Growing Up Google

I am kinda at a lose for why we are writing up a summary of this reading because the majority of it was in previous readings. I actually found that reading the bios of the authors to be more interesting than the first 10 pages. This book was written by a fairly diverse group with backgrounds that were surprising to me. PhDs, EdDs, and a doctoral student from fields outside of ITEC. I know that Dr. Beatty has a PhD in Inst. Systems Design and I assumed that many if not most respected faculty members in the ID field would have similar degrees; however this was not the case amongst the authors of this text. A few were in the Human Systems Interaction field which I never really thought related to the field of education outside of aeronautics(i had contemplated getting a doctorate in HSI at one time). After, seeing their backgrounds I really drew a connection in my mind about how HSI and ID really compliment each other very well. As we have been learning the tools that can be used to design curriculm HSI really focuses on how people interact with these technical tools. Research and SMIs in the HSI field will be extremely valueable when when teaching/training with new or advanced technology.

Ok now into the reading. I really liked the example of the augmented reality learning method. Where the student who missed a outdoor field trip could recreate the learning experience on her own with a PDA. I really find the use of mobile technology to be a great resource. Prior to this course I thought that the mobile education was primarily podcast/vodcasts that were able to be heard/viewed on mobile devices. But this example combines all of them with tagging, mapmashups, and GPS. Using a PDA device could be so beneficial for the students and the teacher. As long as the students were able to use the technology with ease, I could see them being more interested in the field trip especially because they could add their experience to that of all of their classmates(via tagging with notes).

One note: how does one use their laptop as a backpack or locker? can laptops now conceal coats, lipstick, and sweaty gym shoes?

The last point that interested me was the redesign of learning spaces. It makes makes sense when reading it but I had never thought about augmenting the learning space. During my education I have seen computers increase in my schools, from a computer room to classrooms with computers everywhere, but changing a library into a socialization arena...WOW! I do think that this will be important as the size of peoples social networks increase over the web. Students and faculty alike will require human contact and a place to share what they have been learning.

September 18 Reflections

I really had a hard time finding much benefit to our guest speaker until today when writing my previous post. During class I kept waiting to hear the speaker tell us why she was using iGoogle for her class management system. Why didn't she use a CMS? Wouldn't the students be able to change some fundamental course resources if they wanted to? Did the students actually benefit from this course design? Was iGoogle used because it is the only thing that she knew? Like last weeks wiki assignment, I could not get past the fact that I saw using a CMS/LMS as a better tool for her course. However, after I reflected on last weeks reading I began to find answers to all of my questions. I could see that CMS/LMS have many disadvantages to more Web 2.0 friendly sites. Comparing my personal iGoogle site to iLearn, I could see how much more useful iLearn could be if students were able to customize the information that comes to them or to chat with classmates. My iGoogle homepage is probably one of the most fascinating things that has been introduced to me this semester and I can not keep thinking about. It brings to me a sense of personalization simply because all of the information is relevant to my interests and likes. My political news is right next to my classmates blogs and the link for my MySpace is millimeters from my class Ning site. Having my personal interests intertwined with my learning surely will make the information that I am learning connect to more personal nodes in my mind than using a LMS like iLearn where I would set aside "homework time" and then return to my daily life. And really if the guest speaker felt comfortable managing her learners on iGoogle, good for her! She is leaps and bounds ahead of the majority of teachers in the education system today.

Emerging Technologies in Education

Besides this chapter doing a beautiful job of introducing emerging Web 2.0 technologies, I was really impressed that there were some Web 2.0 technologies that I had not heard about. All of the ITEC classes that I have taken since ITEC 800 have highlighted these technologies. Many of the classes have had students present overviews of them; however, I had not heard any discussion of Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing as a Web 2.0 technology. Once I read the description I could see that it was not simply file sharing that I was familiar with like Napster or LimeWire, but chatting and Skype. I guess that I had not considered direct sharing of small pieces of information that had not yet been fully created and only in full files that were created and then shared piece by piece to another individual. Other technologies that I had not heard of were the Context-aware environments/devices and smart mobs. Both of these technologies utilize pieces of Web 2.0 technology that I have heard of but the authors do an excellent job of giving the combined big picture view of them.

Other notable points: The discussion on Learning Management Systems being behind the times for Web 2.0 technology. I was under the assumption that LMS/CMS's were considered Web 2.0. The authors describe how the management systems, " are designed for Web 1.0, with minimal capability for fully functioning interactive environment." Recently, I have been really struggling with conceptualizing how to utilize all of the Web 2.0 tools within an LMS and this section really gave me validation that I was rightfully confused. Just thinking about iLearn and our 830 class, I could see how we have to utilize so many sources outside of iLearn to take advantage of Web 2.0 technology.

Finally, hearing that traditional teaching methods will not go away, really eased my concerns that conectivist's theorized that learning could happen within a group without any kind of traditional teaching methods(the television did not kill the radio!). The authors really clarified this by saying, "The new technologies discussed in this chapter will be used primarily for extending the ability to create, communicate, and collaborate."

Google Isnt Perfect - My Woes with Google Reader & iGoogle

I have really enjoyed using my customized iGoogle homepage. It aggregates all of the information and entertainment that I visit on a daily basis. However, I was irritated with the functionality of some of the Google gadgets.

1. The Google Reader Gadget for iGoogle does not allow you to select a specific folder of RSS subscriptions to display on your page. This was problematic because I was getting 100s more feeds from my news sites than I was from my ITEC classmates. Most times I would miss the posts that my peers had made because of the frequency that new news articles were posted. I would have liked to see an option that allowed multiple gadgets on your site and a field to specify what feed you would like to view. Eventually, I figured out that Google Reader would add a folder specific feed to your iGoogle homepage, but you lose the scroll function available in the Google Reader Gadget. Nothing is perfect, so I am currently using the Google Reader gadget for my "News"(which includes all of my Google Reader subscriptions) and one Google Reader provided gadget for my ITEC 830 class(excluding the scroll feature - limit of 9 feed display) :(

2. The Gadgets in Google Sites appear to be quite similar to those available in iGoogle; however this is not the case. You can not add most iGoogle gadgets to your Google Site. I have found some instances where a gadget was developed for both iGoogle and Google Sites (ie. Google search, weather, clock). But I was surprised to see how much less developed the Google Sites gadgets are, especially within the Google family (ie, Google Reader). I think that a reader function for a site is really important. Especially, with all of the information available on the web that could be related to a site.

Wiki Site Using Google Sites + LINK

I have created the basic site for my ITEC 830 Wiki. I am not entirely jumping out of my seat in excitement of Google Sites, but I think that with any site management system it will take some time to get used to.

To add to a long list of angry discussion board posters, I think that it was an extreme oversite for Google not to have the functionality for outgoing RSS feeds. So I am unable to feed my site changes into the classes NetVibes account. Here is the link to my wiki site for anyone who is ever interested.

http://sites.google.com/site/cj830work/

Learning in the Digital Age - Class #3

During our blogging activity, Kim demonstrated how she would like us to use the blogging technology in class. We replicated, in class, the blogging activities that she wants us to do at home. What I got out of this activity was mostly just doing the peer blog reviews. I have suprisingly changed my views on this activity from my previous blog. I think that my new view developed because the blogs were actually my peers whos knowledge, though vastly different, is more similar to my own. Whereas the blog lecture that we were assigned to read was new information to me. I think the notable conclusion that I drew was that laying a content groundwork for the blog assignment was extremely helpful and prevented the frustration that I felt while reading the blog lecture. I realized that my mind has been conditioned to a specific learning protocol: knowledgeable expert shares their knowledge of a subject, I am allowed to personally examine the material, and then my classmates and I share our perspectives on the topic with the expert as a facilitator, and finally I take away from the discussion the information that I find most notable. This was not the case in the blog/lecture where I was thrown into step three which caused me such discomfort. I think that connectivism theory should acknowledge the benefits of step 1 & 2 in learning.

Additionally, I was surprised with many of my classmates views on connectivism. There seemed to be an overwhelming opposition to the theory. From the comments that were made in class, I think that it is very hard to conceptualize connectivism theory in practice when traditional classrooms are not structured in this fashion. But with each criticism of the theory I was able to think of a way that technology tools could be used to emulate the traditional methods. Though using technology would initially be a lot of work to setup, implement and manage, I think that if carefully structured it could be just as effective as traditional methods and possibly more engaging!

An Online Blog Class?

I remember Kim talking about his online class that she was taking. I think that it was free for all unless credits were given after completion. I found the structure of this article/blog class to be very frustrating. It was structured in a very connectivist way in that it is an abundant source of diverse information that I (the learner) has to filter through to form my knowledge from. It was frustrating because it was hard and took much longer to read and process than a typical paper. Filtering through the information from the instructor and the students was really time consuming and required a lot of analysis to determine which points i agreed with and which i did not. I think that if I had more time I would read the article links that were posted within the dialoge in support of their opinions. That is just too much for me right now.

A New Way of Learning:

A Learning Theory for the Digital Age:

This article was directly related to a conversation that I had in my 797 class. One of my classmates was talking about an article about how Google is making us stupid. I completely disagreed with her arguments and this article would have been a great source of information to help me clarify my views in the conversation. The article does a great job of describing how learning is utilizing technology in the storage and retrieval of information. Though this may seem like it strengthens the argument for Google making us dumb, but the article addresses the fact that learners have to use technology as a tool for their learning. The learner has a new challenge of managing the technology. I saw this as being able to organize and recall where and what technology tool has the relevant information stored for retrieval. Additionally, I found the networking/node theory to be really accurate for the tech generation. This theory put a survival of the fittest spin on learning. Each node in a learning network is interconnected with varying amounts of connections. Those nodes with more connections are more likely to gain more connections and those nodes with the most connections are the most likely to be recalled. Good article.

Web 2.0 and the Birth of Connectivism

Today we discussed some of the main elements of some web 2.0 technology. Within our small groups we brainstormed on Ning, iLearn, Blogs, and NetVibes. Here is what our group came up with:
Ning: Social Networking
-Building relationships
-Chatting
-Customized niche groups
-Photo/music sharing
-Variable user access

iLearn: Learning Management System
-Course management
-Student peer interaction
-Data management
-Grading
-Assessment
-Collaboration
-Wikis
-Forums
-Virtual classroom
-Private closed group

NetVibes: RSS Aggregator
-Feed aggregator
-Puts multiple site information in one spot

Blog
-Open or closed environment
-Online journal
-1 main contributor
-Outside commenting

This exercise segued us into the discussion of connectivism theory. The individuals' knowledge within a learning group or classroom

Netvibes

My last blog is not visible in NetVibes. I did see where my blogs section was added to the page however the title of the page is incorrect and my post was not available. Trial blog post #2.

My first Blog

Ok this is not really my first blog but my first one for this particular blog. And I want to keep this short to ensure that I have properly added this blog feed to the netvibes aggrigator.