Webvolution: From Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3Di

4R x T Moved to WordPress

I've moved my main blog, 4R x T, to WordPress. If you want to continue reading about my adventures in educational technology, please go to http://4rxt.wordpress.com/.

Co-Author at Tek Trek Blog

I'm going to be co-authoring the Tek Trek blog with Bethany Bovard. I hope to post my first entry next week.

Technology on Campus

Through a post on a blog I regularly read, I learned about Campus Technology magazine, which "is the only monthly publication focusing exclusively on the use of technology across all areas of higher education." Naturally, I subscribed to its RSS feed.

One two-part article featured on the main page caught my attention. It's titled "Teaching with Technology: Facilitating the Process." Part 1 is about "Strategies for Adopting Instructional Technology." The authors, Ric Keaster, Leroy Metza, and Angela Hillegass, start by pointing out that P-12 teachers must learn to use technology in order to incorporate it into their classrooms. "Likewise, instructors in colleges of education cannot teach prospective teachers to use technology unless the faculty, themselves, use technology in the college of education classrooms as a part of their instruction. There is something about 'modeling' that goes a long way in education, regardless of the level of education under consideration."

(This certainly sounds familiar given what we're doing in IT 6750.)

Obviously, as the authors point out, this will involve "two primary areas of new knowledge where faculty members need professional development: online instruction and face to face instruction." The article "deals with . . . the need to provide faculty not only with the technological tools for enhancing instruction, but also with the knowledge of how to best use these materials to maximize the time faculty spend with students in physical college and university classrooms." It then examines how this was accomplished in the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences at Western Kentucky University.

The process included the following steps:

1. Creating an atmosphere and culture for change
2. Developing and communicating the vision
3. Planning and providing resources
4. Providing training and development
5. Monitoring and checking progress
6. Continuing to give assistance

Steps 4 through 6 were presented in the Part 2 of the article: "The Means to Bring about Change."

Article on Work-Embedded E-Learning

I finally got around to reading the July/August issue of Intercom, which is published by the Society for Technical Communication. In an article titled "Work-embedded E-Learning: Wherever You Are, Whenever You Need It," Harry Calhoun, Kristine Berry, and Christopher Dawson discuss what work-embedded e-learning is, how it's different from "help screens and other forms of user assistance," how it's accessed, how satisfied users are with it, what its benefits are, and what some best practices for creating it are.

The article is available through EBSCO's Business Source Premier database, which can be accessed through the Auraria Library and a lot of others.

Blogging for IT 6750

I'm starting this blog to meet the requirements for a class I'm taking at UCD: IT 6750, Current Trends and Issues in Instructional Technology. Lately I've been thinking that I'd like to move into instructional technology and out of teaching because I have the most fun with the technology, so I registered for this class to see if that's what I really want to do.

In January I started my first blog, 4R x T, to record my experiences using technology in my classes. I have a second blog that I use for my classes at Red Rocks Community College.

This summer I've been exploring Second Life trying to figure out how it can be used for education. (I've chronicled my adventures there in my main blog.) Using Second Life and other MUVEs (multi-user virtual environments) is definitely a current issue in instructional technology. For me, the best use of Second Life is networking and professional development.

A couple of months ago, I ran into the executive director of the Sloan Consortium at their site in Second Life. I mentioned to him that it would be nice if Sloan-C had networking events for folks in higher ed the way ISTE was doing for K-12. He told me to go ahead with that idea, and I have.

First we put a questionnaire on the web to find out what people were interested in. Its presence was announced to the Sloan-C and SLED listserves. I created a listserv for the people who responded, gave the group a name (SL-NET, which stands for Second Life - Networking Education and Technology), held an organizing meeting, and set up a social network site. Last Friday night, we had our first activity: a dance. We also have plans for other activities: social, professional development, and training in SL skills. It's a lot of fun, and I've met some great people!