Monthly Archives: November 2012

What I learned from this week’s assignments are many. One is that law is catching up with technological changes and advancements. And it will have to do so; otherwise, it will hinder our advancement, innovation, and creativity. But I am encouraged to find that some leeway is given to the educational/academic community. However, as a user of the world wide web, seeing so many tools out there that can benefit the classroom and being limited to their usage is disheartening. Nonetheless, I am glad that I am informed. I, especially, enjoyed Ko and Rossen’s simple breakdown of the differences between copyright, fair use, intellectual property, and open educational resources. Oh yes, the TED talk video was awesome. Lawrence Lessig was clear, concise, and convincing. I am persuaded; yes, we should have “common sense.”

Wow! I am – again – overwhelmed. There are so many tools out there, and the uses are endless. Okay, I think there are absolutely some advantages to having a class blog. This can serve as the main class forum for students to come to for discussions, and it will create community for our class. However, if the sponsor school already has tools like BlackBoard or Moodle for our use, adding on more sites for students to log in to can absolutely make it even more so complicated than need be.  Then there’s the “my personal stuff” effect. I remember reading a post when an instructor mentioned that her students didn’t want to use Facebook for educational purposes since this is their personal space. Is it possible that a blog might not be or seem “academic” enough for student? I am just wondering. And if we have student blogs  for the class, I can’t imagine how much creative and critical thinking skills that would stimulate.  However, this is more work as the students  and instructor now would not only have to create but read and respond to blogs. Of course, anything worthwhile or meaningful takes effort.

Finally, I am finished reading Chapter 7 of Ko and Rossen. And now I am to post my experiences trying Second Life and/or Diigo. I think that both these tools can be used to make the class become more stimulating for both students and instructor. This, of course, will spur on more participation, hopefully. I know that Diigo will be very useful for my compositon students. We can do peer review and teacher feedback using Diigo. I think it’s great that we can make comments as well as highlight key points or ideas.

Of course, there are pitfalls to using either Second Life or Diigo. The number one thing that stands out to me is the lack of skills and familiarity with the tools. I don’t think I will be confident enough to use Second Life for my classes unless I have more know-how and practice with it. Then there’s the concern that some tools might take too long for students to learn how to use. So, I say, I will probably use myself as a guinea pig and try out these tools and see how complicated or easy they are to use. Then the decision to impliment them or not will be based on how meaninglful it is for the students.

Obviously, this is what we are doing in POT, isn’t it? We are familiarizing ourselves  with the various online tools out there that will prove useful and meaningful for us and our students. Yeah! Light bulb moment.