Random Thoughts on Technology

For those visiting this site looking for new posts, there will probably be less of them.  This course has ended, therefore the requirements for keeping up the blog have ended as well.  My focus at the moment is researching other web 2.0 tools and beginning 2 new courses this fall.  Oh, did I mention work too?  And the kids?  etc. etc.

So, thanks for visiting.  I’ll try to be back again.

Christina

The first of 2 posts…

My Reactions and Comments on ECOMP6008 activities

Fall 2008

Module 1:

Introductions

Homepage:

Nice to read about who else is in the class and the diversity as well as commonalities throughout.

Journal:

Forced me to set up a blog (which I had been meaning to do, but hadn’t) which was a great experience. I’m not sure I used it as much for self-reflection, but instead used it to bring new ideas and info to share – part of being a tech integrator I guess.

Web Page Evaluation – including Rubric:

This was OK, not great. I would like to see it more closely aligned to web literacy guidelines and less to the subjective feelings of the evaluator. A. November’s new book on web literacy could bring a new focus to this type of activity – something I should be putting together. Oh, and I hated making my own rubric… I didn’t find the level of flexibility I wanted in the tool provided and found that I am perhaps too detailed in my evaluation. Probably need to work on finding a middle ground with making my own assessments.

Module 2:

Communicate

Exploring Blogs:

This is something that I am doing on a daily basis as I explore and research for new information so this activity was just an extension of that.

RSS:

Loved this as it was something I needed to know.

del.icio.us:

Another absolutely fantastic concept and resource. One that I use all the time now.

IM chat:

I have used IM before, but not often. It was a great refresher and a good dialogue between my teenager and myself followed! It’s good to have a hand in what students are doing. It was nice to get to know another classmate as well, brought some personality to the class (Damon is certainly a personality!) and I enjoyed the chat very much. The article discussed is on a topic that I see referenced frequently so having to read it was beneficial – discussing it with a classmate showed new points and opinions. A good exercise.

Module 3:

Research

Search engine/directory:

I did like exploring other search engines, but would have liked to have more of a focus on how to do a better Boolean search as well. I still end up back at Google so knowing how to search very well would be helpful.

Internet History – including Writeboard:

The topic “internet history” wasn’t very interesting to me… but honestly, I haven’t been able to come up with a better one on my own. What I really got out of this activity was the use of Writeboard and that type of online collaboration. Great.

Ludcke Library:

Frustrating in that I am spoiled in wanting all my information available online. Of course, not all of the library materials are. I can access them, just not all in an online format. So I would look up a paper on a very interesting topic, see that it was not viewable online, and move on to something else. Reminds me of that article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” – I was speed reading through and giving up if instant gratification wasn’t available. Disconcerting to a degree. But the paper itself was an interesting research topic and I liked it.

Module 4:

Ethics / Blogging:

Evaluate internet filters:

I was surprised at how much I learned during this activity. It was a good exercise.

AUPs:

It surprised me the vagueness of the AUPs I read given the complexity of the issues. Another good exercise for a broad base of knowledge.

Internet security:

This was OK. I am familiar with most of the info so the activity wasn’t a standout for me.

Student safety wiki:

Great activity. This was my first wiki and it was a great topic to present (safety). It was harder for my partner, but Angela is a real trooper and contributed some great information to the project.

Module 5:

Internet Communication

Online projects:

I enjoyed pushing past the WebQuests to find other online projects. Good research project for resources.

HTML webpage & FTP:

By far the toughest assignment. Only because it is fairly complex and the directions given were complex as well. It took some sorting out before figuring out exactly what needed to be done. After that it was fine. I don’t think that HTML programming is for me, but it is nice to know the basics as we will see the code around (embedding into a blog for example from another site).

Yoder article on WebQuest:

Having just gone through a homework assignment in another class where I made my own WebQuest, this was more of a followup. Should have had this article first!

Module 6:

Putting it all Together

Final:

I am very excited about my final project. It is a website that will be a central part of my support for the staff at my school. This idea came together after creating the HTML page, however I knew that I needed another tool (couldn’t use the Lesley server). I decided to use the new Google Sites tool and it fits the task very well. I have linked to my wiki and my blog as well as using the del.icio.us bookmarks for a very well-rounded project. RSS is on the menu for addition soon!

Ongoing:

Journal entries & comments:

I enjoyed both. It was thought-provoking to do my own entries. Even more so to read other blogs and comment on their posts.

November text:

Although dated, the text provided some good information. I will be using it as a reference.

Links to del.icio.us:

This is my primary bookmarking tool and I add to it almost daily. It was harder to cull through my entries to find only 10 for the ecomp6008 set. The networking portion wasn’t very clear, however, and I am sure that I have yet to take advantage of it.

Has anyone ever tried out this online conference before?  It certainly looks intriguing and worth some further exploration.  Check it out at http://k12onlineconference.org/

Welcome to the K-12 Online Conference!

The K-12 Online Conference invites participation from educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This FREE conference is run by volunteers and open to everyone. The 2008 conference theme is “Amplifying Possibilities”. This year’s conference begins with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 13, 2008. The following two weeks, October 20-24 and October 27-31, forty presentations will be posted online to the conference blog (this website) for participants to download and view. Live Events in the form of three “Fireside Chats” and a culminating “When Night Falls” event will be announced. Everyone is encouraged to participate in both live events during the conference as well as asynchronous conversations. More information about podcast channels and conference web feeds is available!

I love this idea! I want to do this in a class as a project where each student (or group) is responsible for one slide on a particular topic.  Many different age groups could do this.  So easy and so powerful! How would YOU use it?

Presentation Tennis is creative collaboration for presentation design. It’s about having a slide deck created by many. Each participant adds one slide to the master deck, which gets updated daily.

Brought to you by Ethos3 & SlideShare

www.ethos3.com
www.slideshare.net

Have you read this article yet?  Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr

Here is a quote:

“…what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

The author is lamenting his loss of attention span, loss of contemplation, and he believes that the data at our fingertips on the internet is somewhat to blame.  Heavy internet users, he says, are not reading in-depth like they used to.  They are reading less books and have become “power browsers”.

I fall into the power browser category.  Although I haven’t given up my treasured books and reading time away from the computer, I do jump from link to link on the internet picking up tidbits of data along the way.  Do you?

Another bit from the article:

“The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.”

I do find that last line to be unsettling.  It’s a profit thing (ever see Steve Martin in “The Jerk”?).

I will admit that I do not have a GPS in my car, nor do I want one – simply because I am concerned that I will rely too much on it.  I don’t program phone numbers into my phones because I don’t like to rely on something other than my brain to remember important numbers.  Is that a control issue problem or my subconscious worried about a dependence on technology making me stupid?

Don’t answer that. 

Instant gratification

Sound bytes

These are buzz words that describe the deteriorating attention span of the newer generations.  Personally, I think this is now ingrained and “a given”.  But there is another level to this that I believe is coming more and more into play – disposability.

I remember backpacking Europe with 3 girlfriends 20 years ago.  I had my 35mm camera and rolls of film.  It cost me over $400 to get it all developed into 4 copies of each shot – even after talking the developer into giving me a good deal.

Now?  With storage so cheap and digital cameras so accessible?  We don’t think through a shot anymore, don’t value the moment, the details, the technical setup.  It’s all point and shoot.  Delete it if you don’t want it.  Photoshop it to perfection.  Print it yourself at home.  Anyone and everyone can get creative now, right?

Cameras are so automatic with little to no manual input needed from the user.  When was the last time you thought of shutter speed?  Or manually adjusted the focus?  Read a light meter?

So here’s the question… Has all this available “creativity” caused a loss in true “artistry”?

Surely for “in the moment” artistry.  Shooting in burst mode to find one picture that looks good can’t replace the real focus of a photographer (even the amateur) on capturing that one picture that depicts the moment honestly.  Recreating a memory after the fact through enhancement isn’t the same as capturing one honest moment on film.

What to do?  How about getting back to basics periodically?  I saw a show on PBS once about a famous nature photographer who limited himself for a book to one shot per day for a full year.  What thought and preparation had to go into that one picture!

Can we all do that?  Not just with our photos… this goes into all aspects of our disposable world.  Whether an email to a friend, a homework assignment, a home cooked meal…  With a little more thought, a little more preparation, the end result could be that old-fashioned product that radiates the artists that we all are!

This is driving me crazy.  It should be so simple and yet I just can’t seem to find the easy way from Point A to Point B.

Here’s the setup… I want to create a web 2.0 tool/resource matrix for the staff at my school.  Included would be information such as an intro to the tool, how to use it, step by step directions, and examples on how to use it in a classroom.  An example would be a timeline tool that could be used in a history presentation.  I may set this all up in a wiki setting, not exactly sure yet – but that’s not the problem.

The problem is that tons of my resources are all bookmarked in del.icio.us.  I want to bring them over into something where I can then manage the data better – like a simple database.  I looked for software and found lots of bookmark organizers, but either they don’t import del.icio.us data or don’t export info in ways that I can use in Word, Excel, a wiki, etc.  OK, well… I’ll do it myself then.  In Excel.  So, now all I want to do is take the info from del.icio.us and put it in Excel.

*sigh*

I am not a programmer.  I HATE programming (flashbacks to Fortran oh my!).

All I want to do is take the exported html data that del.icio.us gives out and make it into a csv file that I can use in Excel.  How hard can that be?!  Too hard for me tonight.

So if anyone has a brilliant strategy for me to get my del.icio.us data (which is great info for a project like this matrix) easily accessible, searchable, flexible, categorizable, and modifiable, I’m all ears!  (I’m also making up words as I go here, because I’m tired and frustrated!)