The World is Opened by Web Technology for Education

I bookmarked the e-book webpage of "The World Is Flat" (Chinese version) and read the preface. I got back to that after I read the synopsis of Dr. Curt's "The World Is Open". I found the latter one not only covers the influential flattener (Dr. Curt prefers to call it "opener") of globalization-technology-that Thomas Friedman didn't talked about in his best-seller, it also discuss that in a more positive manner. It seems that we suddenly realize how globalized we are until some negative influence like financial storm happens. However, we are never tired or scared of new technology emerging to empower connection and education.

I like the way Dr. Curt interpret WE-ALL-LEARN with the ten openers. That's poetic. I also enjoy the new set of triple P's that describe how technology opens the world for education: "Pages of free web content and courses; pipes for accessing and searching such online content and a participatory learning culture that freely shares and collaborates on the information and knowledge found there.

In the introduction part of "The World Is Open", Dr. Curt tell a long digging story to show how blog enable us to be free to choose to be an arm-chaired archeologist, an observer of those who dig in the real-world. It also shows how powerful blog is to connect people of the same interest to communicate despite of the limitation of time and space. Daily life, information and knowledge have never been shared in such a quick manner.

Web lowers the stair of receiving education (both formal and informal ones)-cutting cost, breaking the fences of age and background, etc. Thanks to the Internet, education today is highly open and global.
The web technology intrigues the willingness of sharing and collaborating of educational resources. This notion extends education outside the walled schools onto the virtual worlds where learners meet and interact with instructors and peers, discussing a topic, working together on a project, figuring out a solution, etc.

The Web technology is the modern Magellan who explores and opens the world for us so we don't need to travel over the planet but can "see" it much better than any generation before us.

Publish, Not Punish

Last Thursday in class, we discussed about the privacy and openness of blog, SocialText collaborative writing as well as the educational part of Web 2.0 tools like Wiki and Twitter.

I should say that this class changed my conservative idea about blogging. I used to regard it as a grey area where people who are so fond of exposing themselves and those who are overcurious about others' privacy party online... Now I'm enjoying sharing my life, thoughts and emotions with my friends and class peers.
I check my blogs almost everyday and enjoy reading comments on my entries. I also comment on peers' blogs. That's how I resume friendship with old classmates who I haven't got in touch for about 10 years. That's how I got great thoughts and feedback from my class peers. That's how I found collaborative writing fun and cool (Create~Communicate~Collaborate~).

Choosing blogging, Wiking, Twittering, etc. is choosing to publish your life, ideas, pictures and videos... You have the full right to choose what you'd like to share to the world. And the rest of the world have almost the full right to comment on and edit those. As long as you obey the Intellectual Property right and interquette, there's no punishment. That's how Web 2.0 is loved and also criticized, I guess:)

Emerging Tech in E-Learning

The chapter of reading is really well-organized-I like that! I can pause and pick up reading as I like. The following are some points through the reading I echoed with personal experiences.

1. The key phrase for Web 2.0 is social networking. Connecting with peer students, teachers, ideas, friends, colleagues... Create! Communicate! Collaborate!
2. Educational gaming has facilitated education and will continue that in a long way. Instructors can take full advantage of existing online educational games like the flash games from The Nobel Foundation to make their course more powerful and fun, without having to know how to create those games!
3. New understanding about Extended learning: When I first heard of extended learning, I took it for granted that it refers to education after regular school or after regular life-period of receiving full-day education. After reading this article, I need to redefine "extended learning". Actually, the learning mode I am using now in ITEC is an example of extended learning-using both e-learning (iLearn, HyFlex, et al) and classroom seminar.
4.P2P share files directly between computer and computer without going through a server. That is really cool. This technology enables students to talk synchronously on the same platform about that project.

Anyway, "new technologies will not replace traditional learning but complement it". Web 2.0 also faces challenges both in intangible part (intellectual property rights and digital right management) and tangible part (technology infrastruture).

What's new about SocialText? (No Offence)

To be honest, I didn't quite follow Eugene's speech last Thursday. He's a cool and fun speaker. Only I'm still so novice in Web 2.0...

I watched videos of "How to use SocialText Wiki" and also "SocialText in Youtube".
1. I am kind of confused that is SocialText an individual workspace with a self-owned server, or its a sub workshop of Wiki? For me, SocialText has a layout similar to iGoogle and functions as Wiki.
2. The dragging of text and pictures in SocialText is interesting and actually I just tried it out. I only did it before in Mac Word 08.

Anyway, the interface of SocialText is very concise and neat, not that entertaining and fancy like iGoogle and weaving a romantic story in groups is fun, also~

Higher Education in Digital Age

Learning mode and content is reshaped by the emergence and evolution of technology in digital age. So it is with the serious higher education.

Higher education is no longer limited to classroom lectures and seminars. It is valuable in that it constructs communities for practice after class both in the real world and on virtual internet. That's how we can compose romantic stories with group members in SocialText; we read assignments and post our ideas and paper in iLearn; we exchange ideas and reflections in Blogger...

The marriage of technology and higher education makes educational resources more attractive. Images slideshows, videos, and interactive flash tutorials are not just powerful multimedia tools but more effective and efficient teaching and learning ways.

Technology also facilitates the publication of higher education resources. Universities like MIT upload the lectures of hundreds of courses online for people all over the world to read and learn for FREE.

Higher educational in digital age is more dimensional and flexible.

Can we record rather than write our blog?

I started blogging since this class begins-Blogger, Windows Live Spaces, MyITEC-For doing assignments, for fun, and for social network. Typing, adding images, inserting videos, customizing layout and theme, adding applications and gadgets...a lot of interesting work. Still it's time-consuming and tiring. Some ideas suddenly came through my mind: Since we use computer to record voice and shoot footage, why not do that in blogging? Typing takes both the blogger and reader's time and energy. Why not record a blog and post it in the blog. Then your friends can hear and watch your blog. Maybe there've been some applications that can make it but I just don't know that.
Any hints?

Connectivism

I took ITEC 800 last fall and for the whole semester my mind is echoed with Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. When I read George Siemens' article about a new learning theory-Connectivism, I felt like the window of my room is suddenly open by a blow of spring wind and the whole world is spread out in front of me! When I bury my nose in the ITEC 800 textbook and brainstorm with peers in class, it never came to my mind that any idea would be newer and current than constructivism. How ignorant and isolated I am! Behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism interpret intrapersonal learning ways while connectivism shines a light on interpersonal learning way. That's such a cool breakthrough.

I really appreciate Siemens' remarks that "informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience" "Learning now occurs in a variety of ways". We learn through communities and personal networks, either in the real world or the virtual world. Internet contributes a lot to the flexibility of learning ways and also changes the mode of learning. Like Siemens says, "Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where". The amount of knowledge is doubling every 18 months, so it's impossible and unnecessary to be know-all in this information-explosion world. The smart way is to know where to find the information you want, either by "Google that" or "twitter that".

I found a nice picture in Google image:



Connectivism starts from the individual. Personal knowledge is the dot of a network, which in return provide learning to individual. In this learning process, individual learners can remain current thanks to the connections.

Some cute videos :)

What Is Web 2.0?




We are divided into groups to discuss what is Web 2.0 and write down our interpretations on a large tab paper. I had wonderful experience brainstorming with my group members. Here is a list of the interpretations (more or less).
Web 2.0 is:

Online community network like FaceBook, Twitter...
Way of interchanging information and sharing personal experiences: Blogger, MySpaces...
Informal learning resources: Wiki...
Globalization
Online teaching and learning: Virtual university...
Virtual meeting: Illuminate
...

This Is Me

Hi everyone! 你们好！

Excited to be back in a new semester with both familiar and new faces! Yeah~ I was so impressed by the inspiring atmosphere in this class. And it's the one and only first class in which I don't need to wait for my turn to make a brief self-introduction, but instead to blog it-that's so web 2.0-So cool!

You can tell from my greeting that I'm an international Chinese student from China and this is my second semester in ITEC. Just call me Tracy. If you're interested in Chinese as much as in Korean. I can tell you how to pronounce my legal Chinese name and even how to write it haha.

I have no prior ID experience and was not into blogging or web 2.0 on-line community before I came to America last January. I was a more paper-pen person :p and prefer to take journal in a cute dairy notebook and send parents and friends cards and letters with the "nice smell of ink" (Blush...)

Anyway, now I have both PC and Mac for study, work and entertainment... Feeling lost without them... (Blush again) I learned to use Ps, Dw, iMovie, GarageBand, Audacity, and explore Office to design project and have fun. I also took a instructional video class that make me an "actress, director and editor". I wanna be an instructional designer and trainer after graduation and hopefully can stay in the city which I've fell in love. The theories I've acquired help me in both practical classes like ITEC 715 and also my work. Speaking of my work, I've been doing an on-campus job as an Adaptive Technology Software Trainer in DPRC (Disability Program and Resource Center) of SFSU. I trained students to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking (an interesting voice recognition software) and design curriculum for the program. So I can both earn some money and apply what I've learn into practice (That's great~)

https://ilearn.sfsu.edu/archive/course/view.php?id=44969

It's DPRC's Computer Training webpage on iLearn. The lessons in word file in the Tutorial session of Dragon are part of my work. I need to add you as a student so that you can download the files. If any of use would like to try on the software, feel free to email me at yangs97@gmail.com I'm more than happy to work with you on it. I work every weekday. (I'm a serious guy~)

So nice to meet you guys in both virtual and real world~ Cheers~