Funnily enough, I have had "name issues" my whole life...including being always called a nickname of my middle name (no end of admin issues at the bank etc!), and then choosing to 'double barrel' my last name when I got married, joining two very unusual last names together (what was I thinking? ha ha).

So I like this activity and think Padlet would be a great choice for it. Looking forward to what others have to say as well.

Hi Tara,

It was great to read about your "Midterm Motivation" activity. I think you and your class could have some fun with this one. I, too, was wondering about participation, but if you make it engaging then I think people will get on board.

A riff on this activity could be to ask them to create/find an animated gif as an alternative to the image to share. It wouldn't be easy to print on the exam, but it might be also engaging to the students. (Not sure if gifs can be added to Padlet though, you'd have to check.) Another tool that could help this happen would be Instagram. At RRU we have had courses which have embedded Instagram feeds (using hashtags I think) into their Moodle courses, just an FYI.

If you went the gif route, an alternative 'ask' could be to 'find a gif that will give your fellow students motivation to rock that exam!' or something to that effect, rather than something that describes what the class has meant to them. For me, there might be a difference between your ask of 'summarize what the class will mean to you going forward' and the hashtag which calls it 'motivation'. Is it the same thing? I'm not sure. One might help them figure out how they feel about the usefulness of the course, the other might help them find the energy - and inspire others - to keep going. Both are great...just looking at clarity here.

Were you thinking that you'd ask the students to also include why they chose that image or what it meant to them using text along with the image, or just the image itself?

Looking forward to where your thinking goes from here!

Beth