Have you ever seen that ad "Over 50 and still exploring"? It's basically an ad for senior vitamin pills, and it shows a woman, supposedly over 50, gingerly hopping over a creek (all of 1 foot wide) as if she's still 15. The ad always made me cringe, but now that I'm blogging on my own, I'm starting to feel more and more like that woman.
What is it about being older and learning new things? Yes, we can and do still learn, but we tend to do so a little more cautiously and with a little more thought with each passing year. It's more like kind of wanting to put one toe in the water first, before actually wading all the way in.
I used to tell my kids, "Try something new for 10 minutes each day, and you'll be amazed what you can learn in a year." So, I try to do the same. So I intend to keep these blogs going, but I'll keep them short and sweet, unlike the past 10 weeks. And each week I hope to point out something new to check out or explore.
So here's this week's site that caught my eye. It's got a short but succinct list of links for students to access free applications that can help them in both face-to-face and online classes. General categories include office suites (such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets), notetaking, mind mapping, bookmarking, collaboration, online calendars, calculators and even online bibliography software. The only thing missing is a multimedia category. Perhaps that's coming.
Web 2.0 tools for students
I'm thinking the title should be Web 2.0 for teachers…
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Holiday Week: Catching Up and Odds and Ends
It may be a week off from GMIT, but I think the time off has helped me to appreciate more the use of blogs for reflection. I’m really glad Pat is making us blog for part of this coursework, because it is not something I would normally volunteer to try out. I swear I just got through writing on the discussion boards that I didn’t think blogging was really for me, yet here I am blogging when I don’t really even have to! Perhaps having a choice in the matter makes it more appealing?
Well, thanks to Greg B. I think I have finally run the full gamut of what NOT to do with comment settings. Greg recently informed me he could not post a comment to this blog. I realized I had somehow shut off all commenting features. For the fun of it, I opened up comments to the world, and lo and behold, within a week I had a South American trying to sell me t-shirts in a new comment. This has been a real eye-opener for me. If any of us are going to encourage our students to use Blogs, addressing and controlling comment settings should be a definite part of the conversation!
I received an email from Carolyn B. yesterday, which was apparently sent to all full-time faculty at SCC, inviting them to subscribe to The Teaching Professor Online Journal. I subscribed and read my first issue, and I was impressed. Six short but sweet articles on teaching, one of which included a strategy to include more active engagement and less lecture, and another for a strategy to include student reflection at the end of a busy course.
I’ve spent much of this past week preparing (still) for a presentation to SCC administrators on the pros and cons of using wikis and blogs as classroom aids here at SCC. In all my readings and research, I am learning so much in this area. I am actually getting comfortable with the utility and potential for such things as Web 2.0, syndications, RSS feeds, push vs. pull technology, del.icio.us, Google docs and maps, Flickr, You Tube, and so many other sites that encourage sharing vs. consuming. I found a site called SlideShare, where people share their PowerPoint Presentations (http://www.slideshare.net/), and I searched for slide shows on Web 2.0. I came up with over 1,000 hits—all of them discussing the feasibility of using blogs and wikis in various settings. How could I have fallen so far behind the times???
I finally got to the point where I felt my presentation had a good solid start. Then my 18 year old daughter invited a friend over to the house the other evening. I sat them down and ran through the presentation, and asked them for their initial reactions. It was far more cautious than I would have expected! Instead of being excited at the idea of creating content, both expressed different but valid concerns about being asked to work so vulnerably in such a public arena. In questioning them I think I found another area that needs exploring: and that is what role should instructors have in outlining the boundaries of how these tools should be used so that all students could feel safe? There is a certain amount of risk to exposing and sharing our thinking with others, and as these two young people shared their perspective, I began to realize that student maturity levels could be very important in this area.
I ran across a couple of new names, however, one of which is Will Richardson, who wrote Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. He has a couple of short videos out on You Tube as well:
Well, thanks to Greg B. I think I have finally run the full gamut of what NOT to do with comment settings. Greg recently informed me he could not post a comment to this blog. I realized I had somehow shut off all commenting features. For the fun of it, I opened up comments to the world, and lo and behold, within a week I had a South American trying to sell me t-shirts in a new comment. This has been a real eye-opener for me. If any of us are going to encourage our students to use Blogs, addressing and controlling comment settings should be a definite part of the conversation!
I received an email from Carolyn B. yesterday, which was apparently sent to all full-time faculty at SCC, inviting them to subscribe to The Teaching Professor Online Journal. I subscribed and read my first issue, and I was impressed. Six short but sweet articles on teaching, one of which included a strategy to include more active engagement and less lecture, and another for a strategy to include student reflection at the end of a busy course.
I’ve spent much of this past week preparing (still) for a presentation to SCC administrators on the pros and cons of using wikis and blogs as classroom aids here at SCC. In all my readings and research, I am learning so much in this area. I am actually getting comfortable with the utility and potential for such things as Web 2.0, syndications, RSS feeds, push vs. pull technology, del.icio.us, Google docs and maps, Flickr, You Tube, and so many other sites that encourage sharing vs. consuming. I found a site called SlideShare, where people share their PowerPoint Presentations (http://www.slideshare.net/), and I searched for slide shows on Web 2.0. I came up with over 1,000 hits—all of them discussing the feasibility of using blogs and wikis in various settings. How could I have fallen so far behind the times???
I finally got to the point where I felt my presentation had a good solid start. Then my 18 year old daughter invited a friend over to the house the other evening. I sat them down and ran through the presentation, and asked them for their initial reactions. It was far more cautious than I would have expected! Instead of being excited at the idea of creating content, both expressed different but valid concerns about being asked to work so vulnerably in such a public arena. In questioning them I think I found another area that needs exploring: and that is what role should instructors have in outlining the boundaries of how these tools should be used so that all students could feel safe? There is a certain amount of risk to exposing and sharing our thinking with others, and as these two young people shared their perspective, I began to realize that student maturity levels could be very important in this area.
I ran across a couple of new names, however, one of which is Will Richardson, who wrote Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. He has a couple of short videos out on You Tube as well:
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