H. bloGGus

In this video, I discuss briefly why I am taking the course.  I’m very much interested in innovative social learning approaches.  I’ve experimented a little with my own online teaching in the past.  I design online learning environments so the way this course works is inherently interesting to me.

But I also want to be engaged in socially activities and to collaborate on projects that are meaningful outside the boundaries of my work.  I like to write and research ideas and so one of my goals for the class is to take the next steps to get myself writing on one of my book, course, or other tangible written product ideas and get it out there — free, barterable, or reasonably priced.

Rick’s Voice/music mix:
RReo – Sloan-C Activity 2a

I grabbed some music from Royalty Free Music.com that GMU has an agreement with for a limited set of clips. I mixed my voice with the music track using Audacity 1.2.6 The envelope tool is slippery to use. I think I finally add a fade out to part of the end clip just to get done what I needed. I think my exercise is 1 minute long – longer than I though I would do. The spoken part just kind of ends and I would use a signoff phrase if I was using it in a course.

I used a Plantronics DS400 Headset that I have had for 6+ years.

I will either post it to a WordPress blog or upload to a hosted site to make available in the forums.

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Jim/Andy – just a quick note to say I enjoyed seeing you again and thanks for the info about UMW for my son.

It was great to hear first-hand about DS106 and its “massiveness”. Please forgive me for raising the FERPA issue the way I did. I didn’t want to be that guy who throws out the C or F word. That was always a show stopper for my Web 2.0 presentations years ago and a big detractor from further bringing out the beauty and the potential of Web2.0 and what it could do if we embraced it instead. I just wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with my questions and kind wound up there and forgot what a downer the word is for any presenter. Sorry I couldn’t find a better way to frame it. I agree. And it takes some courage to hold the position you do on this.

I did read the FERPA report by Educause and came away feeling that as long as no student grade/evaluation info was being discussed publicly, then nothing to fear. You must have seen that too. I also used a release form from that report and had all my online Web2.0 tools course students sign a social networking release – in part to see how grad students felt about doing it and a FERPA CYA.

After you left, I brought up my Bb based course to talk as a counter point to your experiment/model that I thought would squeeze out some interesting issues and drive conversation vs. pit these two extremes against one another. I think a few things came out in my session – it certainly was meaningful for me. I hope we can continue squeezing out the insights that contrasting these two extremes makes possible.

Andy – I missed a response to you about your point (I think) that science can be just as creative as the arts. Of course it is. And there are a few faculty who would embrace the massive model, but in many science/engineering/ technology departments we struggle to get them to use the Bb discussion board effectively for a simple assignment interaction component, let alone community building. Adopting and then effectively using the massive approach adds another level to this. I could see the massively open approach being used for just a sectioned off part of a course designed for community building — that might be a place to start. I use other tools like delish or Diigo and Twitter now to plug students in to my social bookmarking network and groups – for some courses this is the place to start.

I love to continue this conversation some more.

This is the a podcast Episode 1 in the HomoBloggus series that explores the role of Web 2.0 in education.

Show Notes here:

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unit4 test audio / podcast

Episode 1: Title Here
This description describes what this episode is about.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Test of video insert to blog post. Machine Using Us

downes ple 2006

Originally uploaded by Homo Bloggus

This is a test of the blog this feature.

Welcome to Blogging @ Mason.

Link to Handout:  mod2_ex3-revised-byte-8-6-08