At some point in my life, I had a best friend. My best friend would be the one I would call for fun, to vent, to borrow clothes, to comfort, to get information. The more I become entrenched in online communities, the more I realize that the best friend is a thing of my past. [...]
I try to ustream as many professional development activities and conference presentations as people will allow. Last Friday, a group of us played around with the Ustream cohosts feature. I have no idea how long it has been available, but I just noticed it. The steps are fairly simple.
Start a broadcast.
Select the “cohost” tab and [...]
I was asked to write a short (300-400 word) article about VPD for our State Board of Community and Technical Colleges eLearning Council newsletter. I started writing about community-building and hit 555 words without mentioning VPD. I started over. I discovered it is a concept that is just not fit for print. [...]
After reading George Siemen’s post on Pedagogy First, I realize I am due for a retraction. While not everything he says applies to my particular work environment, his comments on using the phrase, “sound pedagogy,” ring true for me. Geoff mentioned something similar in a comment on my earlier post about Second Life. [...]
I think this social networking thing we have going on is more about brain chemistry and less about technology. We are making social connections, but I feel we are also making new internal brain connections, stimulating endocrine production and by nature, changing our personalities. The visual and audio cues we feed off create [...]
When I began researching virtual worlds a year ago, I had difficulty finding the value for educators. In all my research, the best examples I could find, were those involving social activities and communications studies, such as Sarah Robbins’ rhetoric classes. While there were stellar examples of scientific simulations, I couldn’t see the [...]
As a mother and an educator, I have started to think more about the implications of giving our children access to create and publish in the public forum. I have also questioned my own contributions to the digital identities of my children. For example, both my children have their own .com domains where I have [...]
I had the privilege of attending the latest Ed Tech Posse podcast earlier this week, where they interviewed D’Arcy Norman. They asked me to be a part of the podcast, and as I waited in the wings, I kept messaging Rob to let D’Arcy go on, as something magical was happening in the chat, and [...]
I participate in a vibrant, flowing, organic and energetic online community of learning practice. For close to a year, we’ve convened night and day, despite differences in time zones. Some of us are available to share, learn and discuss our work up to fourteen hours a day. I am beginning to question whether or not [...]
I had an interesting, though short, discussion with a member of our IT team last week during one of our “play to learn” sessions. This is not a criticism, as I respect and admire him and am interested in his thoughts. He mentioned that he’s taking an online program now and that it is important [...]