Reflecting on my journey during this course, I realise, like the fish in this cartoon, Web2.0 technologies can seem like a lot of new web 'junk'. This course has helped me realise the potential of exciting new tools, that create opportunities for learning.

Grosseck suggests that students are already digitally fluent, so education must give students the knowledge they will need to in a web2.0 workforce. Grosseck also suggests that educations should 'assume a new attitude' and set ourselves up as innovators in creating opportunities for new pedagogical frameworks. I feel this is what the course has been about.

Back from the vast desert of internet-less land

Having just spent the last two weeks without internet, I realise how engaged I have become in this course and how much I miss the interaction of colleagues, watching pages develop and reading how friends are getting along in the course.

In the article Learning at a Distance: Engaged or Not?, the authors report that distant online learners are often more engaged in the learning process than their oncampus counterparts, except in the area of activies and collaborative engagement.

"Student engagement takes many forms—intellectual challenge, active and collaborative learning, meaningful interactions with faculty, and the perception that the learning environment is supportive of the student's efforts to overcome obstacles to learning"

The authors suggest that online courses should encourage collaborative activity, which I believe this course has tried to do with the Knowledge Garden. In my last unit of the Masters, I find myself more engaged than ever before in the process of learning through interaction.

Google: White bread for the mind

A recent article in the Times Online quoted Tara Brabozon, as saying Google is “white bread for the mind” producing a generation of students who survive on a diet of unreliable information

She states that “To-day’s media is shattering the world into a billion personalised truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile.” I guess this is a good description of collaborative technologies...but is this a bad thing?

Judging by the response to this article, many people disagree with her statements that google is creating a generation of 'cut and paste' students who cannot differenciate between good and bad information. Others suggest that collaborative minds create valid information that is just as reliable as academic research.

Blogger in three new languages...

Blogger is now available in three more languages, including Arabic. I first learned this when opening my account and it had defaulted to Arabic. Luckilly I know enough of the language to change the settings back to English.

Having Blogger in Arabic shows that Google and others realise that it is not necessary to disenfrancise communities who do not speak in English. The web is 'big business' in the Arab world, and a whole subset of Web 2.0 technologies are developing in alternative languages.

Not sure all the glitches are ironed out, but تهاني to Blogger!

Lessons learned from wiki lessons...

Using the Knowledge Garden as a good and bad learning experience has made me think of ways to use wikis in my classroom.

One idea I used recently was to get Group A students to research a topic and create a wiki page. Group B students then read the page and asked some questions and made comments on the page.

Rather than the facilitator generating the questions and calling for comments, the collaborators did.

Students often have to do research of their own to come up with the questions and comments. Group B (C and D) students were also busy creating pages in the same wiki and going through the same process.

I find it takes a lot more scaffolding at first, and probably has different learning outcomes to my own experience, but the students are motivated by the technology. Its a great way to teach collaboration, critical thinking skills, reading and writing for understanding, etc...

Its not over until its over...

I have just realised that Assignment One is not over. Will it ever be over? Is the nature of the beast something that is going to keep going forever? I thought about submitting yesterday, but I have the urge to tinker more.

It seems all about validating movement within the pages, by contributors and myself. I need to keep moving...

One down, two to go!

I have just finished Assignment One for FET8611 and upon reflection, it was a great learning experience. I really want to submit the assignment and have a feeling of completion, but with a this one, I dont know if it was really complete.

I have reread the instructions for Assignment Two, and I was a little horrified to learn that we are still emersed in the Knowledge Garden. As part librarian/part teacher/part resercher, my tools of research are academic databases and research journals. I know for this assignment I am going to have to search through the garden to use the material there.

Its not that I dont believe the information is not extremely valuable there, the problem is the navigation and the search tools. Searching tools, indexing facilities and metadata are so much part of my 'tools of the trade' that not having them makes everything seem that much harder and time consuming. Wikis are great learning tools, but as they expand, they need some indexing so the information can be accessed easily.