Facebook annoys me

Anybody out there find some of the features in Facebook annoying???? Before Facebook, I was a faithful MySpace user and abuser. I loved to pimp my page with fun HTML coding and add various pictures of me and my family. I found it was a great way to stay in touch with my circle of friends....it even helped me stay in touch with people I wouldn't normally stay in touch with. Neat-o! I decided about a year ago that I needed to explore Facebook as I am an instructional technologist that needs to stay abreast of teaching technologies. I got my account.....and just never really grew very attached to it. In fact, I loathed the thought of updating my page. I got sooooooo irritated with all the "pokes" and "waves" and "cocktails" and other sorts of various requests and notifications that I was receiving. My goodness.....who cares about all those things? What I loved about MySpace (comments, blogs, personal connections, messages, etc....) just never came to fruition on my Facebook page. Am I partially to blame? I found it very cumbersome to try and maintain the environment I had in my Myspace account in my Facebook account. Nevertheless.....those stupid notifications just get on my nerves!

Collaboration is Queen/King!

I always love a good collaboration or "collabo" as I call it. Whether it be two musical artists coming together to sing a song or a well-thought-out lesson that requires my students to divvy up work and develop an end product. I do however realize that not all people think this way. For some reason, unapparent to me, there are people out there that think life is all about your own individual accomplishments and self-generated ideas. I would argue that no one's ideas are their own. They are surely a compilation of all the life experiences and people that this person has encountered. Now, you may ask....what is she ranting about? I'll tell you....

I am developing a theme for all the workshops and activities I do this coming semester. It goes a little something like this: redesigning/reimagining your classroom for student engagement and collaboration.....focusing on students generating content together.

Both my degrees are in Education and I know quite a bit about education theory and how the brain works. I truly believe that learning is social. I believe it because I've been told....and I've also experienced it. Perhaps the latter was the most powerful to me (by no surprise since we know that experiential learning is a very powerful means to learn). I just came to the realization that it is my network of colleagues that has allowed me the opportunity to be successful in my career. It is this social network of colleagues that teaches me new things -- we have created our own social networking arena online and in person. As I push my faculty to embed these social networks into their classroom, I can speak from experience that they aren't just "fluff," they are sometimes the most meaningful learning experiences a student will have. Sure, I could go out and do some research online, attend a conference, and read some journals pertaining to education technology, but it is the reflection and dialogue with my colleagues that adds meaning to this content. It's almost hard to express the impact this social network has had on my career. All I can say is that it's been amazing. I know that if I don't have the "answers," someone in my social network will. So, with collaboration, it's not always about knowing the right answer off the top of your head, but knowing where to go and who to go to in order to find it. Isn't that what life is all about?

These social networking technologies are ones that I can't live without in order of importance to me:
http://twitter.com
http://blogger.com
http://del.icio.us
http://facebook.com
http://myspace.com

I can't keep up!

I am ruminating in my office about my inability to keep up with technology. *Gasp* And this is coming from the instructional designer/technologist. It's with that thought that I move on to wonder how our faculty do. I am amazed at several of our faculty members that spend hours of their own time trying to perfect their craft with new "whiz bang" technologies. Margaret Covington, Lisa Young, Cindy Gaspar-Rust, Janeen Curtiss....just to name a few. (It's funny that so many of them come from the field of Nursing at GateWay). How is it that I can't find the time to keep up? If this is my full-time gig, what exactly am I spending my full-time gig doing if it's not finding ways to enhance teaching and learning with "whiz bang" technologies? Where is it that my time goes? I have one theory.... I spend a good majority of my time helping faculty with design and development AND supporting our lack-luster course management system. Both of these things are extremely important -- but I am envious of my colleagues who have time to research new technologies. I do realize most of them do it on their own time.....my husband and daughter won't allow it. They are very possessive of their time with me. So, I'm coming up with a new game plan. I am calling it Technology Tuesday. Every Tuesday morning, I will dedicate about 2 hours to blogging and researching technologies. I will report back on how that works.

Workshop Blue Sky for Fall

• Softchalk uses in the classroom (softchalk is so clunky)
  
• Google Docs for student collaborative writing and projects
  
• Using wikis for exam reviews and other classroom activities (wet paint)
  
• Collaborating with your students using Web 2.0 technologies
• Use Diigo to annotate and comment on websites and share with your students
• Tricks for getting students to engage and participate in learning.
• twitter???
• making students knowledge-able
• voice thread for voice discussion and presentation of verbal media
  
• creative commons -- fair use
  
• xtimeline.com -- how to teach sequential information
• 
  

Couldn't Have Said it Better Myself!

In my day-to-day learning, I'm always shocked at my inability to pay attention when sitting in meetings or lecture-driven training. I have always struggled with this and been chastised by the general educator as being someone with a short attention span....or ADHD *gasp*. The more I have taught, trained, & facilitated, the more I begin to realize that it's not necessarily "my problem." Aren't we, as educators, responsible for creating a dynamic and rich learning environment?

In my journey developing a workshop about the hybrid learning environment, I have discovered that these types of courses have a high student success and satisfaction rate. I was reading an article on InsideHigherEd.com that provides a great explanation as to why:

Q: Is blended learning especially suited to a new generation of students with stereotypical traits such as shorter attention spans, different learning patterns, and more collaborative tendencies?

A: Student attention spans are short because most educational experiences are passive and lack meaning. Blended learning is intended to address these issues. On the other hand, there is evidence that technically savvy students are very critical about how technology is being used. It is clear that any use of technology must be justified and student expectations addressed. If this happens, then students will engage in more meaningful learning activities and assume greater responsibility for their learning.

So, it's not my fault! So quit picking on me! At any rate, this speaks volumes for hybrid education's successes.

Replicating F2F Courses in the Online Environment

As the campus promoter for online learning, I hear over and over again that many instructors feel that they can't "do what they do" in an online environment. "What they do" is referring to their content, teaching activities & strategies, and even the sense of who they are as a teacher. I find this interesting, because I, myself felt the very same way when I began my online teaching endeavors several years ago. I always prided myself on two major things, (1) my ability to connect with my students and (2) the fun and active learning environment that I created. How was I going to be able to re-create this in an online course? I found that I was a bit disappointed my first semester teaching online -- it really wasn't the same. I didn't get to see my students, I didn't get to spend time connecting with them, I didn't get to hear the "roar" of the classroom when they were busily engaging in group dynamics.

However, now it is my 7th semester teaching online and I couldn't be happier! I learned that I could not replicate the experience, but I could create an entirely different experience that was even more valuable to me. I found that I connected even deeper with my students online -- once you take away the barriers of face-to-face interactions, people are really honest! Students that might shy away in class just blossom in an online discussion board. I also learned a very valuable lesson from the community college student perspective: time is so valuable! Our students are working 40 hours a week, are full time students, parents, spouses and more....wow, so am I! Online courses allowed all of us to manage our time in a manner that worked for us...all of us! I came to my own conclusion that I couldn't be teaching unless I could teach online....and, neither could some of my students.

There are so many other reflections that came to mind as I thought about this, but these are the ones that really blew me away. I am so satisfied as an online instructor, and I believe my students are very thankful for that!

Testing a podcast...

http://www.archive.org/download/TestPodcast_600/essaypodcast_64kb.mp3