It is no secret that electricians use their minds and hands in almost equal amounts. For instance, when bending conduit first the formula has to be used to determine at what location on the conduit to set the bender and then the bender must be manipulated to deliver the correct angle of bend needed. For many years, the apprentices at The Electrical Trades Center learned all of the related technical instruction using the lecture based method with very little time devoted to hands on training. That was until they tried an experiment in 2001. There was a need to begin exploring ways to improve the quality of the motor control training by adding a large amount of time to hands on labs to help the students gain real world, working knowledge.

What was discovered is that the apprentices became extremely proficient in motor controls far exceeding what any prior apprentices had ever shown. In addition, the class became wildly popular with the students. The response was overwhelming. If you were to ask any apprentice, former or current, what their favorite class is that they took or are taking I will guarantee that answer is “motor controls” without a doubt.

A few years ago, we were reflecting on our motor control class because it was becoming popular all around the country. Many other programs were asking us for tours and for us to show them how we were doing this. It was during this conversation that the light bulb really went on. Why would we not do this with everything we teach? Why had we not thought of this sooner? We have been developing hands-on, project based learning for all of our courses since that day. The apprenticeship experience has become a rich learning experience that involves both cognitive and mechanical learning using project based learning and the results have been energizing…. No pun intended!

E-texts from my perspective seem to be gaining massive traction in classrooms. I am not certain if this is because the students like the lower costs and additional features or if it is a sly move on the publishers’ part. Are they encouraging the professors using their products to use the e-texts? Are the lower costs the publisher is providing trumping the usability and true desire of the products? I may never be able to answer these questions but I can some of my experiences to help shed light on the advantages and disadvantages and why I feel they have become more popular in recent time.

I have taken many online courses and some have required a traditional textbook, some electronic only, and others either/or. I initially hated e-books. I like the feel of a paper textbook. I also like the feel of quickly thumbing to a section that you need to get to and find the e-books sometimes more cumbersome. On the flip side they offer some convenience. The ability to access the pages of your book from anywhere or anytime is extremely convenient. I also enjoy no longer toting a heavy bag around filled with all of my textbooks. Some other great features are the interactive content that is sometimes added and review problems that can provide real time analysis of how you are doing.

This past summer I spent some time speaking to an employee of a well-known text book publisher. This person provided some great insight into the business of textbooks and e-textbooks. The number one issue for the publisher is the inability to control the market with the paper textbooks. Traditional textbooks are only purchased once and then can be resold any number of times to additional users. This is the biggest problem the publisher faces that it wants changed. They feel that if they can prevent the resale of the books, their profits will increase by large margins. E-textbooks are the solution. The access codes required for the books prevent used book sales and force anyone wanting or needing the book to purchase their own access code. Professors are, more and more, requiring a student have access to the interactive areas for homework and labs. Many of the publishers are using this avenue as a means to control how many customers they end up with. If a student wants to purchase or rent a used textbook they will still need to purchase the e-content access code. Often the e-content will now include access to the e-textbook for free!

I am by no means an authority on the subject but I hope that you found my experiences to be of some value.

I am extremely interested in making social media an important component of what we do at the Electrical Trades Center. There are many advantages of using social media in education.  Among those, one of the biggest may be increasing student interaction.  The second biggest reason would be to increase marketing to help make our opportunities and activities known about.

Listed below are the advantages that I found at https://www.academiaapps.com/advantages-social-media-education/. These advantages come way of the University of Minnesota:

Advantages

1. Social Media can increase student collaboration.
2. Faculty can use social media as a way to get students to participate.
3. Social Media can be useful for team projects.
4. Social media can provide a richer experience for resources such as videos, resource websites, and tutorials
5. Video Conferencing in the Classroom is also a significant benefit. Using social networking sites such as Google Plus will allow the use of Google Hangouts.

These are great reasons to use social media. There of course are disadvantages to using social media. Maybe a better way of phrasing this is are cautions. I am not sure that there is a reason not to use social media but there are things to be mindful of to ensure that negative things do not occur by using them.

Disadvantages

1. Students can get distracted and start using the social media for their personal purposes and not actually pay attention to the educational content.
2. Posting inappropriate content can also be a significant disadvantage.
3. Relying too much on social media for communication can stifle a student’s ability to interact in person.

This past week we had what I thought would be a very simple assignment. Produce a 5 image story. No text. Just images. Piece of cake, right? Wrong. It was much tougher than I thought to find the right images that would ensure that someone would be able to follow the story with no narration or text. I had at my disposal around 100 images from the story I wanted to retell and it was still more difficult than I thought it would be. I was happy with the final product.

I decided to try out Prezi as my platform to deliver the 5 Image Story. I had never used Prezi so this would be a great opportunity to get familiar with the tool. Prezi, at first glance, was very user friendly. I did have some difficulty adding and subtracting paths. Overall, I would rate Prezi very intuitive and visually appealing.

Below you will find the link to my 5 image story. During the summer of 2011, the IBEW local 683 participated in the Extreme Makeover Home Edition here in Central Ohio. We wanted to do something special for the neighborhood as well the person receiving the remodeled home and decided to install a 12,000 Kilowatt Photovoltaic system on the Tray Lee Community Center located in the Amercrest neighborhood near Joyce and 12^th Ave. Eleven IBEW craftspeople worked for two days to install the system which has allowed the Trey Center to operate with free electricity and to spend those dollars instead on the activities it offers its residents.

http://prezi.com/to0oznz8myjn/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy