I have not blogged for a week & feel like I am turning into a lurker - rather than an active participant. As a learner my reflector/theorist tendencies have emerged (reared their ugly heads)& my online time has been spent learning more about Heutagogy & it's author Stewart Hase. This investigation has, of course, led me deeper into the vortex of the world wide web, I often get sucked in. Somehow I found myself surfing YouTube where I found a fascinating presentation on the use of instructional technology over the past century, well worth a view, it's only 5 mins.
I have spent some time viewing participant blogs - I am still working my way through the list of participants & have considered if I am going to use Google Reader, or maintain control manually via the participants page. My question (to myself) is will this become a chore as is keeping my emails under control, & I think self knows the answer to this...don't you self?
I have viewed the Clive Shepherd video & find myself thinking more about Synchronous learning & Synchronicity. This could be another dangerous (time consuming) liaison with the web, or perhaps a message that I should finally get back into reading Jung.
Unfortunately I missed either our weekly group discussions, however this morn I participated in the Wimba session facilitated by Kerry Trabinger from Canberra Institute of Technology. Most participants were teachers from CIT who are using various synchronous & asynchronous technologies in f2f courses (blended), rather than conducting courses completely online. It was interesting that there are very 'hands on' courses such as Carpentery, Forensic studies, Hospitality (Cooking) using these technologies. What resources!!!! Wimba is very similar to Elluminate however CIT have it connected to Moodle (another system that I have been meaning to have a play with) everything is at the click of a button. Kerry made it look very easy. There were also 2 guest presenters from US, Rena & Keith who are using similar technologies in their work.
We are off to NZ next week for a family holiday but I am hoping to get some time out to focus on the weeks course activities.
Ha - I know what you mean about lurking Kim. It started with me following my kids on Facebook and now has expanded into this whole group! I do love it when someone writes on my blog though because it confirms that someone is out there listening to me blather on.
ReplyDeleteGoogle Reader is working quite nicely for me.I can check it when I want and it highlights the new posts. I prefer it to the RSS feed directly into my Outlook which was way too distracting. IGoogle is one step up because I also linked in Facebook, Twitter and my several gmail accounts and it all comes up on one page. Again it just waits until I am ready to look at it.
Are you likely to be coming down to Dunedin when you're on holiday? If you are, give me a shout...would love to catch up for a coffee :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Kim for this post. I'm finding like Karen that iGoogle is useful and it gives me more control less clutter.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the vid link on the history of technology in education. I feel a need for a historical perspective to understand what is new and significant about all this change.
I also feel a need for theory. I'm reaching for general systems theory. I'm thinking that were are creating new "activity spaces'. I'll write more on this in my blog. http://brighterfutures-malcolml.blogspot.com/
include me in your Dunedin coffee Kim.
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