I’ve quickly become a fan, and thus a fu…
I’ve quickly become a fan, and thus a future follower, of Educause’s “7 Things You Should Know About . . . “ Learning Technology series . These topic-specific, short briefs give the reader just the highlights – a quick read that provides you with enough information to understand the key ideas or concepts of the topic which can help you decide if the topic is worth a further investment of your research time.
It becomes increasingly difficult, even for those of us who work very directly in the field of instructional technology, to stay abreast of all of the changes, all of the buzzwords, all of the up-and-coming advances in educational technology. These Educause reports are easy ways to get a basic understanding of new developments; they are not intended to provide in depth analysis or explanation of the topic. For those in a position such as mine (Coordinator of Instructional Technology for a large K-12 school division), these summaries are a great way to quickly gain an understanding of current hot topics. For venturers, these basic reports would be less useful unless they are simply trolling for basic information.
I have already added this site to my list of Favourites.
These seven questions seem to be the standard format for the several I looked at, all questions being addressed in a brief, two page reports (1 piece of paper, double sided!):
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What is it?
- How does it work?
- Who’s doing in?
- Why is it significant?
- What are the downsides?
- Where is it going?
- What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Posted in: Week 02: The Edtech Marketplace
lullings 5:30 pm on September 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I am enjoying these as well. But I am finding that I am wanting a little more. Particularly on number 6. I always want to know the history of who and why something was started and how it developed to where it is now. Then it can move on to where its going. The latter is opinion but the former needs to be fact. I find the development of a company/product lets me understand and form an opinion on whether I agree with where its apparently going.
Peggy Lawson 6:07 pm on September 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Ahh – but that’s the point of the series I believe. Just enough to whet your appetite. If you find yourself wanting more – then it’s up to you to continue your search. I agree these reports are not the best site for a venturer – they do lack depth. Also, I know you didn’t raise this concern (but others might) – I do not consider it a “missing feature” for Educase that they don’t provide links for future readings in their brief reports.. If you are an Educause reader, you will be quite capable of searching on your own.
Peggy
teacherben 11:54 pm on September 13, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I shied away from these since I am too impatient to download pdf’s but on your recommendation, I just buzzed through a bunch of them. I sent 7 Things you should know about Badges to my principal. Cheers.
tomwhyte1 2:28 pm on September 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Based upon the information you provided, I get the sense that this form of report would be beneficial for experienced technology teachers, allowing them to stay abreast of current trends. And for the general educator, to get both a sense of what the technology is, and potentially hook them into exploring more, especially those topics that interest them.
Thoughts?
Secondly, I noticed teacherben mention that these are strictly pdf’s. I would then recommend using Google Chrome, which easily opens the documents, then allows one to save into their Google Docs account. This recommendation also helps with those teachers who are beginning to explore Google Doc’s and its potential within their classroom, for in our district we have found that this cloud based service runs better on Chrome, than any other browser at this time.
Peggy Lawson 8:30 pm on September 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Tom – I agree these reports would be very useful for the general teacher who might hear the buzzwords (cloud computing??) but knows little about the technology. I can see tossing some of the reports on the staffroom table for some quick & easy reads. Just enough to get some teachers thinking.
Peggy