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.