For anyone who is interested my Task 5 for the 23 things to do activities (creating a Flickr Gallery) can be seen at www.flickr.com/photos/iainharry I will progressively add Image titles and descriptions as I get time. Totally by chance I uploaded 23 pikkies.
Ciao
Made it – the end of 23 things, but really just the start of lots of potentially interesting and useful journeys. My responses to the questions posed in Task 23 are below – they are in no particular order, so I hope it reads as reasonably coherent.
The tasks have given me a greater understanding of how my students think, and the “tools” they regularly use. In addition it has been really interesting observing what other staff members have done (how they present themselves, their personalities). I think it can be very enlightening (and fun) to see how others perceive themself, and how others respond to your posts. I see that these social networking and allied tools can make education more social (ie. can open communication channels with otherwise “disconnected” learners), more flexible (students can be anywhere & involved asynchronously, individually or collaboratively), more personal (e.g. customisable to individual needs and preferences), specific and up-to-date (e.g. use of feeders). There are opportunities to have access limited to learning resources to specific users, or allow it for general use. A significant advantage to these tools is that you don’t need expensive software (most are provided free by third parties & are accessible anywhere you have internet access). I like the use of blogs to share information (a good example is Swinilearn and it’s potential to share innovative education practices). Flickr is great for sharing images with students, and I see a lot of potential for sharing plant images with my students. The ability to tag, annotate, and add comments to the images just increases the ability to search for particular images and enhance learning opportunities. Podcasts by subject specialists can be used to provide up-to-date and relevant information. Learner generated podcasts can be great for sharing learning outcomes. You Tube and similar videos can be like the proverbial “double-edged sword” they can be used for good or for the not-so-good (ie. to show good examples of educational practice or poor examples that encourage bad behaviour). iGoogle was a major winner for me, and I will use it a lot.
All of these tools need to be managed carefully if they are to be used in an educational context to ensure that learning outcomes are relevant to the training program, both learners and teachers (facilitators) not only feel safe but are safe, and new developments in such tools are carefully evaluated as to their potential before being used in your training program.
I have really enjoyed doing the 23 Things program, and don’t have any concerns one way or another about how the program ran. I will be using some of the tools I have learned about in my future teaching (just not sure which yet, or in what way).
Had lots of fun searching for podcasts, but there are just way to many to listen too. I have subscribed to the ABC’s Environment podcasts through Google Reader. Examples: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/newsradio/audio/20081105-pittock.mp3 which is about using Australia’s desert areas to generate energy via renewable sources (eg. solar, geothermal), and http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/newsradio/audio/20081111-wave.mp3 which is about generating electricity from tidal power.
ABC Environment Feed listing a variety of podcasts
Teacher tube has great potential for use in class and via links in WebCT (Blackboard) courses. I could spend hours searching through the videos. Quality of the videos varies considerably, and in the areas I searched (botany, plants) there seemed to be more focussed at primary school level. Example: Plant Sex Teacher Tube Video
Added a page to Swinilearn Wiki relating to the 23 things activities, and started the first discussion thread on that page. It is a very easy process. Currently not a great deal of information yet on the Wiki overall, but some good starting points. Don’t know how useful I will find it, but I will keep looking back to the Wiki to see how others are using it.
23 Things Swinilearn Wiki page
Joined Swinilearn Community, and have created my profile. Quite straightforward. Please visit by going to:
http://swinilearn.wetpaint.com/account/IainHarry
My Swinilearn Profile page
I found iGoogle easier to use than Technorati. Even so I had to sort through a lot of “chaff” to find blogs that specifically interested me. I could have spent hours doing so. I subscribed to an Australian New Crops feed, one called Eucalyptologics, which as the name implies, is all about Eucalypts, and another which was all about Environmental topics (with some interesting Australian-focused ones).
Some of my iGoogle feeds
Digg is really interesting, but it is so easy to get sidetracked onto particular themes. I like the idea of seeing what interests other people, and sharing what interests me, but once again “big brother” is keeping an eye out us, targeting us (profiling) with particular advertising (I’m not really paranoid am I?). Its beginning to get hard now deciding which online social networking tools, resources, whatever you want to call them, that I will focus my efforts on, although iGoogle really appeals to me.
My RSS feed from Digg
Hi Guys,
My task 15 for the Swinburne 23 Things (subscribing to Google Reader) was pretty straight forward. A site recommended by Google (is big brother keeping that close a check of my web searching) called Gumnuts is really interesting. Its all about Australian plants, which is a major interest of mine. I have also subscribed to a few of the more active Swinburne 23 thingies weblogs.
My Google Reader page
I have used Google Images extensively before, and yes you do need to be careful about checking out copyright before using any images you download as teaching materials. I have used plant images online in my teaching practice (Horticulture & Environment) via Swinburne’s Image database (Go to: http://images.swinburne.edu.au ). Out of interest I typed my name into the search bar of Google Images and came up with 498,000 hits. When I refined my search by adding Swinburne as a search term I came up with 5190 hits – 19 of the first 20 were images I had put online (see below).
Some of the links to my images
Google docs is very easy to use. It has a simple interface (unlike MS Office applications), but doesn’t offer the full range of features that MS Office offers (although this may change over time). I like using Times New Roman or Arial as my default fonts and Google Docs doesn’t appear to offer these, which means that I would have to export to MS applications to change the fonts. I really like the ability to share documents online allowing collaboration or others to view them. The search function is also very useful. Just as well though that I am not really paranoid or I would see this as just one more step in Google’s world domination of information.
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