The Final Post

Tristan Orion Murray
born stardate: 03.20.2009





Many thanks to all of you who left feedback for this course! I apologize for not putting them up earlier this week, but my baby decided to come earlier than his scheduled C-section date (he was breech) and was born Friday, March 20th-- the first day of Spring! The lucky winner of the GPS prize will be contacted within the next few weeks-- congratulations, and again, your input was greatly appreciated!


Some Crew Reflections:

Course Overall:

First of all, let me say you have done a marvelous job with this class. I had no idea what the course would be at first, and so much online technology and terminology just scared me to death. You have completely changed how I view the internet. It is a marvelous tool for students and educators, and I foresee using what I've learned in your course in a variety of ways going forward.

I feel empowered by what I’ve learned.

I now know how to come up with usernames and URLs! That was a real test to figure out how those worked in the big picture.

I've really enjoyed this Web 2.0 class, especially since it's prodded me into trying some tools or applications that I've been curious or wary (or both) about. I probably wouldn't have ventured onto Facebook or delicious otherwise. I'd love to take the course again over the summer so that I could begin to build some of these functions into my fall 2009 classes.

I'm glad that you're planning on keeping the blog active until the fall so that we can revisit the materials and instructions. I know that there are features that I'm interested in, but for some reason or another, aren't able to make use of right now or in the near future. However, your course has made me aware that they're there--and that they're relatively idiot-proof. At some point, I may realize that flickr might offer the ideal solution for that independent study on art and literature.

Great way to bring people up to speed with a minimum amount of wasted effort.

In general, I liked just hearing about what the useful sights are. I knew about Facebook and some others, but I had never heard of pbwiki (though I knew how wikipedia worked), and I was so glad to hear about mydelicious. This one in particular felt like a real solution to a real techno problem for me. You can't take your bookmarks with you, so they aren't always so useful, but with delicious, problem solved. Good to know.

I liked the 2.0 format. I liked the hands-on, self-paced discovery. I also like courses where I have to experiment or “play” with the material, which is not surprising given my field of choice. What I like least was the feeling that I didn’t have the time to really dig deep into every application. (Time, time, time!!!)

What I liked most about this journey is that is opened my eyes and knoweldge to Web 2.0 because I wasn't clear what the term meant and learned that I knew some of it, but still had a lot to learn about it. I hope you will keep the course outline up for awhile so that if we wanted to go back and review or research something, it would be there at a later time. Thanks so much for offering this course. You have been a great "captain."

Approach:

I thought the entertaining, simple approach was perfect. It was light, and yet content-specific enough to engage me first, then really teach me a new application, second. I love that I could access the lessons on MY schedule, so the online aspect was right on. I think few of us on the staff or faculty would have to time to attend something of this nature at a set time each week.

I liked the course and liked the way one could work at one’s own pace. I liked that it was not set up with a specific time and date.

The format was helpful. Being able to respond asyncronously allowed me to work when I could, and to accommodate the changing demands on my time. The class was far from "dry and boring": it was delightful, entertaining, and practical.

I enjoyed the ability to access the course when I had time to do so. I feel that if it was a specific date and time, I would have had a hard time committing to it. I found the course very entertaining and informative. Lilia is witty and enthusiastic so the class came across the same way.

I liked the format with which this class was course was offered. I enjoyed that it was very similar to the star trek series.

I like that it was in a Web 2.0 format without date limitations, that is one of the reasons I signed up and stayed with it. I found something interesting in all of it and I especially enjoyed the video tutorials. They were very helpful as well as the step by steps of practical examples.

Content:

I loved the direct links, the video clips and lessons, and the suggestions of sites to explore.

The examples were very clear and easy to follow. The videos were helpful, certainly not distracting. They were very entertaining as well as informative.

Your instructions are extremely clear, and the videos (especially the LeFevre (sp?) ones) were effective.

I loved the range and the practicality of the information that you provided. I was particularly impressed with the resources for the applications in higher ed, which was both useful and reassuring.

I feel that she gave plenty of examples especially the videos. I am a very visual person, so the videos help me to understand better what she is explaining more clearly. The steps were clear and easy to follow. She helped me to continue to work on my blog and understand more options to customize my blog

I especially liked the youtube video of the virutal text, hypertext, etc. onthe first day, week one, and videos in general are a nice addition to the articles.

I liked the direct links to articles.

I was very entertained by the “how-to” videos, especially the Commoncraft “Plain English” series. The articles also provided the right of gravitas or balance regarding the educational applications/why these sites matter to students.

The steps to creation were fantastic. They were all easy to follow.

Personal Explortions:

I’ve now set up my own blog, subscribed to several blogs and rss feeds, joined a couple of social networking sites in order to speak with alumni and recruit future students for my organization, KIIS, AND I’ve now got my photos on Flickr! I was able to start a Wiki for each of 10 specific study abroad programs, and it’s working out very well so far. For all of this, I thank you! I want more now.

http://delicious.com/macdan25 Most of these links are personal interest, but there are a few research related links that I am hoping to share with my research students (e.g., microfluidic, instrumentation, science tags). As this grows, I plan to bookmark a number of chemical instrumentation manufacturers and have student in CHE 352 and CHE 519 (instrumentation courses) access them.

http://www.sciencedistillations.blogspot.com I have added a statement of purpose, and have a few topics that I want to post, but have been too busy. (I even contacted the American Chemical Society about permissions policies for blogs.)

I am planning to add a pbwiki to my CHE 519 course.

I have also added a private group called “Johnson Research Group” in Facebook. It presently contains all of the students that have or are performing research with me. They can stay in contact with each other (networking, job hunting, questions/tips about past research, etc.) and with me. We share details about papers or presentations that the group is giving, etc.

My favorite is Delicious. I use that the most. Flickr, I will use a lot as well, since I take lots of pix and they are all over the place. Great way to get organized. Very user-friendly.

I created a blog: http://aroseisarose-rose.blogspot.com I still have lots of work to do on the blog. I wanted to prove to myself that I could create something in the web world. I keep up with many blogs. I enjoy getting to know the people through the internet and knowing that they struggle and rejoice at some of the same things on a day to day basis.

http://marketingandthenewmedia.blogspot.com/ (Notice my students' podcasts in the left sidebar). I am also on Delicious, Facebook, Google Reader & Twitter.

Suggestions:

The only aspect of the class I did not participate fully in was posting comments each week….I was still a bit intimidated by that request, and found I was so full of new information yet still pressed for time and could not come up with anything I wanted my peers to read, so to be honest, I did not do as I was asked. Perhaps there is some way to make the “assignments” even more user-friendly.

I would have liked more discussion among those taking the class--I really think that could have been helpful. I'm guilty, however, of not initiating any of that. You answered every question that I asked promptly, and every issue that anyone else posted, so it's our limitation.

The only request I would have for changing the format would be an option that would extend the time frame. I think I'd be more likely to understand and adopt these tools and options for my own teaching if I had more time to try out or create a wiki, blog, etc., after learning how they worked. If I spent one week learning and trying out a new feature, and then the next creating for or adapting that feature to a course that I was setting up, it would be ideal (for me, at least). That way I'd be able to ask questions of you, and hopefully my classmates, when I ran into problems or if I wondered about other possibilities.

I would like to have had a bit more time to review each of the topics, though. During the semester, other things can consume a lot of time, and I felt a little rushed on each section. Perhaps two weeks per topic during the semester? (Or at least two weeks for the more substantive sections, i.e, sections requiring us to “play” with the different web sites.) The intro and end sections may still be OK for 1 week. On the other hand, the course may be fine on a one-week-per-topic basis during the summer.

Were there enough practical examples? There were but, again, I didn’t feel like I had enough time to really carry the examples through to self-created content. For example, I created a blog and both delicious and google reader accounts. I use the latter two daily, but I have yet to put anything substantive in the blog. In addition, I quickly absorbed the pbwiki part through the “favorite movies” example. However, I have been hoping to add a pbwiki-based assignment to one of my classes and, again, haven’t found time.

I would suggest breaking Lesson 6 into at least 2 parts, if not 3. I had already done podcasts and YouTube videos, so I didn't have to work through all that. However, I remember how much work I had to do to get the first podcasts and YouTube videos to work and I doubt that very many people got it all accomplished in a week.

Perhaps an earlier recommendation for opening a link in a new window or tab so that it's easier to move back and forth between your directions and the application might help. I'm a little slow on the uptake, so it took me a bit to figure that out.

When you link to articles in the blog, can you make them pop up in a new browser so access to the nextgeneration blog and the article can be had at the same time (this way several articles could be open at once - ah, how we now access information!)?
One useful addition might be a series of PDF one-page sheets that provide an FAQ or series of “how-tos” for each app. These could be printed and kept handy while working; normally, these would be the most handy when working on things for the second, third time, etc. Usually, when I first visit a site, everything is fresh, and I can accomplish a lot. A few days later, during the second visit, I find that I have questions about settings, or how to accomplish a task. Ideally, I don’t want to go through the videos and other steps again, just a refresher.