Wow! I Made It!

I am currently in week 3 of the 4th 6 week block of classes in my pursuit of my Master's. I was mildly stressed during the entire 3rd block of classes. However, it's great to stand on the other side of the water after you felt the pull of the current would pull you down forever. I give God the praise, and now look forward finishing this block which then puts me into the fifth one which represents being half finish! In three more weeks, I can officially say, "Four down, only six to go!"

What I've Learned In My Fifth Week Of Classes.

Wow! I am some worn out attempting to keep up with all of our weekly discussions and assignments. We were given the tasks during the last few weeks, to create several Web site presences. Now, for the first time, we were assigned to interact with our other classmates. After seeing what they had produced, we were to critique their sites, and offer any assistance we could for the betterment of their site.

I didn't have much to offer, in light of the fact that the sites were just recently designed, and everyone were just following the instruction we were required to input within the site. I imagine as we continue toward the final week, more will be expected regarding content within the sites.

What I've Learned In My Forth Week Of Classes.

I was given an assignment this week that turned out to be very frustrating in my attempt to complete it. The important of being prepare in education can never be understated. Whether it be for the students, instructors, or the institution.

Many times when given the task as online educators and/or course designers we must depend on others with far more technical expertise to assist us with the finish product. It is really a bad practice to totally rely on this assistance without checking what is received in return before issuing it out part of coursework.

This week we were told to explore and than create a free online social networking presence using Ning, a social networking creation site. My area of frustration, Ning is now not free! Somewhere along the line, Ning decided to become a pay-for-use site, and it seems the University's technical support department did not inform the instructor. This is also true in the fact that for the instructions given in which to create our sites in Facebook and PBworks were outdated as well.

When giving assignments, it is incumbent upon the instructor to be sure all is in place to create a learning environment that is as where all elements are properly in place to achieve the best learning outcomes possible

School is a daunting experience enough as it is without the added stress of incorrect or outdated instructions.

What I've Learned In My Third Week Of Classes.

This has been a week of putting on the old proverbial thinking caps. We explored the dilemma created by news hounds searching Facebook, a social networking site for comments posted by teachers employed by the local school district. After discovering comments made by a teacher referring to the school as being, "ghetto", the comments were made public, and the teacher was disciplined. The question then became, was this teachers privacy rights violated? I enjoyed reading the different perspectives my fellow classmates brought to view on the discussion.

With the controversy regarding Facebook, our class did an overview to discover exactly what Facebook is, and just what were some of the things that it allowed its member to do that makes it so popular. Also, we wanted to know if and how Facebook might be use for educational or business purposes.

Finally, we looked at if the Ning social networking site creator could effectively be use to implement a site for educational or business purposes. I voted a resounding , "Yes!" that it could. Ning, even in its basic package provides a host of tools that could be very useful in creating a educational or business networking online experience.

What I've Learned In My Second Week Of Classes.

You ever some times sit back in reflection and ask yourself, "How in the world have I made it this far?" This is the way I feel in the midst of second week of class. We are studying the use of collaborative software tools to be incorporated into our online course design.

After studying general concepts of using collaborative software tools in week one, we moved into week two exploring the merits of using wikis in education. Our text, Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web, by James and Margaret West, includes six chapters that we read, explaining the benefits and cautions for use necessary to begin the process of incorporating wikis into the curriculum.

West and West (2009) are very clear in their assertion that, "Today the Web facilitates a new age of participation that is close to Berners-Lee's original intent, inviting users to participate, co-create, edit, collaborate, rather than merely consume (Lamb, 2004). We have moved from a read-only Web (Web 1.0) to the read-write Web (Web 2.0),"

I discovered that wikis are an awesome learning tool to bring concepts and ideas into a online forum enabling learners advantages other types of software learning environments can not provide.

Reference

West, James, & West, Margaret, (2009), Using wikis for online collaboration: the power of the read-write web, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc Pub.

Educate Them, or Lose Our Future!

I will be posting on this topic soon!