ED 566E - January 26, 2008 - No. 2

I enjoyed the discussion of Wikipedia tonight. I use Wikipedia frequently as a jumping off point for information for my personal life. I've never used it for anything school-related, but I definitely agree with Jeffrey that it is a good starting point and can often link you to good sources. People feel very strongly about Wikipedia. I think it is a site that you can introduce your older and more savvy students (middle school and up) and maybe be use it as a way to discuss evaulating Web sites and content. Many in the class come from an elementary school background and I think at that age kids need absolutes and thus a complete ban of Wikipedia is necessary.

The collaboration discussion was also interesting. Collaboration is important in all work settings. Its always better to rely on someone with exisiting knowledge (and educate youself) rather than trying to learn a subject completely yourself. I'm hoping that I'll be able to take some of my past success collaborating at my current job to collaborate in a school setting. I've learned a lot about working with a very diverse group of people.

And one last thing. The chat thing was fun and I think it created a real sense of community in the class. 7 of the people in this class were in one of my classes last semester and I feel like I know them better after the chatting than I ever did last semester.

ED 566E - January 17, 2007 - No. 1

Last night's class was an interesting preview of what we could possibly learn in this class and what other things we could actually pursue on our own. The entire ride home my mind was thinking about various topics for Response Papers and Independent Learning Papers. The search orientation results gave me some good starting points - blogs, podcasting, wikis, web 2.0. I jotted some of these ideas down to use as keywords in my searches.

The lecture on the "Triangle of Collaboration" also provided some food for thought. My three other classes have focused a lot on collaboration, but it is always with the classroom teacher with some mention of collaborating with specials (i.e., art, music, etc.) and administration, but no one has ever mentioned collaborating with IT. Reflecting on your presentation this seems like a major omission in the collaboration philosophy. The LMC has become so technology-driven that IT would be a natural partner. I think teachers see IT as a "support" service rather than an integral part of teaching. Yet another preconceived notion that needs changing.

I'm looking forward to figure out how to use these new tools to share information with students and colleagues and also how to use them to retrieve information. There is so much information out on the Web in the form of blogs and wikis that I want to be able to use on a regular basis.