Thursday, November 11, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Best education wikis of 2009
I am getting lots of great information about using Web technologies in collaborative learning environments. This article highlights three Edublog award-winning wikis being used in educational settings to enhance learning processes and outcomes.
It seems obvious that the process would greatly impact the outcomes, but I think we have to learn to trust that process to handle the outcome in its most natural and synergistic way. Technology, and particularly Web technology, is often blamed when it is used as a TOOL in a still-broken and archaic PROCESS that makes no sense. Adopting the electric drill as a tool doesn't help your outcome if you still insist on using it as a hammer.
More on that coming soon!
It seems obvious that the process would greatly impact the outcomes, but I think we have to learn to trust that process to handle the outcome in its most natural and synergistic way. Technology, and particularly Web technology, is often blamed when it is used as a TOOL in a still-broken and archaic PROCESS that makes no sense. Adopting the electric drill as a tool doesn't help your outcome if you still insist on using it as a hammer.
More on that coming soon!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Curatorial Education
Love that George Siemens!
The whole post is here.
A curatorial teacher acknowledges the autonomy of learners, yet understands the frustration of exploring unknown territories without a map. A curator is an expert learner. Instead of dispensing knowledge, he creates spaces in which knowledge can be created, explored, and connected. While curators understand their field very well, they don’t adhere to traditional in-class teacher-centric power structures. A curator balances the freedom of individual learners with the thoughtful interpretation of the subject being explored. While learners are free to explore, they encounter displays, concepts, and artifacts representative of the discipline. Their freedom to explore is unbounded. But when they engage with subject matter, the key concepts of a discipline are transparently reflected through the curatorial actions of the teacher.
The whole post is here.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
digiTenn at ETSU
The Digital Tennessee Project is taking another step forward with an organizational meeting next week of a dozen collaborators from
• the Digital Media Sandbox Consortium (DMSC),
• e-Learning Department,
• the Tennessee Campus Compact (TNCC),
• Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSPA),
• Honors College,
• Center for Community Engagement, Learning & Leadership (CELL),
• Providing Area Schools Technical Assistance (PASTA),
• Gear-Up,
and ETSU academic departments
• Human Development and Learning,
• Social Work
• Technology and Geomatics
We'll review and strategize DMSC activities as well as launch a collaboration of existing efforts combining technology and service learning, organize funding and marketing plans for a new community technology / digital literacy program and introduce this report, which lays the groundwork for our customization of our plan for a pilot site in east Tennessee.
We are ready for the next step!
• the Digital Media Sandbox Consortium (DMSC),
• e-Learning Department,
• the Tennessee Campus Compact (TNCC),
• Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSPA),
• Honors College,
• Center for Community Engagement, Learning & Leadership (CELL),
• Providing Area Schools Technical Assistance (PASTA),
• Gear-Up,
and ETSU academic departments
• Human Development and Learning,
• Social Work
• Technology and Geomatics
We'll review and strategize DMSC activities as well as launch a collaboration of existing efforts combining technology and service learning, organize funding and marketing plans for a new community technology / digital literacy program and introduce this report, which lays the groundwork for our customization of our plan for a pilot site in east Tennessee.
We are ready for the next step!
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Listen to this Connecticut NPR interview which asks, "Should having Internet access be considered a civil right?" Listen as community technology advocates discuss the Digital Divide and the issues surrounding digital equity as an issue of social justice.
What do YOU think?
What do YOU think?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Mobility
In the overall landscape of Web technology and its myriad relevancies to all our lives, there are huge and compelling issues that can either bottleneck or push its forward development in a way too rapid and dynamic to be termed an "evolution" ... more like a revolution! There is a certain air of chaos, passion, unpredictability and excitement implied by the word "revolution" and for some reason, I associate evolution with dinosaurs and half primate, half human life forms. Has the nature of change changed as well?
Right now, the piece of this revolution that is most blowing my mind is mobile Web technology. It is one thing to come home on a Friday night to see that there is a drumming in the park and letting it pull me out of the nest and into the fray. And then mid-next-week I see on Facebook that there is a Tweetup at the Sky Club and I get to meet new people in a new place in my home community. The lines between virtual and "real life" (RL) community are blurring more every day. And the lines between neighboring communities are melting away, too. I have witnessed the conjoining of two distinct MSAs over the last 20 years as facilitated by a new interstate connection (about an hour drive between them) and by Internet technology (the ability to participate in multiple communities is much more practical with technology tools for participation). As I live between the two, I have become one of many who have had the opportunity to live in one community, work in second community and socialize in a third. Each of my three homes has a drastically distinct personality and each offers me different amenities. I am richer for having three homes and I hope that each benefits, even if only from my economic support, from my virtual and RL participation. The more I participate in each, the better I become as a person, as a professional and as a mother, as a citizen and as a neighbor.
And then comes mobile web technology. Now we have an iPod touch, cell phones, netbooks and laptops, PDAs and Blackberries. With the ability to mobilize the Internet, we have access to information on the run. I compile my grocery list from the online sale flier for my grocery store, store it in Google docs and pull it up on my iPod in the grocery store. Though there is not yet free wireless, I have cached it on the device and have the entirety of my documents available to me in a device that fits in the palm of my hand.
But the most significant role of mobility here, I believe, is in its facilitation of production of Internet content, much moreso than the consumption of it. As cool as it is to be able to watch video in the hospital waiting room, locate movie information or sports scores on the run, reference a shopping list or check my email; the explosion here is in the opportunity for citizen journalists to report to infinite interwoven webs of real people the sounds, sights and textures of their physical communities. They do that now with graduation photos, vacation videos and shared videos and news stories.
The potential impact of this technology is mind-bending when I start imagining mobile digital media training labs that fit into a box in the trunk of the car. MiFi technology, being released tomorrow by Verizon, enables the portable cloud of high-speed wireless bandwidth that can be shared by up to five users within 30 feet. The small wireless battery-operated card fits in a pocket and runs up to 4 hrs on a charge. You don't even have to take it out of your pocket or bag. It works in a moving car or on the beach!
Mobile Web hardware's built-in digital cameras and video recording will continue to evolve (there's one place I feel comfortable using that term) and the ability of the cloud to deliver higher speed uploads and downloads. The delivery of consumer-produced content is proliferating in direct correlation to affordability of hardware and mobile connectivity. This is a global phenomenon sweeping even third world countries.
Already, the lines between virtual education environments and physical classrooms are blurring, too. New developments in mobile Web technologies are pushing education out of the classroom walls and into the real world laboratory where it should be. Learning can be both high-tech AND hands-on! And mobile Web technology is making it happen. It is the force melting away the concrete and steel divisions between the brick-n-mortar buildings that separate education, government, business, arts, media and public service from the worlds they serve and from each other. We can thrive in a collaborative--as opposed to competitive--society. We may even flourish.
Right now, the piece of this revolution that is most blowing my mind is mobile Web technology. It is one thing to come home on a Friday night to see that there is a drumming in the park and letting it pull me out of the nest and into the fray. And then mid-next-week I see on Facebook that there is a Tweetup at the Sky Club and I get to meet new people in a new place in my home community. The lines between virtual and "real life" (RL) community are blurring more every day. And the lines between neighboring communities are melting away, too. I have witnessed the conjoining of two distinct MSAs over the last 20 years as facilitated by a new interstate connection (about an hour drive between them) and by Internet technology (the ability to participate in multiple communities is much more practical with technology tools for participation). As I live between the two, I have become one of many who have had the opportunity to live in one community, work in second community and socialize in a third. Each of my three homes has a drastically distinct personality and each offers me different amenities. I am richer for having three homes and I hope that each benefits, even if only from my economic support, from my virtual and RL participation. The more I participate in each, the better I become as a person, as a professional and as a mother, as a citizen and as a neighbor.
And then comes mobile web technology. Now we have an iPod touch, cell phones, netbooks and laptops, PDAs and Blackberries. With the ability to mobilize the Internet, we have access to information on the run. I compile my grocery list from the online sale flier for my grocery store, store it in Google docs and pull it up on my iPod in the grocery store. Though there is not yet free wireless, I have cached it on the device and have the entirety of my documents available to me in a device that fits in the palm of my hand.
But the most significant role of mobility here, I believe, is in its facilitation of production of Internet content, much moreso than the consumption of it. As cool as it is to be able to watch video in the hospital waiting room, locate movie information or sports scores on the run, reference a shopping list or check my email; the explosion here is in the opportunity for citizen journalists to report to infinite interwoven webs of real people the sounds, sights and textures of their physical communities. They do that now with graduation photos, vacation videos and shared videos and news stories.
The potential impact of this technology is mind-bending when I start imagining mobile digital media training labs that fit into a box in the trunk of the car. MiFi technology, being released tomorrow by Verizon, enables the portable cloud of high-speed wireless bandwidth that can be shared by up to five users within 30 feet. The small wireless battery-operated card fits in a pocket and runs up to 4 hrs on a charge. You don't even have to take it out of your pocket or bag. It works in a moving car or on the beach!
Mobile Web hardware's built-in digital cameras and video recording will continue to evolve (there's one place I feel comfortable using that term) and the ability of the cloud to deliver higher speed uploads and downloads. The delivery of consumer-produced content is proliferating in direct correlation to affordability of hardware and mobile connectivity. This is a global phenomenon sweeping even third world countries.
Already, the lines between virtual education environments and physical classrooms are blurring, too. New developments in mobile Web technologies are pushing education out of the classroom walls and into the real world laboratory where it should be. Learning can be both high-tech AND hands-on! And mobile Web technology is making it happen. It is the force melting away the concrete and steel divisions between the brick-n-mortar buildings that separate education, government, business, arts, media and public service from the worlds they serve and from each other. We can thrive in a collaborative--as opposed to competitive--society. We may even flourish.
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