Course Reflection

Study and research have taken on a whole new level. When I started my schooling in the early 1970s we sat in the class and were talked at for the day (that is my recollection). Information for projects was sourced from ‘Project packs’ available from newsagents or from my Mother’s 1954 Everyman’s Encyclopaedia (I think she still has it). If more information was required I would go to the school library or in very extreme cased the local Council Library.

Schools and education have taken on a new role. At Southern Cross we have ‘Learning Facilitators’ who mentor students through a range of educational mazes to assist them in learning. The emphasis being being on the students' responsibility to do the learning rather than it being a teacher's responsibility to teach. A very minor but important shift in thinking.

Many of the applications I found to be interesting but of little practical value. Others such as iGoogle, Blogger and Google docs are great additions to my suite of IT skills.

Cathy Ryan’s Module 7 blog hit home a great lesson in all this online content. What a huge loss of information that can be partially prevented by storing information online. (this is the blog I made a comment on http://catherinemryan.blogspot.com ).

The Web 2.0 course has been a great learning experience that I have gained a great deal from to use both professionally and personally. It has also illustrated to me how much I don’t know about the internet.

Module 10

The idea of Wikis as communication and information hubs is great. I have just created one to assist with a relocation. What a great way to keep everyone in the family up to speed on what how each other is progressing with their various tasks. Exactly the way the campers did in the YouTube clip.

Essentially the Wiki is a tool that allows students (or in my case family members) to create and/or refine everyone else's work. If there is something missing or incorrect in the overall plan it can just be fixed. A great way to 'build' an assignment with groups of students.

I have not used a ning before but was very tempted to sign up for the free trial. It would be just like having your own private secure Facebook.

Module 9

Scootle is amazing what a collection of fantastic resources. This has unlimited potential in a learning environment.

Second Life is a great creation and it seems may have an educational use. I am not sure it will ever be something I look at as a hobby, my first life is full enough for the moment.

I first created a Facebook account to see if my daughter had one. My wife called it 'spying' when I told her several months later. My Facebook account is now in my real name and I do use it occasionally but with limited personal information on it.

BTW My daughter did not have a facebook account at the time although she has since created one.

Module 8

In a previous position when setting up my MS Outlook for some silly reason I said yes to receiving RSS feeds from MSN (I think it was MSN). Only a few minor issues, firstly I had no idea how to stop them, they were all US based and I didn't know what to do with the 10,000 or so feeds in my inbox. That was all before the Web 2.0 course!

I have Google reader set up on my iGoogle home page and subscribe to Podcasts from a radio program that I like but never get a chance to listen to. These are syncronised to my iPhone so i can listen to them when I am in the car.

Perhaps we could distribute assignments to students via RSS feeds.

Module 7

This was Delicious! This application has some real potential. Using a home computer and work laptop and my son's laptop (when my daughter is on my desktop) leads to not having information at your finger tips.

On a global scale what a great way to build and store specific sites useful for career development. To allow students the ability to search appropriate sites from one central starting point.

Returning from the dark side.

Having taken a break from the Web 2 course I am now back to finish it off. I can now reflect on the impact it has had on my operations.

Being involved in the Flexible Learning project during my 'time off'' has also demonstrated to me added value from blogging and online communication.

iGoogle is still my home page, although I seem to use Firefox as well. I rarely use Internet Explorer since my Web 2 conversion.

I use a friend’s Google Calendar to see when he is working and am far more confident in finding appropriate Youtube clips for a range of activities. My sister who is on a trip uses Flickr to store her photos as she goes (and now I know all about that). What a great opportunity to return to Module 4 and complete this before moving on.

Module 6

Both Glogster and Bubbl I found to be complicated and cumbersome for what they offered. The only benefit is that they can be shared online.

I am not by nature very negative but can't see much benefit for Bubbl. It requires a lot of work for very little result (in my view). Reading other people's posts I can see that I am almost alone in this view as generally it has received good reports.

Glogster while still cumbersome would be a great fun learning experience for students who can provide great evidence on research and learning in a very creative format.

Module 5

A change in sequence here, we will have to come back to Module 4 as the technology is too frustrating.

In this module we looked at Podcasts, Vods and YouTube (and TeacherTube etc). Imagine a classroom where there is no lost time due to student illness. A teacher records their lesson and posts it online and any prepared material is in Google Docs. The student can log in from their sick bed and complete the lesson. (I wonder can you you get wireless connectivity at the beach). If a student is too sick to do the work it will still be there on the weekend. No lost time - no excuses!

I am familiar with YouTube but have never really done any random searching. It is quite mind blowing the amount of information out there on the most obscure subjects.

This is my message from today.

Module 4

I have technical issues with Flickr and will need to re-visit this module at a later date.

Now that these issues have been resolved I have completed my playing in Flickr. Photos can be manipulated, rotated etc. I was able to upload photos and even create a slideshow,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51984315@N03/sets/72157624495730748/show/ . (although I am not sure if this will work in that format.) Back to my earlier views i am still not comfortable having my personal images stored on someone else's computer even though i can restrict their access.

It is a great place to get free photos to use as 'anonymous' examples.

The sharing of photos through Facebook seems to be a more common way for people to stay in touch and be a part of each others lives. In Facebook the photo sharing is a bi-product of the social networking. With Flickr you can achieve the same photo sharing experience without having to share all the associated personal information.

Module 3

The Power of Web 2.0. I bring up my iGoogle home page and note the SMH Headlines as they are one of my Gadgets. I discover that there has been a "Stoning verdict outcry"....An Iranian woman will not be stoned to death for adultery, after her lawyer's blog posts sparked a global campaign to save her life.
This very pertinent piece of world news is very easy to add direct from my Blogger Gadget, on my iGoogle page.
It is also possible to arrange my weekend knowing that it will be fine 16 deg on Sat and a cloudy 14 deg Sun. I have fed Rodney Rodent who is now happily spinning in his wheel. My Horoscope affirms that I am a wonderfully intelligent and good looking person who is about to have great luck bestowed upon me (this is not verbatim merely my interpretation). My stocks are trading down this morning.

I will publish this now but will need to edit it later and include my progress on the Google Doc that my 12 year old son had edited.

Google Docs is a similar arrangement to having a server with shared folders, anyone with access to the folder/document can call it up and make changes (or view it depending on the permissions granted.)

Google Docs would be easier to administer to a wider range of people without the need for them to VPN into a shared server. My 12 year old has used Google Docs for a school project where, in their groups, each person was responsible for one part of a final presentation. It was easy for each person to log in and make their own additions. He was also a co-conspirator in changes to my 2 documents.

Module 2 Postscript

How cool is that!

Module 2

This is exciting stuff. I am entering this blog from the Blogger Gadget on my iGoogle page. Perhaps i will be forgiven if this blog does not reach the 50 word min that has been requested, I want to see if it works.

I have added Feedjit to my blog and 'some random' from California has visited my blog. Some people really have too much time on their hands.

Here goes....will it work?

Module 1

This has been an interesting introduction to online learning. One of the highlights was overcoming the technology issues that arose out of accessing the course content. Perhaps a valuable lesson when trying to get students to learn online. Make sure the hardware and connectivity will not let you down.

I am a late adopter of Social Networking. I remain cautious about sharing too much personal information over the internet and still will not put full and accurate detail on Facebook. The whole iGoogle experience was great but like most things when do we have time to really use all those wonderful toys??? (I am happy to introduce Rodney Rodent to anyone who is interested)

This picture has absolutely no relevance to Web 2 or blogging but I wanted to see how easy it was to upload an image.......very easy especially as it was a 2.7MB file (I wonder what that will do to the speed of my Blog.)

There is really no point having all these wonderful editing tools if we don't play with them to see what they do.

1. This will be a good bookmark for the 25 webtools
   
2. You can centre
   
3. and right justify text
4.