Moodle

Moodle and I got to be pretty tight over the last week or so...
I think we like each other. To be perfectly honest, I'm generally not a big fan of his job. Kinda like meeting a really really great insurance adjuster... Online learning is a complicated and often convoluted environment. Moodle does well by keeping things organized and concise. A student can pretty easily know where things are, what they're currently working on, where to find things, and what's coming up. For an educator, it's a much simpler environment than Vista or some other CMS systems I've seen. I think if someone had decent PHP and CSS skills, the flexibility and look of the interface could be customized to a great degree.

I'm coming to see that maybe (just maybe) I've just been tainted against online courses by Vista all these years... it's kinda looking like that.

Casting a Pod

I know that I'm something of a cynic. I tend to believe things only after seeing them myself. Even seeing something isn't a guarantee of belief for me, most of the time. When I read and hear about the educational benefits of podcasting, I'm again wondering what problem is being fixed by their use? In Khe Foon Hew's article, he states a case for podcasting in education. While I would agree that there are definite advantages of audio in learning (when compared to just reading), I don't believe that audio by itself is better than images (or videos) paired with either audio or reading. I'm a big believer in the dual-encoding theory of memory and learning. If a student is listening to the audio of a lecture or lesson they are most likely creating some pretty weak (and/or strange!) associations with whatever it is they are seeing at the time. I can see that their good compatibility, widespread availability, relatively shallow learning curve, and easy distribution make them an attractive element to add to a course or lesson. I would be wary of delivering the primary content of a course with an audio-only podcast. With that, I'm picturing some kind of crazy correspondence (or distance learning) course using the same basic technology that existed in the 1930's, radio. So, as far as instruction goes, a good use of podcasts would be as a supplement to a lecture or topic. Some kind of "bonus feature" that a class can listen to for more information (or for the answer to next exam's bonus question!). A better use of podcasts (IMHO) would be to use them as a tool to demonstrate knowledge acquisition, by making the students create their own. With a little instruction, some free software, and a microphone, a student can demonstrate a good deal of knowledge about a subject in a novel and fun way.

Just my two cents, folks!

Looking for a problem...

It seems to me that in the burgeoning world of web applications and technologies, educators are faced with SO many choices and a mountain of learning to understand each one and how it could be used in their instruction. With as fast as technology changes, it's hard to imagine a time when tech-savvy educators aren't spending their time researching new ideas or implementations of the latest/greatest gizmo. I'm not suggesting that this phenomena is a bad thing, but...

I believe using technology for the sake of staying current (the "use it because it's there mentality") is one of the biggest disservices educators can do to their learners. I think educators should be constantly appraising and evaluating their own product to determine what works, what doesn't, what needs improving, etc. A process akin to the continuous improvement philosophy in quality management. When they recognize and define a problem in their instruction, then they should seek the right tool to remedy the problem. Sometimes that tool will come in the form of a technology, but not always. There should be a group (dedicated educational technologists) available to educators at every level who can help these teachers find the right tool for their specific problem. I know it works like this in some places, but not all. If we task the educators to stay current on developing technology trends and applications, we're asking them to put the cart before the horse. They will be looking at the technology, then deciding if or how they can use it in their courses. They're given a solution without knowing the problem... which is never a good thing.

professional blogs vs. the ticking clock

As part of an RSS assignment for my Instructional Applications of the Internet course, I've started following the feeds of several educational technology related blogs. I think it will be a learning experience and that my selection of blogs will be fluid, to say the least. As I follow what they cover, I imagine I'll likely find some to be irrelevant to my interests and stop following them. I have to wonder though, if I hone my list to those that I think are worthwhile and only read/follow what they have to offer, will I become ignorant to other emerging (or just unknown) blogs that could be even better? I feel that by following these blogs, I'm still being fed information that other people think is important. I rarely browse the internet just to see "what's new", I tend to look for specific information to help solve a problem. I can appreciate having the latest postings from important sources at my fingertips, but if I want to know something specific, I'll still use Google to find what I need.

One day I hope to have time in my life to browse the internet for news that I'm interested in, but for now that's just not possible for me. I'm glad that this class is pushing me towards it, perhaps I'll be able to develop a habit of using the internet more as a professional development tool. Time will tell!

RSS and the dynamic WWW

In "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts", Will Richardson gives a few examples for how to use RSS in the classroom. Clearly, if the course requires the students to post their work or writings to a blog, the instructor would benefit greatly by using an RSS aggregator to collect and easily review student work in one location. He also makes the case for students to collect information using RSS search feeds, which sounds really cool. I have heard about these, but never really understood what they were capable of. In a nutshell, you can search a news site for a keyword (say, Mars), and save that search as an RSS feed. That feed would pipe any new articles about Mars directly to the aggregator as soon as it's published. That's pretty sweet!

Mad Skills

Props to James for recognizing my sure-fire catch phrase "tweet peeps" and sending me a sweet graphic! He's apparently got mad photoshop skills.

Thanks!

Here we go!

Hello, internet.

I'm going to be posting some musings on educational technology, which as we all know is a quickly changing landscape. In addition to this bloggy-thing, I've signed up for a twitter account, so you all can follow my tweets! You can be my tweet peeps... We'll be tight like that.

http://twitter.com/LandonKearns

I know, super original twitter name, right?

I'm looking forward to learning a lot about the instructional applications of some of the "newer" web technologies in my summer course, Instructional Applications of the Internet. I'll be sure to fill you all in with the good, bad, and ugly of internet learning!