MET Blog of Louise Thomson

Well, the cold, hard reality of web design has hit me! The website that I designed for my students to use to access approved resources on the internet bites! The number of times I had to make the mark on the “Does your webpage suck checklist” is too large to mention. If you have a site and haven’t taken a gander at this please treat yourself with this humbling experience at websitesthatsuck.com.

Looks like its back to the drawing board on this one!

We are finally in the last module for ETEC 565. This one examines multi-media tools. I have certainly experienced alot of these tools throughout the MANY years of education I have experienced! As an elementary and secondary school student the best part of a unit in language arts was always when we got to see the movie based on the book we were reading. I still remember watching the video of a stage production of the Taming of the Shrew in high school. Considering that was 26 years ago that is quite an impact! I still consider this to be my favourite Shakespeare play.

During my time in the MET program I have been able to experience a great deal by way of images, video and audio files. The impact that these make on my learning cannot be overstated. Some of the most memorable and impactful moments came to me by way of a videotaped interview or mash-up. The inclusion of these tools in my program means a chance to step away from the copious amounts of text we are confronted with and live not within the page for a moment but in the mind. I feel a sense of relief that I can sit back and just listen to someone speak about a subject or enjoy the creativity of, and message in, the work of another person. This for me is the essence of the web. It allows people to contribute to the information in new ways and provides an array of options for the learner to watch, listen and experience information through media.

This week’s collaboration was on a UBC wiki that John created for us. As always, the asynchronous nature of the collaboration was very helpful and works great with the wide-variety of “other” demands that are placed on all of us on a daily basis. It was interesting to hear people’s experiences with social media in the classroom. It was quite varied as was to be expected.

I didn’t find the visual appeal of the discussion board to be present in the wiki however. The threads are easy to follow and always have a name attached so you know who is speaking. In the wiki the work was more anonymous when it came to the summing up and key ideas sections. I have worked in a wiki format in a small group and I think that there is a great deal more accountability than in a group as large as our whole section. It didn’t feel like people were as engaged with the discussion as they might have been were we in small groups.