David Vogt
With poetic timing, I was reminded today of one of the reasons we are learning in a blog. One of our great support staff noticed on Google analytics that ZDNet has become a top referring site to our ETEC 522 blog. The reason is that Allie’s analysis of ZDNet’s predictions caught the original author’s attention […]
Continue reading Reverberations in the Blogosphere Posted in: Week 07: Blogs I’m taking a break from marking A1 (it’s going well; should be done by the weekend) to blog about blogging. I’ve tried traditional blogging in some serious way at least a half-dozen times, with it never sticking for more than a year. The activity always seemed far too time-consuming and undirected. I also always […]
Continue reading A Humble Metablog Posted in: Week 07: Blogs
this is amazing work David! Thank you for directing us to Gleanr – I too do my blogging just for me, for my internet presence – not sure if anyone reads my stuff, and I’m not sure I care…but my posts are helping me consolidate my learning at the time, and my musings for future reference..but for myself.
I am also going to spend quite a bit of time reading and rereading the Future of Learning in Canada – this is going to help us with our visioning exercises at my office!
Great personal assistant! Great innovation! Thanks for sharing. I spend a lot of time updating social networking sites so I will definately be exploring Gleanr.
Keisha
Thank for introducing us to Gleanr. I plan to explore it and its effectiveness in the classroom.
Just a general note (as a couple of you have asked): please submit your A1 assignment directly to me via email, whether it is in the form of a link, a file, or whatever other. I’m looking forward to reviewing them! David
Continue reading A1 Submission Posted in: Announcements
David,
I have been looking for a link to submit my assignment but not able to do so. Could you please provide me with an email address or any other way to submit.
Everton
david dot vogt at ubc dot ca
Thank you.
Everton
Hi everyone – I wanted to thank our intrepid Learning Games team for starting us off in such a fine manner; setting the bar suitably high. It’s always tough to go first, especially with our schedule, so bravo! The only general comment I would make for succeeding groups is to remember that this assignment […]
Continue reading And the games continue… Posted in: Announcements
Hi David,
I have a few questions regarding my second assignment as well as our group assignment.
For the second assignment, where are we supposed to turn it in? Should we email you or post the assignment here? If we need to post it here, could you make a category where we can submit our assignments?
For our group assignment (I’m in the Week 7 group), would you like use to direct the discussion to the course blog or can we keep it within ours?
Deb
Happy Monday, everyone – Your insights and interactions regarding the various pitches last week were on target. Thanks. I trust the exercise was useful in getting you to assume the mindset of an analyst and investor. Being an “angel” investor myself, I can affirm that the activity becomes much more focused when it is your […]
Continue reading Welcome to W4: a Bootcamp for Entrepreneurs Posted in: Announcements, Week 04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp A couple of comments before we leap forward. Last Week: First, I enjoyed everyone’s comments and discussion last week on the various future-surveying reports and sources that are available. I hope it demonstrated both the value and limitations of these materials. Week Change-Overs: As eager as we all are to move forward, please don’t post […]
Continue reading Welcome to W3: Analyst’s Bootcamp Posted in: Week 03: Analyst Bootcamp
Well said!
Everton
Some tips about tagging, categories, experimentation, and our A1/A3 assignments.
Continue reading A few coaching comments Posted in: Blog Café
Hi David,
I don’t see the PulsePress feature when I’m reading posts. I saw it for the poll, but not for our comments. Am I missing something?
Emily
PulsePress hasn’t been applied uniformly across all posts (yet).
I was concerned that we didn’t necessarily want a situation where students are rating each others’ posts, both positively and negatively. The “like” feature in many blogs works well, but I’m not sure we also want the “dislike”. What do you think?
I know what you mean… it doesn’t really seem productive to have a dislike feature. Even a ‘like’ might start to give someone a complex, if their posts are not liked very often.
Emily
Hi everyone – By now you should have received an email from me to your external email address that tells you which Emerging Market Team you have been assigned to, along with the week your team has been given to present your Assignment #2 work. Please let me know immediately if you haven’t received this […]
Continue reading Emerging Market Teams – Assignment #2 Posted in: Announcements
Yes, I have received your mail and meeting with W9 group shortly.
Well, our first week is nearly done and almost everyone is aboard! Thanks everyone for your introductions and conviviality. It looks like we`ll be a fine mob. It also seems that everyone has revved up on our blog workspace without any trouble, but if you have any problems or questions, don`t hesitate to ask. Tonight […]
Continue reading A Good Crowd Posted in: Announcements, Uncategorized, Week 01: Introductions A first greeting from your instructor along with some information about the course and an outline of your work for the first week.
Continue reading Welcome to ETEC522! Posted in: Announcements, Week 01: Introductions
Hi David,
I am really looking forward to this course. You invited comments about the New York Times article so here I go…
I completely disagree with most of Randy Yerrick’s points in the New York TImes article. It appears as though Yerrick is citing research that is looking at engagement and test scores. What I think is always the missing, but most important piece, is how the *teacher* is using the technology within a solid instructional design. You can’t just dump millions of dollars of technology into schools and expect it to have an effect on learning (as measured by “test scores”) but this article makes it sound like that is exactly what they are looking at. The Maine study should have been a clue–they had difficulty separating the effects of the technology from the effects of the teaching. I think if you really think about this, the teacher’s instructional design will always have a significant effect on learning… if technology is used effectively in that instructional design, then that is great, but it is still the teacher’s decisions regarding implementation that counted, not the technology per se.
Where I do agree with Yerrick is in his assessment of “engagement.” It is a fluffy term and I wish educational technologists would stop using it when trying to justify technology in classrooms.
The article notes a lot of dollar figures about the millions spent on technology but it doesn’t really say how much, if any at all, was spent on training the teachers to use the technology effectively with students, in ways that would maximize student success.
I really like Mark Share’s point that he makes in the signature of each of his emails: “It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.” That’s exactly right.
Re the importance of design, the fluffiness of engagement, the failure to separate pedagogy from technology in producing results… Amen Brother.
You are speaking my language! If I ever use the engagement term in my office, my Director winces…he agrees that it is a fluffy word that rarely translates into improved achievement. As he stated, “if I walked into a classroom in a clown suit, they would sure be engaged too…and I would not have had to spend much money at all…But would they learn…not likely”…same with the technology. If learning theory understanding and sound pedagogical practice do not accompany the technology, then you have wasted a lot of money and time..
Before you publish your posting, please make sure that you select a category (eg. Introductions) as well as assign some meaningful tags (keywords).
bcourey 6:02 pm on October 19, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hooray Allie!! This is exciting to have our discussions bounced across the cyberworld! As for the risks – I believe that this is part of the hesitation that many educators and school systems have when it comes to opening up blogs to the wider audience. In our board, we have a closed system for blogging to prevent access from outside and in some ways I think that really restricts the benefits of true blogging. Our job is to teach students how to post and respond appropriately and safely.
Deb Giesbrecht 6:18 pm on October 19, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Way to go Allie!
That really is an acknowledgment and kudos; it really was a well written piece on both their parts. It appears that this site is educating more than just the students at UBC. I applaud anything that makes us stand up and take a second look….however, it is also a reminder that professionalism and decorum are necessary here.
ifeoma 7:51 pm on October 19, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Good timing David,
Allie really did a good piece there and of course the fall outs of public blogging, in this instance, to me it will mean an immersion in real life understanding of the pros and cons of topic at hand. It should all make for good learning.
Ifeoma
verenanz 9:40 pm on October 19, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Good work Allie! It is a great post. It is great to know that blogging can be such a great advertising feature- when done well.
It also a great reminder that this blog is a very public forum…:)
Verena:)
Juliana 9:01 pm on October 20, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Excellent work Allie! It looks like you have a good discussion going on your post!
I think this can be some of the benefits of blogging. You can draw other people into the conversation. Of course when you are dealing with students, this can also raise some security issues. This issue has already been touched on by many people in this week’s discussion and may need to be a consideration with blogging platforms of the future.
Juliana.
Allie 9:02 pm on October 23, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks all, and sorry for my really belated response – I had a really hectic week! It was really exciting to find that my post piqued the interest of the ZDnet blogger I had critiqued, and I was really grateful for his response and subsequent post. The experience certainly gave me confidence that even though I am very new to this field (this is my 2nd MET course), I nevertheless have genuinely good contributions to make. It has also led me to reconsider whether I should be more forthcoming with my online identity.