"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
Back home in Richmond, VA tonight, but my brain is still buzzing from the excellent sessions and networking at ELI 2011. My post on the first day of ELI 2011 is here. David Wiley kicked off the second day with a keynote address on Open Educational Resources and Learning Analytics. Wiley noted that “open” carried… Read more ELI 2011 Wrap-Up
The Fall semester wrapped up mid-December with my departure for two weeks to visit family in New England, so I never really had the opportunity to reflect on my first use of blogging as a mode for instruction and class communication. Three grandkids have a way of prioritizing your time! Now that I have returned… Read more Is Networked Learning Doomed in Virginia K-12?
Wired Magazine in the August issue has a cute article discussing the future that never happened. When I was growing up, I watched the Jetsons and Johnny Quest every week, but the cold reality is that my flying car and jet packs just have not materialized. But while that is true, the world has changed… Read more Learning Swarms?
Over the weekend, I finished reading Bill Kist’s book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age. Of course, given my past posts, this book really resonated with me. But I think it is a good resource for any faculty exploring the use of social media in instruction. One of the things I… Read more Bill Kist Book
I am about one-third the way through Charlene Li‘s and Josh Bernoff‘s 2008 book, Groundswell. The groundswell that these two analysts from Forrester Research discuss is the impact of social media on businesses. Striking a similar theme to that espoused by Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody and David Weinberger in Everything is Miscellaneous, Groundswell… Read more No Groundswell in Higher Ed?
Like any major institution, there is sometimes overlap in training opportunities being offered around campus. We noticed this morning that I have a workshop on blogging today and Technology Services has one next week. Interestingly, mine is about web publishing and instructional opportunities (with 4 people signed up) while the other is about the mechanics… Read more Telling Your Story Differently
I had the good fortune last Tuesday to participate in a podcast with Kathyrn Murphy-Judy, professor of French in the School of World Studies here at VCU. Facilitated by Jeff Nugent and joined by Bud Deihl, we spent nearly an hour discussing the uses of social media in our classes. As Jeff set the stage,… Read more Individual Assessment in a Collaborative World
We had a fruitful faculty brown bag lunch conversation today. The topic was Building Connections and Communities through the Web. Ten folks present locally, and since Jeff Nugent was using UStream, another crowd actively joined via the internet. I used these slides to guide the conversation: Building Connections and Communities through the Web View more… Read more Timesharing Dogs
There was an interesting point raised by one of my VIF students in our online class taught by Jon Becker and myself this weekend. Half of our online class are Visiting International Faculty studying for their Masters in Education here at VCU, and half are Virginia teachers studying in our Ed Leadership graduate program. When… Read more An International View
A week from tomorrow, I am scheduled to lead a Brown Bag lunch session on “Building Community and Connections Through the Web.” Bud Deihl and I were brainstorming this session (and he earlier also blogged about it). As we talked, we realized that “community” is very nuanced. The following slide emerged from our white board… Read more Communities and Tools