Project 2- Using WebCT

I too must take a moment to pay my respects to Micheal Jackson and his legacy. He will be forever immortalized in the hearts of all of his fans and family. It is such a hard pill to swallow.

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My experiences with using the features in WebCT were more enjoyable than Google. My group first met in Google Chat because it was familiar. Then, we transitioned to Live Classroom, though, earlier Terry and I left messages to meet in the Classroom via Voice Board. I think I like the Live Classroom better because it is dedicated to the classroom versus other social tools that are being converted for educational use, partly, because I specifically know its uses. Project 2 was less of a challenge mainly because I think that it has been well-designed for classroom instruction. I like the fact that we can use voice board to leave messages and was excited that they can also be sent to email! That was a perk because I was under the impression that you had to constantly check the voiceboard to see if you had messages, but you can also take this on the road and constantly access important messages left by having email access. What a convenience!

Interestingly, I am becoming more comfortable with using these technologies and instructional tools. As such, I am enjoying this course more every day. I only say that because in our discussion of exploring synchronous and asynchronous tools, I believe that the instructor has the responsiblity to ensure easibility and success when choosing online teaching versus face to face. I am also aware that sometimes teachers are forced into online teaching (which is probably more often than not the case). But, we would not have to force the teacher to participate if we could have quality instructional designers to do the "dirty work" and ensure that the online environment is just as friendly and fair as face-to-face learning. The fairness and friendliness of the environment take place when we assess who is actually partipating in the learning--not just the student but also the instructor. Then we can determine fitness of tools.
Lastly, these are questions to ponder as we explore online learning and quality of instruction:

• What is the instructor's perceptions or beliefs about the quality or potential for learning online?
• And, how capable is the instructor in preparing a successful online course?

"Online" is simply not just putting materials on the web, but rather it is creating another environment that must facilitate meaningful learning.


Happy Learning,

Roslyn

Chatting with the Googlers: Project 1

The task at hand consisted of participating with four group members to create an online group discussion using Google. What started out as a new journey into "Gmail" became a nightly discussion in Google chat. Chatting with my cohorts in Google opens up a new window of opportunity into my realization of just how effective such a tool can be in classroom instruction!

Any adult learner knows the "pain" of having to form a group with other classmates. For one, there's the anxiety that you will have to communicate with and rely on others and risk your grade if the group is not a cooperative one (i.e. having people in your group who can't decide when they should meet or those that want to underparticipate or overparticipate). Yes, there are some worries, and I have been in situations when one group member was totally silent or another group setting when a member was so particular about getting the task done that she opted to complete the assignment in its entirety! (Not a good "groupy") Nevertheless, this was a very different learning situation. This was my first participation in a virtual group.

First, I tried to imagine why or how this could work. But, I quickly began to see that particularly with motivated learners it was a task that we could easily overcome. Second, after we had our first communication (through Gmail and Google Groups), we were able to set a defined time for chatting. I felt a sense of relief knowing that we were going somewhere. Finally, we had agreed to meet nightly to explore the wonderful world of chatting.

I hadn't used chat in quite sometime, although I had recalled using it on the first social website for college students-College Club. It was an awesome experience because I could create a profile and chat with students from a variety of college campuses--I even met people on my campus and befriended them in person. Anyway, I realized that I enjoyed that experience, so using this was educational purposes couldn't be that bad.

Well, there were some issues with media devices and bandwidth (some connections were undoubtedly slower than others and some classmates kept getting "booted" off of chat, which became VERY frustrating). Later, I suddenly felt as if I was in a physical classroom environment with everyone because for once I had a real "connection" with my peers. Chatting on Google is something that I will participate in again and it is one experience that opens my eyes to viewing it as part of an educational process in conjunction to a social media tool. In the future, I can easily use Google chat when exploring communication for training and development at large companies. It provides small groups with an extra mechanism, besides expensive conference calling, to continue to get work done and participate in group chat at the same time.

Next week, the group meets in Blackboard to explore live classroom as well as other innovative tools that are specifically designed for educational purposes.....

Happy Chatting,
Roslyn

When I grow up

Do children really know what they want to be when they grow up? That is my question of the day. Let me say that many times people have asked me that question and plenty of times, I thought that I knew. But the funny thing is that when we finally "grow up" as have progressed life's journey, our generation (and those thereafter) could be placed in a position that has never been invented. That's how I feel about technology! It changes so rapidly that it's hard to say what you might be doing when you grow up. After all, at the tender age of almost 30, these technology positions did not exist when everyone was asking that tough question.

So here I am...Roslyn Warren, a student in the Telecommunications in Education course at USM.

I am taking this class as a prerequisite for the Ph.D. program in Instructional Technology and Design. I have already completed a foundation of 15 hours in Adult Education and look forward to applying those principles in the instructional design process. I have a background in psychology so it is very interesting to study how people learn and interventions that I can develop to enhance the learning process. Also, I am enjoying learning about the technology that I plan to use in the future.
When I grew up, I thought I might be a psychologist. But now you can merge psychology with technology and create positions that were unimaginable when I first thought them.

The purpose of this blog is to allow everyone to know my progression throughout this course. It is already interesting to know the diversity of my cohorts who have various insights into the opportunities that technology has already afforded them. In addition, I am excited to participate in the learning process and document my advances. I also look forward to looking over these blogs in the future to note how far I have advanced in my thoughts relative to technology and technology concepts.

Enjoy,

Roslyn