Wow! I cannot believe five weeks are already gone--it does not seem possible. As I reflect on the assignments we completed in IT 648 the Webquest was definately my favorite. Initially it was the one I was most initimidated by; simply because I was not sure of a topic. However, once I got started, I definately enjoyed it the most, and saw a lot of value from implementing it into my courses.
As always Dr. Yuen has offered another phenominal course full of useful applications and unique experiences. I was not planning to take Telecommunications as part of my coursework, but after Dr. Yuen announced his retirement in the spring--I had to take one last course with him. Now, I am so glad I did. After being in the ITD Ph.D. program for six semesters now, it is evident what a contribution you make to the department you hold so dear. As you wrote in your farewell message to your students last semester, it is obvious that you have nutured the program like "your baby" as you stated. Like a baby you have given an abundance of time, heart, and soul into building your students into something wonderful, and this is indeed what you have done in the classes you teach.
I still remember stopping by to see you in November of 2009, just after U.S.M. announced they were adding the Ph.D. program in Instructional Technology and Design. The excitement you had was evident, and you were so encouraging in how you spoke to me. Your courses have been very enjoyable. I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn under you; before you begin this new chapter of your life.
IT 648 was packed full of wonderful information, and interesting assignments. While it was a rush of a class; I appreciate you opening it up early to allow us to get a head start. So much of what I have learned in your classes; I have already begun incorporating in the classes I teach. I hope that you will continue to present at conferences throughout the state and share your valuable information. Additionally, I hope you will continue to share sites you find through Diigo and your blog.
Farewell Dr. Yuen it has been a pleasure!
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Assignment 5--Creating an Online Group in Wiggio
For assignment 5 the class was asked to create an online group for sharing on Wiggio, and I chose couponing. This is one of my favorite past times, and I am always interested in learning about ways to share money saving information. While I do not expect to keep up the site longer than this class; I did learn of some really neat ways I may use Wiggio in the future from my fellow classmates. One fellow student designed a group for their family on planning a vacation, which I thought was a wonderful way to use the site. This was probably one of the most practical ideas I saw used.
Prior to taking IT 648, I had never heard of Wiggio. After taking classes in the past with Dr. Yuen we had always used Mixxt, and at first glance I did not like the change of scenery. However, I could not fault him from trying something new; as any creative teachers will from time to time, so I played along. Honestly, the Wiggio application itself did not impress me much as compared to Mixxt, or other social networks/groups. Posts seem to get lost and be unorganized.
In reading the literature I was very impressed with how Wiggio got its start. It was created by students in the Cornell business school as a project. They wanted to create a simple easy to use site, for sharing group information, and thus Wiggio was born. Wiggio has several applications that users can immediately delve into once an account is established, such as: messaging, calendar, polling, folder, meetings, and links. The collaboration feature the site offers for working on a project is great, but it lends the question of what to do with the site after the task has been completed.
My Wiggio group Coupons101 can be viewed at the following link:
http://wiggio.com/#tpl=posts_814629
Prior to taking IT 648, I had never heard of Wiggio. After taking classes in the past with Dr. Yuen we had always used Mixxt, and at first glance I did not like the change of scenery. However, I could not fault him from trying something new; as any creative teachers will from time to time, so I played along. Honestly, the Wiggio application itself did not impress me much as compared to Mixxt, or other social networks/groups. Posts seem to get lost and be unorganized.
In reading the literature I was very impressed with how Wiggio got its start. It was created by students in the Cornell business school as a project. They wanted to create a simple easy to use site, for sharing group information, and thus Wiggio was born. Wiggio has several applications that users can immediately delve into once an account is established, such as: messaging, calendar, polling, folder, meetings, and links. The collaboration feature the site offers for working on a project is great, but it lends the question of what to do with the site after the task has been completed.
My Wiggio group Coupons101 can be viewed at the following link:
http://wiggio.com/#tpl=posts_814629
Assignment 4--Webquest
Prior to reading about webquests in Dr. Yuen's IT 648 course, I was not familiar with them. After taking three of his classes prior to this, there has been a some repetition here and there, but very little. I always marvel at how he can find so many innovative, new ideas, to incorporate into his assignments and this was definately one of them.
After reading about webquests in the literature information they made so much sense as an educator. Webquests build on Bloom's Taxonomy of presenting a lesson, and gradually building to a more comprehensive concept. The neat thing about a webquest is all of the information is presented in one site as a unit. Students can see what they are going to be learning, how they will get the information, and learn how they will be evaluated. Teachers can also share the webquests with fellow teachers, and learn from each other too.
My webquest was on HTML and Web Design. While I have used many of the assignments and tasks presented in the webquest before--I had never compiled it into a webquest. This made so much more sense to me, because so much of my time teaching before was spent on helping students navigate to the different pieces of information needed for the assignment. I liked how everything was organized in one location, so I would not be having to constantly help students get started each day of class. Students before would also forget their check off sheets or reubrics, and I would have to give them another copy. All of this was frustrating to me and took a lot of my time.
Another valuable element to the webquest I found appealing was the critical thinking aspect. Incorporating critical thinking into teaching is becoming pushed more and more in education. A webquest is a wonderful way to incorporate a higher order of thinking into a lesson. By teaching a constuctivist lesson, that builds on a series of concepts and objectives--effective teaching and learning will occur.
My webquest can be found by clicking the following link:
https://sites.google.com/site/webquestapayne/
After reading about webquests in the literature information they made so much sense as an educator. Webquests build on Bloom's Taxonomy of presenting a lesson, and gradually building to a more comprehensive concept. The neat thing about a webquest is all of the information is presented in one site as a unit. Students can see what they are going to be learning, how they will get the information, and learn how they will be evaluated. Teachers can also share the webquests with fellow teachers, and learn from each other too.
My webquest was on HTML and Web Design. While I have used many of the assignments and tasks presented in the webquest before--I had never compiled it into a webquest. This made so much more sense to me, because so much of my time teaching before was spent on helping students navigate to the different pieces of information needed for the assignment. I liked how everything was organized in one location, so I would not be having to constantly help students get started each day of class. Students before would also forget their check off sheets or reubrics, and I would have to give them another copy. All of this was frustrating to me and took a lot of my time.
Another valuable element to the webquest I found appealing was the critical thinking aspect. Incorporating critical thinking into teaching is becoming pushed more and more in education. A webquest is a wonderful way to incorporate a higher order of thinking into a lesson. By teaching a constuctivist lesson, that builds on a series of concepts and objectives--effective teaching and learning will occur.
My webquest can be found by clicking the following link:
https://sites.google.com/site/webquestapayne/
Assignment 3--Google Sites
Google sites makes creating a website for business or pleasure simple for an experienced web developer or a novice. With Google's design templates a developer can insert pictures, video, and text with the click of a mouse. A creator can also incorporate existing documents stored in Google Docs quickly and easily by placing them on a website and making them public or placing permissions on the links.
This assignment was probably one of the most challenging assignments for me in the course. Mainly, because I had never worked with Google sites prior to this. The tutorials and videos provided valuable information in how to develop a site. As I continued to work with it more and more it became quite easy to use, and to get the site to cooperate with what I wanted it to do.
Google sites would definately be something that I would want to employ in my computer concepts courses. The design aspect would be a great critical thinking activity to build upon web design techniques and formatting.
In terms of designing my own course site for the courses that I teach online; I am not in favor of using Google Sites. I felt limited in many ways with presenting the course material during the development of the site. It may have been my limited experience in working with Google sites, but I like the course managment software of Blackboard better in terms of teaching.
My website can be viewed at:
https://sites.google.com/site/csc1113apayne/
This assignment was probably one of the most challenging assignments for me in the course. Mainly, because I had never worked with Google sites prior to this. The tutorials and videos provided valuable information in how to develop a site. As I continued to work with it more and more it became quite easy to use, and to get the site to cooperate with what I wanted it to do.
Google sites would definately be something that I would want to employ in my computer concepts courses. The design aspect would be a great critical thinking activity to build upon web design techniques and formatting.
In terms of designing my own course site for the courses that I teach online; I am not in favor of using Google Sites. I felt limited in many ways with presenting the course material during the development of the site. It may have been my limited experience in working with Google sites, but I like the course managment software of Blackboard better in terms of teaching.
My website can be viewed at:
https://sites.google.com/site/csc1113apayne/
Assignment 2--Diigo and Social Bookmarks
I have worked with Diigo for several semesters now, and have begun introducing it to my students for research purposes. I showed them how if they are working on a group assignment they can share a website with their fellow group members. Last semester while working on a project for another class; my fellow group members and I actually used Diigo for this purpose. Students like how they can have all of their favorite Internet sites managed by a single account. It does not matter if one site is bookmarked at home and another is bookmarked at school.
Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff is a wonderful Web 2.0 resource tool for anyone, because it provides two resources in one. On one hand it is a research and collaborative tool, and on the other hand is a knowledge sharing community social content tool.
Diigo has covered all of its bases in terms of allowing visitors to organize the wealth of information accessible from its site. It allows you to organize your bookmarks by tagging or placing in lists for future use. You can then search for items later by tags or by full-text. Users can also bookmark, highlight, or add sticky notes to information to ensure they can find it in the future. Through the site you can connect with other groups that have similar interests and share valuable information with other educators. Another great feature of Diigo is how you can cross-post with Delicious. If new subscribers aren’t ready to let go of their Delicious account they can cross post all of their bookmarks from Delicious with Diigo.
Diigo was a really neat and fun assignment to do. In researching the 15-20 bookmarks related to the class; I was able to find some interesting content. Seeing how easy it was to collaborate with other educators and share information was really motivating for me. It was even more amazing at some of the positive feedback I received from others, thanking me for some of the information that I had shared.
While I had worked a little with Delicious–Diigo was very easy to use. I liked how you were able to Twitter or post to your Facebook–all from one centralized location. This made the site very user friendly. I will definately continue to use this web resource in the future with the classes I teach and take.
You can see my bookmarks in Diigo by clicking on the following link:
http://www.diigo.com/user/apayne31
Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff is a wonderful Web 2.0 resource tool for anyone, because it provides two resources in one. On one hand it is a research and collaborative tool, and on the other hand is a knowledge sharing community social content tool.
Diigo has covered all of its bases in terms of allowing visitors to organize the wealth of information accessible from its site. It allows you to organize your bookmarks by tagging or placing in lists for future use. You can then search for items later by tags or by full-text. Users can also bookmark, highlight, or add sticky notes to information to ensure they can find it in the future. Through the site you can connect with other groups that have similar interests and share valuable information with other educators. Another great feature of Diigo is how you can cross-post with Delicious. If new subscribers aren’t ready to let go of their Delicious account they can cross post all of their bookmarks from Delicious with Diigo.
Diigo was a really neat and fun assignment to do. In researching the 15-20 bookmarks related to the class; I was able to find some interesting content. Seeing how easy it was to collaborate with other educators and share information was really motivating for me. It was even more amazing at some of the positive feedback I received from others, thanking me for some of the information that I had shared.
While I had worked a little with Delicious–Diigo was very easy to use. I liked how you were able to Twitter or post to your Facebook–all from one centralized location. This made the site very user friendly. I will definately continue to use this web resource in the future with the classes I teach and take.
You can see my bookmarks in Diigo by clicking on the following link:
http://www.diigo.com/user/apayne31
Assignment 1--Blogging
This is the third semester I have been asked to chronicle the assignments that have been done in a blogfolio, and it is always such a rewarding assignment. It is always nice to see all of the coursework compiled in one location, and be able to look at everything we have done throughout the semester. As a result of blogging in my coursework; I have also begun to incorporate it into the courses I teach. In the word processing class that I teach, I believe it is a wonderful way to teach techniques of formatting without students relying so heavily on the software application that is being used.
Blogs are used in a variety of ways and are growing in popularity. Blogs are posts that can be reflective or informative in nature and are chronicled by date appearing in reverse chronological order. Generally they are maintained by one person and are updated frequently. Older posts are generally not visible and are archived. They are growing in use in education since they allow students to reflect on classroom experiences and motivate students to be reflective to one another. Since students know their work is going to be made public they are more likely to use better writing skills.
A blog can be created and maintained by an individual with limited technological skills. No advanced web programming or HTML skills are needed to blog. There are also a large number of blog sites available to subscribers free of charge such as blogger, Word Press, and many others. Bloggers have also been known to even be compensated by businesses to advertise on their blogs if they are popular to marketing groups.
Another way blogs are being used in education are as digital portfolios. Students can showcase samples of their work and reflect on the experiences of the assignment. Peers can also make comments and often discussions will be prolonged outside of the classroom.
My blogfolio can be seen by clicking on the following link:
http://it648ap.blogspot.com/
Blogs are used in a variety of ways and are growing in popularity. Blogs are posts that can be reflective or informative in nature and are chronicled by date appearing in reverse chronological order. Generally they are maintained by one person and are updated frequently. Older posts are generally not visible and are archived. They are growing in use in education since they allow students to reflect on classroom experiences and motivate students to be reflective to one another. Since students know their work is going to be made public they are more likely to use better writing skills.
A blog can be created and maintained by an individual with limited technological skills. No advanced web programming or HTML skills are needed to blog. There are also a large number of blog sites available to subscribers free of charge such as blogger, Word Press, and many others. Bloggers have also been known to even be compensated by businesses to advertise on their blogs if they are popular to marketing groups.
Another way blogs are being used in education are as digital portfolios. Students can showcase samples of their work and reflect on the experiences of the assignment. Peers can also make comments and often discussions will be prolonged outside of the classroom.
My blogfolio can be seen by clicking on the following link:
http://it648ap.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Introduction to My Blogfolio
Welcome to my Blogfolio and greetings guests and fellow Instructional Technology classmates! This is a blog to chronicle my assignments in the class IT 648 Telecommunications. As a student of Dr. Yuen's we are asked to reflect each week on our assignments that we complete and reflect on them. In the reflections it will chronicle the assignment, how I went about the task of completing the assignment, and what plans I have to implement it in future classes in the future.
Through this blog I am hopeful that you will be able to read and learn about new Web 2.0 Technologies that you can share in classes you teach or use in your personal life. Please feel free to make comments, share other ideas and experiences that you have encountered, etc.
The blog will be chronicling the following topics in the posts to come:
Through this blog I am hopeful that you will be able to read and learn about new Web 2.0 Technologies that you can share in classes you teach or use in your personal life. Please feel free to make comments, share other ideas and experiences that you have encountered, etc.
The blog will be chronicling the following topics in the posts to come:
- Blogging in the Classroom
- Diigo
- Google Sites and Web Page Development
- Online Group Discussions
- Web Quests in the Classroom
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