Musings: Web2.0 includes???? (May#7)

So what prompted these musings? There is a school I work with in Sydney, St John Bosco College, that runs a wonderful day for their Year 11 students and I came across something in their booklet that make me think.

 First, I run a study skills session with the group. Then they break into smaller groups for the school’s GROW program (Glossary  Research Organised Writing) where they work on writing styles, identifying key terms, marking criteria, supporting evidence, using scaffolds for writing, and advanced research skills. It is a really impressive program and takes into account the sort of navigation literacy skills that students need.

While waiting Year 11 to arrive, I was flicking through their booklet and came across a section ‘How Web 2.0 Savvy are you’. I quickly jotted down a few points to see whether I was savvy as the Year 11 students:

  • Am I comfortable using the Internet. Yes.
  • Do I have a web page. Yes.
  • Do I read blogs. Yes.
  • Do I write a blog. Yes.
  • Do I have a Myspace etc page. No. Doh!
  • Do I use YouTube. Yes.
  • Do I use podcasts/vodcasts. Yes.
  • Do I subscribe to RSS Feeds. Yes.
  • Do I use Flickr or similar. Yes.
  • Do I read/write wikis. Yes.

So I felt pretty good about how I would compare to a web savvy student. Mind you, 6 months ago prior to this subject for uni I would have only been able to answer yes to 3 of these!

But I started thinking – what else should be on this list? What else do we expect a Web 2.0 afficiado to be comfortable with? Continue reading

Musings: Computers putting on airs? (May#3)

 What prompted these musings? Reading a chapter about ‘affective computing’ and no, it is not about computers who are showing affectations….

Yet another new term!  Hershey (2006) defines ‘affective computing’ as computing that relates to, arises from or deliberately influences emotions – basically it is researching about emotion in computers.

One of my classmates John, will be pleased to know I have discovered in this reading even more new terms: ‘perezhivanie’.  Vygotsky (1994) found that the development of a child depends on the way the child experiences a situation in the environment, ie. how it relates emotionally to a certain event and coined this as perezhivanie.

The idea is that we know now that emotion and motivation strongly affect learning. So wouldn’t it make sense that we design the technology to react to the emotion of the students? Researchers in artificial intelligence have looked at ways to customize educational systems to the affective states of students.

For this to work, Piccard (1997) postulates that first the system has to be able to recognize the emotions of the student – are they disappointed, do they need encouragement, have they given up? Second the system must be able to express emotion and usually to make this more realistic the system is represented by a lifelike character (called animated pedagogical agents: check out  http://www.isi.edu/isd/ADE/ade-body.html) .  So where to from here? Continue reading

Musings: Why does a true blogger blog? (April#2)

What prompted these musings? Firstly a comment from a fellow blogger about disguising what is really an ad as a blog (http://forblogssake.edublogs.org/2008/04/05/when-is-a-blog-an-ad/) and secondly some comments from some classmates about their shyness and insecurities about publicly posting their thoughts on a blog as part of their assignments for this course.

I have a theory. I think a TRUE blogger blogs because a true blogger can’t help themselves. I am basing this theory on nothing more than my personal observations (very scientific). A month or so ago prior to starting this course I had nothing to ever do with blogs and no knowledge of blogs (other than having heard of Perez Hilton as a celebrity gossip blogger). I had no idea there were serious blogs out there or blogs that could be useful – I guess if I ever thought about them I thought they were simply the mad ravings of a tea-cosy headed geek. But the moment I set up this blog I was hooked. I am attempting to keep this blog more of an educational discourse on all things e-learning (of which blogging is certainly a feature) rather than my musings on everyday life (I am afraid if I started rambling all my thoughts about things like how people drive in Sydney, our tax system, our politicians, my new lounge room furniture etc etc I would never stop).  But I can see how it becomes an addictive process…..IF you are a certain type of person.

So what types of person blogs? Continue reading

Musings: The challenges faced by today’s students wrt technology (March#6)

 What prompted these musings? An interesting video my current lecturer brought to our attention.

One of the biggest concerns I see from parents and teachers is students’ use of technology like chat programs and social networking sites at home when they are also trying to do their schoolwork. One of the biggest problems students complain about is how to deal with the multitude of distractions when they are trying to make themselves do their schoolwork.

This video from Prof Michael Wesch’s Digital Anthropology class at Kansas State University is a powerful depiction of the issues students today face in their technology driven world and in a world where our students have changed and our systems are struggling to keep up.

If you haven’t done it yet, watch the video now before continuing to read this post.
Continue reading

Musings: The myriad of amazing tools available on the web (March#4)

What prompted these musings? Well each month on my site http://www.studyskillshandbook.com.auI add new videos, new content and new features to the site. I have come across so many new things this month in my elearning explorations that I thought I would detail here the tools I have come across that I will be taking advantage of for April.

1. del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/)
I think students (those that aren’t already using it) will find this a really valuable tool, particularly senior students doing research for assignments or those doing subjects like Extension English where they need to reseach an area or the IB where they choose a research topic.

2. Vokis (http://www.voki.com/)
Vokis are just cool. I am going to use them to give a study skills message to students that they may not necessarily have read but are more likely to listen to from a voki.

3. 250 Cool generators (http://www.techroam.com/250-cool-generators/)
I stumbled onto this through an edublog and wow I love it – a great way to generate really interesting images.

4. Commoncraft (http://www.commoncraft.com/)
This is a really interesting way to communicate – I definitely want to spend more time exploring these (and maybe making my own?)

5. Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net/)
Sharing powerpoints, not sure if I can use this but definitely worth exploring. Continue reading

Musings: del.icio.us (March#3)

What prompted these musings? The fact that since starting del.icio.us I just can’t leave it alone!

This is a simply fabulous tool to help in the information management problem we face online. I can’t believe I had not embraced it earlier. It took me some time to add and sort all my personal bookmarks as at first I put masses of tags with each link. Then when I looked at my enormous cloudtag I had to stop and really think about how I planned to use this tool. Did I really need a tag on ‘students’ for example? Some of the generic terms were not really going to be of much use to me. So I stopped and really thought about how I would use del.icio.us (should have done this at the start I guess but the problem was that I until I had used the tool I didn’t really understand how it worked or its potential). I then went back and rationalised my tags, thinking carefully for each link as to what purpose or categories I would like to access this link from. This took some time as often a new thought would occur and I would have to go back and add that tag to a number of the links. I think with use I will be more effective in my initial selection of tags but I would love to hear any tips from experienced del.icio.us users as to the best way to make use of this amazing tool. I’d also be interested to hear if there are any users who became disillusioned with it – after all, as the photo shows, we all have different ideas on what is delicious!