"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
Stephen Downes is one of my heroes – a pioneer in online learning. However, I think he missed the mark with his post yesterday entitled “My Take on the Top 25“. Stephen took Jane Hart’s Slideshow of the Day list of the top 25 technologies – and commented on where they fit (or did not… Read more Living In the Real World
This Saturday, I will be doing some guest lecturing in our Fast Track Executive MBA “mini-camp” here at VCU. They have asked me to demonstrate “collaborative software.” I am looking forward to this session, but the language they have used demonstrates how the world is evolving. We really do not use “software” anymore for collaboration… Read more Web Collaboration
In getting set to start the Fall Semester teaching an online class, I have been totally revamping the previous course I taught (as you know from previous posts) and have been neck-deep in Blackboard. This week, I had a BFO – Navy lingo for a Blinding Flash of the Obvious! My BFO – Blackboard may… Read more My BFO of the Week
I spent most of today mapping out the first four weeks of my Fall graduate course, Instructional Strategies Using the Internet – a totally online course with students scattered over three states. As this is now an Ed Leadership course, Jon Becker and I are taking it from a strictly Web 1.0 classroom focused course… Read more Backwards Translation
This fall, I will once again be teaching an online course for our School of Education on Instructional Strategies Using the Internet. The course I was given and taught last year was primarily a teaching-centered course that had little to do with the target audience, Masters students in Education Leadership. So, with the help and… Read more What Do Administrators Need to Know about Web 2.0?
I blogged yesterday about the role we early adopters need to play in bringing social media to the masses. Got some very thoughtful comments back from a lot of folks. In particular, Colin Warren of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia, made a follow-on post at his blog, in which he referenced Geoffrey Moore’s book Cross… Read more Bridging the Education Chasm
I should be working on my annual report – it is due in a week…but I am reflecting instead on the bigger picture. Last year, I reported on the number of faculty served, the number of consultations conducted, the number of workshops presented, the number of conference presentations conducted…all good stuff and all typical in… Read more Annual Report Reflections
It is a little known fact that nothing will get me doing the Air Guitar faster than Dire Straits and Sting’s “Money for Nothing“. And thanks to Songza, I can pull this song and many others up on demand for free when ever I am in the mood. Anyway, that thought of “Money for Nothing”… Read more If Free is Expected, Define “Value”
Michele Martin had a wonderful post today that mirrored some reflections of my own. In “If You Behave Like a Disease, People Develop an Immune System“, she talks about how the “viral” model we use for thinking about spreading information on the web may not be the best way of thinking about how to reproduce… Read more Metaphors for Web 2.0
We have completed two days of our TLwT Institute and are having a ball! Over the five days, we take a cohort of 18 diverse faculty from multiple disciplines on a journey of Web 2.0 exploration. During the first two days, my colleagues Jeff Nugent, Bud Deihl and I have worked with this cohort to… Read more Teaching and Learning With Technology Institute