AngTaylor's Life & Times

Another New Class

2009-10-15T16:39:00.000-07:00

So we are in week 2 of our 4th class! I am a bit shocked at how fast everything seems to be moving. I realize that I have a ton of stuff at work as well, so that is what makes it seem like we just started. I may be a bit crazy to move across the country, start a new job, and start a master's program.
Someone remind me why I did all this again???

Week 4

2009-09-13T08:49:00.000-07:00

Almost at the end of another week. I am realizing that I am going to have to really plan out the next few weeks of class, as I am getting ready to do a lot of traveling again. I leave for Atlanta on Monday and therefore am trying to get all my school work done today. I will be down there until Thursday, so need to get my posts done early this week as well. It seems anytime I leave Atlanta, I always get delayed and don't arrive home til after midnight. Looking ahead, I will be traveling and teaching until this class ends, so I need to start planning.
I haven't finished reading the article "Minds on Fire" so that is my next step. The posts this week seemed very easy for me to do. I like the LMS idea, and still feel that is the best option for taking my current classes on-line. Ning looks like it has potential but corporate policy will be the deciding factor. I think that because we are piloting a class with Blackboard, we will stay with Blackboard for the near future. We are already planning to offer 1 of our 11 courses online next year with the hopes to move about half of our titles to a virtual platform. This will save significant money for the company (though I will miss the frequent flier miles I am collecting).

Week 3

2009-09-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

Week 3 of this course was focused on social networking but specifically on Facebook.

While I enjoy Facebook, I do not think it has a place in my training world. My company has posted policies on what can and cannot be posted on social networking sites. Any of our material discussed during continuous learning class falls under the 'do not post' section of these policies.

I can definite places to use Facebook, with caution, for teachers of college and high school students. Unfortunately, I do not think that it is a tool I will be able to utilize in my current position.

Weeks 1 & 2 EDU 651

2009-08-31T17:10:00.000-07:00

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.