Education

Brief Thoughts on Blogging and Education

/ Christopher Parsons

Blog/WebLog: a web page containing brief, chronologically arranged items of information. A blog can take the form of a diary, journal, what’s new page, or links to other web sites. (Link to “Weblogs in the Classroom)

Blogs and blogging are one of the most prominent of social networking technologies. They allow bloggers to centralize content in particular places (posts) and then have others comment on the post’s subject matter. In essence, while the authorial voice is still projected by the blog’s owner, the owner can receive near instantaneous responses and feedback. In containing topics to particular posts, and by preventing viewers from altering the original text, the poster retains some of the authority that traditional authors hold, though bloggers’ ‘strong’ voices are diminished/enhanced when posters contribute their own thoughts, ideas, and challenges to the posted content.

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Webcams and Teleconferencing in Education

/ Christopher Parsons

While webcams and teleconferencing may not initially appear to be Web 2.0 technologies, I would suggest that they important to the current 2.0 paradigm and, as these technologies develop, will become increasingly critical in whatever 2.0 unfolds to. By drawing in content from divergent areas, by crossing boundaries that were previously insurmountable for reasons of cost and time, and by demonstrating and expounding upon the digital connectedness between people, the ideals of student based learning becomes possible. I want to explicate that statement a bit, and then turn to the more ‘technical’ aspects of this post’s technologies.

Student-based learning is largely dependant on sudents having a hand guiding their learning. This is commonly translated into blogs and wikis, where the authorial voice is upset. A central issue with these kinds of collaborative/2.0 tools is that both are grounded in text – text is limiting because we cannot communicate using facial gestures/hand motions/intonations/etc, whereas webcams and teleconferencing both inject these essential dialogical elements into the discourse.

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Email and Calendaring

/ Christopher Parsons

The University of Guelph will be moving to a new email provider in the next month or two and along with that movement will come (over time) a unified student calendaring system. I want to discuss the role of email, unified calendaring, and how they impact TAs.

Email

Email is the best-known electronic tool amongst TAs. It has been used for years to communicate with students, set up meeting dates, and answer rudimentary questions. The benefit of email is that it allows for relatively confidential communications between TAs and students – others cannot read the message unless either the TA or student break confidentiality. Email is not terribly well-suited for drawn out conversations, however, nor is it very good at developing content amongst a series of participants. It does, however, allow students and TAs to be accountable for what they say, which can be helpful in times of grade challenges that were supposedly made through email. For this reason TAs should ensure that no student information is deleted for at least one year after the course.

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Web 2.0 and Education

/ Christopher Parsons

I’m giving a presentation on Web 2.0 tools in under a month and, since I’ve received notice from the conference organizers, I’ve been working diligently to compile tools and identify their uses and potentials for abuse. Over the coming week or two I expect I’ll be posting a reasonably amount about thoughts and ideas that I have surrounding my presentation – comments are of course welcome here, and you are also welcome to look at and contribute to the wiki article that I’ve set up for the conference.

Before getting into content in any depth I wanted to take a step back and reflect on what I am referring to when talking about ‘Web 2.0’ and how it (potentially) applies to post-secondary education. I’m not going to get into the politics of technology in post-secondary environments, or at least I’m not planning on directly posting about this (largely because I work in an educational institution, and it’s really best to keep some thoughts to yourself).

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