So I began this Master's program as a god whisper..or more like a God push and he said, "It was my time, he had work for me to do and I needed to not be afraid.." When I cried and said, I don't have time, he replied, "It's okay, I'll be there to support you."
I thought is was just for Stronger Than Espresso, but I wasn't thinking big enough. My husband came to me last night and discussed a project he has been given by a non profit organization to do on the side. My husband is an amazing marketer for a Fortune 500 company so he was a good choice for the work. As we discussed the objectives I began talking about using social networks since they are free and how to leverage the objectives. I was talking about Google Reader and RSS feeds and simple Widgets with a learning focus. He just stared at me and we realized that between us we have the knowledge base to let God's work happen through us for this non profit. How awesome is that!
Be Blessed,
Brooke
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Creating Ning Class
Good morning,
Spent time this morning working on next week's assignment to create a class in Ning. It was very easy to do and I completed all but one of the steps in the PDF guide. I was not able to add the Group feature because it was grayed out. All the other pieces were extremely easy to create. It took me a very short time to make the class. If I had my syllabus, course objectives and other materials I could very quickly load the information into the class format in under one to two hours. Once loaded it could be the format for a current class or for future classes. Adding the widget was very easy and I am amazed that I didn't realize that there were companies forming all around me that create widgets. Have I been living in a black hole? Wow, there is so much opportunities out there.
Spent time this morning working on next week's assignment to create a class in Ning. It was very easy to do and I completed all but one of the steps in the PDF guide. I was not able to add the Group feature because it was grayed out. All the other pieces were extremely easy to create. It took me a very short time to make the class. If I had my syllabus, course objectives and other materials I could very quickly load the information into the class format in under one to two hours. Once loaded it could be the format for a current class or for future classes. Adding the widget was very easy and I am amazed that I didn't realize that there were companies forming all around me that create widgets. Have I been living in a black hole? Wow, there is so much opportunities out there.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Ning Comparisons
I have been asking myself the differences between Ning, Facebook, Linkin and other social networking sites trying to understand why a consumer, business or educator would choose one over the other. I do believe that Ning was the easiest format for me to navigate and allowed total control in my design and numerous applications at my fingertips. The customization I like. What concerns me is the cost which would require anyone in my network to also be paying a fee. I found some blog information that is good content on how others feel about the Ning network.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/07/using-ning.
by Lisa Barone July 20, 2009
http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/05/privacy-potential-pitfalls-using-ning-to-create-community-part-three.html
by Michael Stephens on May 19, 2009
http://techcrunch.com/2007/02/26/ning-in-full/
by Michael Arrington on Feb 26, 2007
They were informative to read about Ning.
Brooke
http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/07/using-ning.
by Lisa Barone July 20, 2009
http://www.alatechsource.org/blog/2009/05/privacy-potential-pitfalls-using-ning-to-create-community-part-three.html
by Michael Stephens on May 19, 2009
http://techcrunch.com/2007/02/26/ning-in-full/
by Michael Arrington on Feb 26, 2007
They were informative to read about Ning.
Brooke
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Facebook as a Learning Technology
Spent this morning reviewing Facebook understanding the applications that are available. The real time comments, photo sharing, event planning, beta tsting, knowing who is online, forming groups and the ability to generate targeted Facebook ads all are applications tha are important to me. I found some new applications that I didnt know about: Coin Can Avatar which is Second Life but even stranger. Visual Bookshelf which sounds like a good idea. Family Tree was new for me and that really makes alot of sense. Updating my Facebook account hasn't been a priority for me and I don't use it as blogging tool to update every movement I make in my life like others do. Finding the balance between keeping an update and overwhelming information is a personal choice. How can we apply to education? With the ability to know who is online, course curriculum and attendance factors could be inplace. Group discussions, debates and collaborative projects could be done in "real time" despite the local of the participants. Posting syllabus', assignments and other course preparation is an easy way to reach the intended interest group. Separating the friends, versus professional groups is important to categorize different information needed for specific individuals. What risks do we face by providing all of that information "in the cloud"? Once its online, its there. So don't say or publish anything you would not want to be reviewed at a later time.
How do you think Facebook could be used as a learning technology?
How do you think Facebook could be used as a learning technology?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Reviewing the wikis of my classmates
I had an opportunity to review the wiki concepts from several classmates and found the wiki applications are very diverse and much greater than I had imagined. We have K-12 teachers from all different specialities and corporate trainers from many industries all proposing a unique application to use wikis in our instruction.
Last night I began to detail how I can create my wiki framework and develop the resource bank wiki that I want to create. I am answering the following questions:
What is my specific purpose?
What links will I create for specific information?
How will I use Scaffolding in my design to aid in content formation?
Will I design a contact template so individuals can easily fill in the resource information.
Will I limit it to enrollees in the program, program administrators and beyond?
Will I break down the resources by States or by regions?
How will the teams: plan, brainstorm, communicate and practice?
What will I assess? How will I assess it?
Once those items are clearly defined, then it is a matter of building each page in the wiki for testing.
Excited about the possibilities. share your thoughts?
Brooke
Last night I began to detail how I can create my wiki framework and develop the resource bank wiki that I want to create. I am answering the following questions:
What is my specific purpose?
What links will I create for specific information?
How will I use Scaffolding in my design to aid in content formation?
Will I design a contact template so individuals can easily fill in the resource information.
Will I limit it to enrollees in the program, program administrators and beyond?
Will I break down the resources by States or by regions?
How will the teams: plan, brainstorm, communicate and practice?
What will I assess? How will I assess it?
Once those items are clearly defined, then it is a matter of building each page in the wiki for testing.
Excited about the possibilities. share your thoughts?
Brooke
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Linking Blog, Web Site and Twitter
Good morning,
Well its been amazing that the blog, twitter, web site and wiki are linked together. I need to call the web provider and ask some questions about my Sitebuilder. I know how to add the RSS feeds and the Script in the site, but it won't update the way I desire. I would love to have this blog update the website. I can load the script but it doesnt "activate" and show. I have learned so much.
The next few weeks I will design the classes and am excited to design the wiki. I wonder how many resources we can really get for individuals to access. It would be awesome. I am not sure how to leverage all of this new technology, but know that I am answering God's calling in the venture. He pushed me to go to this program and said he had work for me. He was right.
Today I looked at my website and there are so many updates I want to make to make it more interactive and dynamic. Over the next year it will develop into the new dream.
Assignment 1-3 due this week...the blog, the twitter and the begining of the wiki. I was able to get them all up and running and linked this week. Good news.
What dream do you have that you would like to develop?
Well its been amazing that the blog, twitter, web site and wiki are linked together. I need to call the web provider and ask some questions about my Sitebuilder. I know how to add the RSS feeds and the Script in the site, but it won't update the way I desire. I would love to have this blog update the website. I can load the script but it doesnt "activate" and show. I have learned so much.
The next few weeks I will design the classes and am excited to design the wiki. I wonder how many resources we can really get for individuals to access. It would be awesome. I am not sure how to leverage all of this new technology, but know that I am answering God's calling in the venture. He pushed me to go to this program and said he had work for me. He was right.
Today I looked at my website and there are so many updates I want to make to make it more interactive and dynamic. Over the next year it will develop into the new dream.
Assignment 1-3 due this week...the blog, the twitter and the begining of the wiki. I was able to get them all up and running and linked this week. Good news.
What dream do you have that you would like to develop?
Friday, July 23, 2010
Rem RSS Feed
Hi, just removed the RSS feed but I can add it to my other blog. Using blogger is so much easier than the other format I was using through my web site. I wonder if I can link these so I can update here and it will post there.....oh yes more questions and curiousity. What fun - this is a truly a whole new world.
Adding RSS Feed
Wow, just ran a test on some of the features of blogger and its super easy to add a RSS feed to my blog. I can easily add resources to Stronger than Espresso's format to leverage the update features.
Cool
Cool
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wikis
Hi,
This morning I finished defining my 3 wikis for Week 2 discussions. Just read the book, Using Wikis for Online Collaboration by James and Margaret West, and they broke down the various styles of wikis. I created 3 templates and am going to move forward with the Resource Bank as my assignment. As I develop my Stronger Than Espresso program I am so excited that it is being to take shape as an online program. I need to see if I can link the wiki to my website? I need to construct my blog content for the site. Oh, yes, and I need to figure out the Twitter, blog link. I was so excited I got a great Twitter name - be soulfull. Time to link up and use technology as a tool to leverage to help others.
This morning I finished defining my 3 wikis for Week 2 discussions. Just read the book, Using Wikis for Online Collaboration by James and Margaret West, and they broke down the various styles of wikis. I created 3 templates and am going to move forward with the Resource Bank as my assignment. As I develop my Stronger Than Espresso program I am so excited that it is being to take shape as an online program. I need to see if I can link the wiki to my website? I need to construct my blog content for the site. Oh, yes, and I need to figure out the Twitter, blog link. I was so excited I got a great Twitter name - be soulfull. Time to link up and use technology as a tool to leverage to help others.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Linking Blog and Twitter
Just set up my Twitter account and have included the link in my tweets. Do they update together?
Wiki - a whole new world!
This morning I just finished reading the required text, Using Wikis for Online Collaboration, by James and Margaret West. The book defines the purpose of a wiki and breaks down the learning into three major categories: Knowledge Construction, Critical Thinking and Contextual Application. Depending on your purpose and goals for the wiki will depend on how you build the framework and direct the students through their process. Leaves me with some questions:
I also found the description of the Millennial Student on page 24 a great summary of many of the employees I teach at the bank. They are Digitally Literate (they teach me everyday something new on YouTube), Connected (physically attached to the phone), Immediate (like speed-get bored easily), Experiential (want to do), Social (ah yes, heard of Facebook?), Teams (they like working together), Structure (they like to win and get the right answers and dont like vague or ambiguious rules), Engagement (they want to do), Things that Matter (so what? they need to know how it applies to them to be important). I know that Cognitive Theories have been around for a long time, but these folks truly learn differently than we did.
An example of my students that was great was two young men in my class created an animated stick figure show using a small post it cube. Back in the day, kids would take small books and create simple stick figure pictures one page after another and when you flipped through it quickly you would get animation. So these guys create this silly animation with the post it cube, video the animation and post it to You Tube. The coolest part of this was the animated video of the stick figure and made me realize how far we have come.
When I have some more time I can look into that?
Share your thoughts
Brooke
Can I link my wiki site to my web page?
Can I link my wiki site to this blog?
I also found the description of the Millennial Student on page 24 a great summary of many of the employees I teach at the bank. They are Digitally Literate (they teach me everyday something new on YouTube), Connected (physically attached to the phone), Immediate (like speed-get bored easily), Experiential (want to do), Social (ah yes, heard of Facebook?), Teams (they like working together), Structure (they like to win and get the right answers and dont like vague or ambiguious rules), Engagement (they want to do), Things that Matter (so what? they need to know how it applies to them to be important). I know that Cognitive Theories have been around for a long time, but these folks truly learn differently than we did.
An example of my students that was great was two young men in my class created an animated stick figure show using a small post it cube. Back in the day, kids would take small books and create simple stick figure pictures one page after another and when you flipped through it quickly you would get animation. So these guys create this silly animation with the post it cube, video the animation and post it to You Tube. The coolest part of this was the animated video of the stick figure and made me realize how far we have come.
When I have some more time I can look into that?
Share your thoughts
Brooke
Monday, July 19, 2010
PB Wiki and Twitter
Set up my wiki account and ready for the new assignments this semester. I already have one topic but need to think through the other two for my discussions this week. Tried to set up the Twitter account several times and it must be having technical problems. I can't get signed up and the last "tweets" on their home page are from 5 hours ago. I bet there are some people scrambling in their office this afternoon... Never thought I would be eager to Tweet :)
Brooke
Brooke
Masters Degree, Class Three Week One!
I have arrived at the end of week one of my third class on my Masters of Education program and just submitted my first assignment about Critical Thinking and responded to my discussion posts.
What I learned this week was that I once again was amazed at the learning technologies that I don't know about. The Cloud and geotagging were all concepts I didnt know about and now understand. I was amazed to discover that Flickr has over 100 million items geotagged as of July 2010. Diigo.com was my new favorite find. Wow, it answers all of my bookmarking needs and answers the organizational need I had been struggling with. Finding Moodle is now my resource to write my Stronger than Espresso courses. I can use the free resources to create my online course program.
I couldn't receive my masters degree any other way but online due to my schedule. The last two weeks have included, I completed my second class final paper, submitted the paper to my boss for review into our curriculum, taught classes for 40+ hours, had 20 people from my husband's family staying at our house for a 10-day period, had my son's 3rd birthday party and my daughter was recovering from the croup. Somewhere in that, I got larygitis and taught a 40 hour class from a whisper. Needless to say, I survived and enjoyed my way through all of the challenges with a smile. God whispered and told me to go for this degree and I cried and said it would be hard, but he said he would be there.
What are you learning in your life that is making a difference?
Brooke
What I learned this week was that I once again was amazed at the learning technologies that I don't know about. The Cloud and geotagging were all concepts I didnt know about and now understand. I was amazed to discover that Flickr has over 100 million items geotagged as of July 2010. Diigo.com was my new favorite find. Wow, it answers all of my bookmarking needs and answers the organizational need I had been struggling with. Finding Moodle is now my resource to write my Stronger than Espresso courses. I can use the free resources to create my online course program.
I couldn't receive my masters degree any other way but online due to my schedule. The last two weeks have included, I completed my second class final paper, submitted the paper to my boss for review into our curriculum, taught classes for 40+ hours, had 20 people from my husband's family staying at our house for a 10-day period, had my son's 3rd birthday party and my daughter was recovering from the croup. Somewhere in that, I got larygitis and taught a 40 hour class from a whisper. Needless to say, I survived and enjoyed my way through all of the challenges with a smile. God whispered and told me to go for this degree and I cried and said it would be hard, but he said he would be there.
What are you learning in your life that is making a difference?
Brooke
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