2zanne’s Weblog

Well, I spent some time playing and learning on Voicethread this week. What a great tool! I already have several ideas for its use in my English courses. I’m looking forward to starting semester two so I can get going.

I listened to Marc Smith’s interviews (Parts 1 & 2) entitled “An Inflection Point” and found them to be fascinating and frightening at the same time (couldn’t help think of the movie “I Robot” and other SciFi movies/books). Smith essentially talks about mobile devices such as phones, blackberries, computers, and how they will transform our society from one that is ephemeral to one that is archival. He was even talking about communication between devices and the power of self-documenting. A few quotes that resonate with me are, “every object has a story or will have a story to tell” and “mobile devices will sprout sensors like a Swiss Army Knife”. Smith spoke about the possibility of “life logging”. This idea is similar to the idea of LPWS (Lifetime Personal Web Space) presented by Cohn and Hibbitts. Smith goes on to state that mobile devices are changing the social network and that the world could become annotated in every aspect, not just books, DVDs, movies, but personal phone calls/emails and even actual activity (movement) documentation. Meaning your every move is recorded on some device and is stored somewhere.

Of particular interest to me was the question: What are the implications of having all collective action recorded or annotated? Pretty scary if you ask me. It would be difficult to remain anonymous, detached or removed if one wanted to. In my opinion we would be sacrificing personal freedom and privacy for information access and sharing. Smith states that a lack of activity or interaction via mobile devices would easily identify or single out an individual. Take for example this course, a lack of activity or participation by a participant would certainly bring that person to the attention of the professor and other participants. Is that person having difficulty with the course work; is he/she disinterested; or is it as simple as not wanting to complete the required work? Who knows! The point is inactivity signals or flags the individual. Maybe that person wants to be left alone. That would be difficult in an annotated world. It becomes much easier to single someone out when analyzing the amount of activity through on blogs, emails, and other tools than it would be in the traditional classroom (world). Do you want this? Are you willing (is there a choice?) to sacrifice your personal freedom and privacy in the New Age?

What do you think? Give it a listen, it’s worthwhile. Fascinating stuff!!

Well, I need to get my act together. I (like Angie) have learned so much in this class already. However, I have yet to move away from the textbook. Ahhhh! I even printed off some of the readings required in this class. Why? Because I don’t like reading text on the computer screen. I often feel like I’m wasting my time when I sit at the computer screen. I have been comparing that time to the time my own children spend at the computer screen playing games. I know it’s not the same thing! I have vowed to set aside time everyday to sit and read, view, blog or converse on this black box. I will walk away from the comfort and security of the paper world and leap into a visual and interactive world of technology. I know, enough already, move on!

I found the article on LPWS very interesting but frightening. I’m not sure I’d like a personal web space with my personal history posted somewhere out there in cyber space. I understand that a blog is similar to that but what Cohn and Hibbitts are talking about is beyond comprehension, for me anyways. Several questions came to mind: security of the site? management of information? time involved in the input of information? the validity of the information? I discussed some aspects of this article with my grade 11 students and asked them what they thought about the idea of a LPWS. Most of them didn’t like the idea because of “hackers”. They were afraid to have too much personal information out there. This of course led to other topics but the majority of comments dealt with security of information. Most students said that they don’t even do their banking online because of security issues. I found this interesting as they are active participants in the webage.

In the article “Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide”, the concept of literacy and the link to meaningful use of ICT is what was of particular importance to my teaching and student learning. Paolo Freire states that” literacy instruction is most effective when it involves content that speaks to the needs and social conditions of the learners” (p.9). The issues of relevancy and engagement are issues that educators continue to grapple with. I believe it was Cindy, who in Tuesdays session made the comment that if students are engaged they stay in school. This is the issue that we are dealing with at Cochrane, and I’m sure that many of you deal with this issue as well. In my school attendance (lack of) and drop-out rates are very high. Traditional teaching methods do not engage our students. I often hear students state that they are unable to read yet they can surf the web, blog, post videos and spend hours on the computer communicating with friends. This is why I think it is imperative that teachers be better trained in technology so they can use these tools (computer, web, etc.) to link the teaching sphere to the learning sphere (does that make sense?). I know that I need to incorporate the computer more in daily sessions. One program I just finished working with was “icomic” on the Apple. I enjoyed learning how to use it (not difficult at all) and my students had fun using it and produced quality work. They put together comics related to the Middle Ages.

I am still exploring some of the tools mentioned in Tuesdays session. I have spent most of that time in Google (Reader, Calendar,Documents, etc.). I find if I try to learn about to many of the tools I get a little anxious and overwhelmed by the amount of information coming my way. So one tool at a time. I’m also still playing with all of the options in WordPress. Some of the blogs out there are so informative and well presented. I would love to be able to put something together for one of classes by the end of the semester. We shall see.

I finally got Elluminate installed on my computer and was able to listen to Tuesday’s session. I will comment on that later once I’ve had a chance to review it again. I’m hoping that my webcam will work on Tuesday when we meet again.

I also finished adding the final touches to the video for my bio page. Now I just have to upload it to the site. I loved making the video. There isn’t much there but I played with the program and will continue to do so. I will definitely use this next semester in one of my English classes. I would also like to create a webquest with my students so that is something that I also want to explore while taking this class.

I’m becoming more and more familiar with Google Reader. I like it so far but I still need to figure out all of the components of the program. I have subscribed (or I think I have) to all of the participant’s blogs. I like that I can view the postings and then quickly go directly to a person’s blog. How do I create a folder and put everyone in it without having to click on them individually? Should I have created a folder first? Probably! If anyone knows how, please advise.

I have read all of the blogs and have responded to one so far (yeah!!!). Now that I am moving forward in the use of the course tools I will be spending more time responding to ideas, questions and topics presented by everyone. I look forward to the discussions (or is it “chatting” in computer lingo?)

Well, my week has been both rewarding and disappointing.

Let’s start with the disappointing aspect of my week. I found going through the “help” menus for the blog, the wikipage, the bio, etc. to be very time consuming. I spent a couple hours every day (yes, I’m a beginner in all of these) trying to understand the terminology and the process to post, to upload, etc. I am still trying to figure out how to put my picture in the participant directory. I also need to upload (proper term??) my video to Youtube. I’m almost at the point where I will be phoning someone to help me with the picture. Not yet, I will not be defeated!!!

The rewarding part of my week is that I did accomplish most of the introductory activities. I was able to create accounts and I now understand what a blog is and its purpose. I also know now how to use my web cam. What a great tool. I have a sister who lives in San Diego and I have not seen her in six years. I am going to set us up so that we can conference every Sunday. I am so excited. Back to the class material. I have decided not to freak out if I can’t keep up to what everyone else is doing. I have already learned so much and will continue to learn. My personal goal for this class is to take back what I have learned and use it in the classroom. Once I feel comfortable enough I will create a classroom blog for my English 31 crew.

I did have an opportunity to view the assigned videos for this week and I found them to be very interesting. The video that resonates with me is “A vision of students today”. I couldn’t help but think that we (educators) are so out of touch with the youth of today. However, is that any different than when we were in high school? We thought our teachers were out of touch with our world? I realize that we are still in the textbook age and need to move beyond that. But how? Teachers are moving at a snails pace when it comes to technology. How do we improve the training of teachers? What about the teachers that refuse to be brought into the Web age? What about undergraduate programs, what is the requirement regarding technology skills and knowledge?

Well, back to my picture and video!