As part of my assignment for my master's I have to update a blog weekly with what I have learned. It sounds like an easy assignment but I really have a hard time writing down my thoughts when I know others will see them.
In Week 1 we explored the web 2.0 with the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. I was a bit apprehensive at first due to the title of this book. It reminded me of my last text which was less an instructional tool and more just a list of ideas of things that could be used in an on-line class. Maybe I was the only one, but I didn't feel as if I took as much out of that class as I did the first one. Already I feel like I have learned more out of this class.
The first thing I learned was that I am no where near as up to date as I thought I was for web based applications. I have never used a wiki outside of wikipedia and I rarely blog. I did maintain a blog when I used MySpace but I used it less for conscious thought than I did as an ego boost. I used to check the statistics to see how many views I had each day, week, etc.
I have found that some of the text seems aimed at a younger set of students than I currently have. I did realize yesterday that I will eventually have students in my class (assuming I stay with a training for a while) that will have gone to school (college at least) with many online based tools. I thought that my company was being very forward thinking by looking at on-line courses. I realize now that we are reactionary but still light years ahead of some of our competitors.
Another thought I had was to start archiving all of my work for this degree. I will probably do so on this blog. I use two different computers and this would make life much easier for myself.
Thus far in week 2, I am really excited about what I can do with wikis in the future. Many of my students ask for the best practice sharing to be recorded and email out. As my company transitions to online courses and hybrid courses (2 weeks online and 1 day in the class room) wikis are a great way to have collaboration before the courses begin. Thanks to our second text, Using wikis for online collaboration, I know that Blackboard has this function built in and can be utilized.
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Hi Angela,
ReplyDeleteYou weren't alone in that second class. I shared the same feeling. I'm sure the text will come in handy as a reference some day. I'm enjoying this class and I love the potential of the wiki; especially in the corporate training world. It is a constant flow of projects to manage and processes to revise. That's the kind of stuff that wikis are made for. We could really "lean" up our change management processes with the use of the wiki and I'm sure it's on the horizon. When it comes about, I'll be ready.
Marika
Marika,
ReplyDeleteI actually just loaned the text to a co-worker who is using it to develop some tools for our pilot online class. She is really excited about some things in the text, so at least that's a good thing.