Making Connections

Hi all

I just had a few things to share for this last assignment.  First off I wanted to thank everyone for their commitment to the course this term.  I am sure that we are all in the same boat with busy lives but it was always nice to see replies to my posts and the discussions that we had were thought provoking.  ETEC 540 was one of the most interesting courses that I have taken thus far in the MET program (I have taken 6).  At first I was a little concerned about how useful it would be to my everyday teaching as we began looking at the history of writing and communication, but I now understand why you have to go back to the beginning to understand where we are at today.  I definitely can say that I have a much better understanding of how writing and various technologies affected the world and culture,

I thoroughly enjoyed “Writing Space” by Jay Bolter and definitely found this to be a useful resource for this topic. In chapter 10 Bolter talks about turning to electronic technologies of writing in order to define cultural relationships.  He then refers to Sherry Turkle in his article.  I watched a Sherry Turkle video for the first time last semester and was really connected to what she said (if you have not seen the video I have posted the link below).

The most useful assignment/discussion in my opinion was the rip.mix.feed discussion and it was amazing to be introduced to even more web 2.0 tools that I had never heard of before.  I also thought the commentaries were really great assignments.  It was nice to be able to take the lead in choosing the article that most interested us and it was fascinating to see how people interpreted the same and/or different articles from their own points of view.

One of the last things I would like to comment on is the use of the Weblog for this course.  This was my first time using a blog in the MET program and I thought it was a great resource and something that I wish more courses used.  It was so nice to be able to read other people’s assignments and by tagging key words and the specific assignment area we were posting in kept the space well organized.  I was fascinated by many peoples research projects as well as many commentaries and major projects.  I really appreciated the opportunity to see other people’s work and to see things from a different perspective!

Thanks again for a great term and good luck in everyone in their future endeavors!