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.