Social Software – Blaskovits’ ETEC 565 ePortfolio

This was a great assignment. I really enjoyed testing all of the different types of social software that is available. I had no idea that their were so many different ways that one could tell a story. There are social network tools that allow users to create cartoons, movies, slideshows, maps, and timlines. I can see the benefit of using such software, as opposed to simple text based writing. Using this type of social networking tools allows for student creativity and will definitely increase movtivation and focus. After checking out all the different tools available, I chose to use xtimelline.com. This social tool allows users to create a visual timeline of events . This tool is very easy to use. You start by creating a title about what your timeline or story is going to be about, type a brief description, and you are off and running. All you need to do is add events. To do this you simply click on the add event button, type the title of the event, enter the date in which the event occurred, add photos or images, and type a little description or story of that event. The tool automatically links the info and creates the timeline. Take a look at the story I created about my son Ashton, and the rationale behind choosing this software, by clicking on the link to my digital story telling page.

Wiki Reflection

A wiki space provides an excellent opportunity for group collaboration and discussion. In an online environment, I find the threaded discussion forums easier to follow specific online conversations. In a discussion forum each thread, provides information on that one related topic. A wiki provides a large unified space to assemble and connect many ideas together in a visual webpage format, as opposed to the small discussion window. Allowing members to contribute to an assignment in a wiki is a great alternataive.

This is different than group collaboration in the typical classroom environment which relies on synchronous face-to-face communiction. This type of collaboration can sometime be hard for students to stay on task, as they can easily lose focus with conversation turning social instead of task related. Quite often, a few students will carry the group in terms of the work load, as others quietly sit back and contribute very little. An advantage to using a wiki, is that quiet reserved individuals have the same opportunity and voice as more outspoken students. In addition, it is easy to see who has contibuted, as individuals must log in to contibute. A teacher can look back through the history to see who has edited the wiki. One possible challenge of working with others in a collaborative wiki space is that it will take a lot longer to produce a collaborative assignment becuase of the asynchronous nature of a wiki. It can also be very time consuming for an instructor to go and look back through the history of a wiki if they have many groups with many contributions.

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