Activity 1a and 1b
Quite often in these types of debate a vote is taken before the discussion. This did not happen here but I would like you to:
1. spend about ten minutes considering the proposition, given your current knowledge and beliefs
2. take notes on how you would vote and why.
I can actually see both sides of the arguement and feel they are both valid. My feeling has always been technology cannot increase the quality of education alone but that some technologies do work wonders. I think boh speakers did actually agree on this.
However reading the propostions Daniels was written well and I could relate to it. Kozma's was written in 'computer' language...what the heck was he on about.....he lost me in a sea of studies!! Therefore because of this I may be swayed to vote for Daniel......new technologies add little quality to education..however I believe that the right technologies used in the right way at the right time can add quality and so will vote for Kozma!!!
I'm now marking E123's TMA 03 and next week E124's is due in so that's 4 weeks of marking....yippee! Had ECA tutorials at Northumbria Uni all day yesterday for both groups....it was the last one for all of them as they will be completing end of May so won't see any of them again....aah! Just have the last tutorial to do on Wednesday night at the Jewish nursery. Told my boss on Friday that I couldn't apply for the new E100 course as I probably wouldn't be able to see it through due to moving to Ontario. She was really nice and there's a possibility of picking up a contract this October for those students who may still need to finish E123/E124....so all good!!Have to go to Milton Keynes at the end of May for an ECA marking day....thought I'd apply to mark this year and got the E124 marking!
Activity 6
The ‘OER Roadmap’ publication (Geser, 2007) is an essential information guide about OERs for individuals and institutions interested in providing or using open content. You might just want to take notes for yourself at this point.
Read the introduction to the OLCOS report on pages 12 and 13.
Read sections 3.0–3.2 (pages 20–24) and think of the ways in which OERs could be useful for different types of users.
Read the section ‘Creative Commons licensing is firmly established and increasingly used’ on pages 58 and 59 and reflect upon the advantages of using an open licence to provide and share content.
Ok not really sure why I put this in here as I'm not going to add anything to it at the moment...won't delete it as I may come back later!
After what I would say has been a bit off a rocky start to Block 2 (Block 1 wasn't exactly a bed of roses either!) I am loving Week 10. This is probably due to less activities so there's more time to concentrate and work on them. Also I've discoverd Delicious...how sad am I that I've been studying MAODE since Sept 2007 and only just fathomed out its use!!! Really like OpenLearn http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php ...as an AL I'm sure the OU will have directed me to this but I either didn't have time to look or didn't understand its use. There are actually resources for the courses that I teach....as far as I'm aware they've never been recommended in the AL discussion forums. Not much use now as the courses are ending this July and amalgamating into one starting this October.
Anyway I've atually jumped forward in the activities so I need to go back to Week 10b Activity 6 and read through the OER Roadmap. I'm aware that my time will be limited over the next few weeks as I have TMA's to mark for two courses, tutorials, CPD day (on Elluminate!!!) and ECA markers day at Milton Keynes!
Activity 5
Read the paper from which the quote above was taken. It is ‘Characterising the different blogging behaviours of students on an online distance learning course’. Allow up to an hour to study it and to make notes in response to the following questions, before moving on to the second part of the activity.
1. What if anything surprises you about the findings from Kerawalla and her colleagues? Have to say that there were no real surprises as I have studied on the course in question and feel that the findings were as expected. I found the OU blog difficult to use and personalise. I now use Blogger as I can make it more personal in the same way a diary would be. I also have ownership of my blog! Half the fun of blogging has been creating and enhancing the blog!
2. Of the purposes for blogging identified in the paper, which purpose is most likely to encourage you to blog if you don’t already?
And, if you already blog, which of those purposes is most important to you? Or do you do it for some other reason? I mainly fit into the category of 'self sufficient' blogger. I do follow other bloggers though not many. I use the blog to carry out activities as this was compulsory on course H810 and still suits me. I'm not necessarily looking for comments nor do I really need an audience. I also use the blog to help with reflection.
3. If you work with learners who blog, how do their motivations compare (as far as you can tell) with those of the students in this paper? None of my students blog. It has been considered but where would I find the time to check 40+ blogs!
4. Based on the recommendations in the paper, or your own experience of blogging, how would you design activities to encourage learners to blog and to read and comment on each other’s blogs? As the paper stated students have different reasons for blogging...they can't be made to blog successfully, for some blogging is a very personal experience, you can't make students share either. I'll need to think some more on this question.
When you’re considering this, you may like to think back to the papers from Kennedy et al. that you read – one in Week 1, and one in Weeks 13–14. You may recall that in their research of first-year students at three Australian universities, the authors found that relatively few kept a blog, even though there are claims that this generation has an appetite for blogging. The authors argue that:
there is a real danger that such commentary will create a vague but pervasive feeling among tertiary educators that every student who enters the higher education system is a blogger.
(Kennedy et al., 2007, p.522)
Activity 2
This activity asks you to find out the following by doing some online searching via Google, GoogleScholar, Wikipedia, Citizendium or other tools:
- What do their different editorial policies imply about differing approaches to authority and to the role of the ‘expert’? Comparing Wikipedia with Citizendium.....Wikipedia is open to anyone to post and they do this anonymously. There is vanadlism and a trend that posters post for their own personal gain. Moderators are not always experts. Citizendium uses posters (authors) actual names and has actual experts who moderate. It appears to be an enhancement of Wikipedia, it has built upon the idea of Wikipedia but does not claim to be better then it.
- What are the most important differences between Citizendium and Wikipedia in terms of their editorial policies? As stated earlier......unlike Wikipedia Citizendium uses actual names of people posting, they must agree to a set of terms, there is policing of bad behaviour and it encourages respectability.
- How far is Citizendium meeting its goals, as far as you can tell from recent reports?
These reports may come from Citizendium (what it says about itself) and from commentators.
Activity 1
Please read Baker’s How I fell in love with Wikipedia. As you do so, consider the following:
- Is there anything new for you in the article? There was nothinbg that I didn't already know but I liked the way the article shared thew experiences of using Wikipedia how obsessive a person can become when contibuting to it.
- Does it make you more or less likely to consult Wikipedia, or does it make no difference? I'll continue as I did before. I've always taken what is in the Wikipedia as being an 'open to discussion' forum, even being based on hearsay so I don't rely heavily on it even though I know its moderated. I don't usually reference from the Wikipedia.
- If you have used Wikipedia in the past few weeks – whether for H800 or for other reasons – review your use of it. Its given interesting info which I take with a pinch of salt!
- Where have you found it most and least valuable? I've found it more valuable when searching for general info that would be found in the public domain as its quick and concise and can lead me to more detailed info. I find it least valuable as a reliable tool for academic research.
- Are there certain types of topic that you feel happy looking up in Wikipedia? For example, do you consult it for factual information such as names and dates, and/or explanations of technologies, and/or insights into broad topics such as ‘learning’? Tend to use it for personal use rather than for work or study.
- Why is a Wikipedia entry not generally regarded as acceptable as a reference in an academic journal? For one view on this, you could search on ‘citing Wikipedia’ within Wikipedia itself! Although moderated it unlikely the moderator is an expert in that field.
- And if you are involved in supporting learners in some capacity – interpreting ‘support’ very broadly to include professional and personal contexts – what advice would you give them about how they could use Wikipedia? It gives a good overview but it may be based on hearsay or personal opinion rather than on fact or research. No harm in using it but keep an open mind.
- How does your use of Wikipedia compare with, say, your use of Google or GoogleScholar? You may like to think back to your tutor group discussion of the graph in Week 1a Activity 4.
And if you haven’t used Wikipedia recently, think about why that is. Are you using other online sources, or books, or…? I use it far less than google or books etc. This may just be because of habit or I'm more comfortable in the way I research at the minute.
Well the first TMA is done and dusted and has passed...phew! Knowing that this is the last course seems to be knocking my confidence a bit...bizarre! Not that I ever been overly confident...I remember talking to another AL a while back and we both felt that someone would rumble us at some point and reveal us as to be unworthy of the title...well I'm feeling a bit like that at the moment.
As I was behind I decided to work through the activities but just couldn't grasp what the aim was. I couldn't get past the fact that to me this was simply about creating lesson plans. Decided to post to the tutor site for help and a fellow student came to my rescue.... you're a star Philip!!. He gave me a great paper by Conol to read that managed to cover just about all the activities but most importantly i understood it!!!
I now get the different purposes for social networks......You tube=sharing videos, Facebook=finding similarities in profiles, Cloudworks and Phoebe= sharing educational design. It's way more than just creating lesson plans and sharing them. The sites can become a repository for those in education to share or to find ideas/plans/designs/tools/resources that do not necessarily have to be confined to a particular institution but could be shared globally.
