At Last Something Substantive
This week was spent viewing blogs that contained educational content for instructional technology. I found this to be a lot more enjoyable then viewing the ones that I perused last week. However, with that being said, I am glad that I spent time familiarizing myself with the blogs of the average Joe. Between Blogs Part I and Part II, I developed a much broader range of exposure as to how blogs can be and are used.
The thing that struck me most about visiting the Edublogs this week was that doing so made me feel like a real insider with an elite cadre of instructional technologists. Could I ever imagine myself to be on the same level as Dave Wiley (no, I’m not trying to be obsequious), Brian Lamb or Stephen Downes? Well, participating in reading and commenting on these blogs made me feel like I could contribute to a higher collective cognition within my profession than I ever knew possible. And, I must say that the aggregator makes a world of difference. I find that I can’t wait every day to go into SharpReader so that I can see “what’s new.” The following were some of the things that I found exciting on some of the blogs that I visited.
http://scottadams.blogs.com/handheld_instructional_te/
It was exciting to read in Scott Adam’s blog on handheld technology that “Podcasting” with iPods could actually make subscribing and listening to RSS feeds easier and more convenient because you could download the information and listen to it when you have time. I am going to look into this more. In fact, I will be doing a research project on mobile learning and was looking into PDAs as the handheld device and will now make sure to consider iPods before I make a decision.
http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/
Dave Wiley doesn’t just post content on his site, but also poses compelling questions that he really wants a response to. This is fun as a reader because you feel as though your opinion will be respected. On Dave’s blog he broaches relevant topics such as collaborative book publications, the future of intellectual properties and the impact of technology in schools. I was especially interested in the link to Lulu for on-line publishing. I didn’t realize that it would be so easy to put out a publication. Also, I choose to get an advanced degree in instructional technology because I believe the future is technology and that the impact on education will be great. Therefore, as an educator I want to follow the trends of the next several decades so that education in a formal setting can continue to remain relevant, even if it looks different from what we know today.
http://www.reusability.org/blogs/trey/
One of the things that really caught my eye on Martindale’s blog was that he posted a daily summary of the instructional technology conference at Utah State University. I don’t know anything about T Martindale, perhaps he is local, however, it was fun for me as a graduate student to see others validate the quality of the IT program at USU. Also, unfortunately, I was not able to attend the conference so his summative review and comments on the participating parties was educational for me. It is on this blog that I followed links that informed me on what a “wiki” was. I didn’t really understand the difference between a wiki and a blog until now.
http://www.downes.ca/
One of the things that I enjoyed most about S Downes’ blog was the portfolio of beautiful and interesting pictures that he posted on Australia. Second, I was surprised by how intelligent and yet down to earth Downes seems to be. As far as the content of his blog, Downes is a big player in IT and has a wealth of information and links on his blog. Most recently, I read his article on learning networks and was especially interested in the concept of “leaving language.” I had never heard the verbiage “digital immigrant” or “digital native” and found it interesting to conceive of a paradigm that would be radically different than what we presently know. Downes also is the only one that I found who could define the acronym RSS (Rich Site Summary) for me.
http://carieo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/brian
It is off Lamb’s blog that I learned about redlightgreen as a resource for research on the Internet and gained a greater understanding of metatags. However, while I enjoyed B Lamb’s blog I really liked his wiki: http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/wiki?GoGoGo
Ha ha, that sounds so...salacious, who knew I would ever put a sentence together that would sound so foreign. On Lamb’s wiki, I found myself following every link because they were all interesting and relevant for some of the topics that I hope to research in the near future. I felt like a kid in a candy store, I just couldn’t absorb it all at once.
Time Spent this Week
10 hours: I spent about 2 hours a day for 5 days surfing blogs.
The thing that struck me most about visiting the Edublogs this week was that doing so made me feel like a real insider with an elite cadre of instructional technologists. Could I ever imagine myself to be on the same level as Dave Wiley (no, I’m not trying to be obsequious), Brian Lamb or Stephen Downes? Well, participating in reading and commenting on these blogs made me feel like I could contribute to a higher collective cognition within my profession than I ever knew possible. And, I must say that the aggregator makes a world of difference. I find that I can’t wait every day to go into SharpReader so that I can see “what’s new.” The following were some of the things that I found exciting on some of the blogs that I visited.
http://scottadams.blogs.com/handheld_instructional_te/
It was exciting to read in Scott Adam’s blog on handheld technology that “Podcasting” with iPods could actually make subscribing and listening to RSS feeds easier and more convenient because you could download the information and listen to it when you have time. I am going to look into this more. In fact, I will be doing a research project on mobile learning and was looking into PDAs as the handheld device and will now make sure to consider iPods before I make a decision.
http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/
Dave Wiley doesn’t just post content on his site, but also poses compelling questions that he really wants a response to. This is fun as a reader because you feel as though your opinion will be respected. On Dave’s blog he broaches relevant topics such as collaborative book publications, the future of intellectual properties and the impact of technology in schools. I was especially interested in the link to Lulu for on-line publishing. I didn’t realize that it would be so easy to put out a publication. Also, I choose to get an advanced degree in instructional technology because I believe the future is technology and that the impact on education will be great. Therefore, as an educator I want to follow the trends of the next several decades so that education in a formal setting can continue to remain relevant, even if it looks different from what we know today.
http://www.reusability.org/blogs/trey/
One of the things that really caught my eye on Martindale’s blog was that he posted a daily summary of the instructional technology conference at Utah State University. I don’t know anything about T Martindale, perhaps he is local, however, it was fun for me as a graduate student to see others validate the quality of the IT program at USU. Also, unfortunately, I was not able to attend the conference so his summative review and comments on the participating parties was educational for me. It is on this blog that I followed links that informed me on what a “wiki” was. I didn’t really understand the difference between a wiki and a blog until now.
http://www.downes.ca/
One of the things that I enjoyed most about S Downes’ blog was the portfolio of beautiful and interesting pictures that he posted on Australia. Second, I was surprised by how intelligent and yet down to earth Downes seems to be. As far as the content of his blog, Downes is a big player in IT and has a wealth of information and links on his blog. Most recently, I read his article on learning networks and was especially interested in the concept of “leaving language.” I had never heard the verbiage “digital immigrant” or “digital native” and found it interesting to conceive of a paradigm that would be radically different than what we presently know. Downes also is the only one that I found who could define the acronym RSS (Rich Site Summary) for me.
http://carieo.elearning.ubc.ca/weblogs/brian
It is off Lamb’s blog that I learned about redlightgreen as a resource for research on the Internet and gained a greater understanding of metatags. However, while I enjoyed B Lamb’s blog I really liked his wiki: http://careo.elearning.ubc.ca/wiki?GoGoGo
Ha ha, that sounds so...salacious, who knew I would ever put a sentence together that would sound so foreign. On Lamb’s wiki, I found myself following every link because they were all interesting and relevant for some of the topics that I hope to research in the near future. I felt like a kid in a candy store, I just couldn’t absorb it all at once.
Time Spent this Week
10 hours: I spent about 2 hours a day for 5 days surfing blogs.
posted by Kami at
2:08 PM
1 Comments:
hi kami,
well, this is a substantial post. its quite a sell you give on the different blog sites. Dave must still be beaming now.
You said, '...on the same level as Dave Wiley (no, I’m not trying to be obsequious), Brian Lamb or Stephen Downes? Well, participating in reading and commenting on these blogs made me feel like I could contribute to a higher collective cognition within my profession than I ever knew possible.'
I am happy for you. Really. The class was designed especially for people like you. Alas, my own enthusiasm burnt out somewhere in the 3rd and 4th week. And even with an aggregator, I could not catch up with the flood of comments. But thats my problem, i have too many subscriptions in there already.
my question is a more personal one. Its to do with the equal voice in blogsphere... and on reputation management system. I can post a comment. dave can post a comment, even downes can post a comment on your blog. But these dudes are power bloggers. They put interesting stuff, post challenging questions, etc. I am not in the same league. I post garbage in comparison to these power bloggers, and knowing that keeps me from actively participating. I read, but i don't post/comment as much. This comment itself is a rarity.
So my question to you is to hear more on how this experience was so positive for you... why? and how? I hope its just an inferiority complex i am fighting against.
cheers,
BH
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