This half-day workshop was presented by Shelley Rodrigo of Mesa Community College, part of the Maricopa Community Colleges system. Shelley has a background as an English instructor and us currently an instructional technologist and is involved with faculty development.The workshop was focussed on Web 2.0 tools that will help both faculty and learners communicate better in today's Web 2.0 world.
The tools and technologies looked at were:
- Social bookmarking - del.icio.us (other tools were discussed
- Blogs
- RSS Feeds and aggregators (Google Reader)
- Wikis - Wetpaint and others
- Personal portals - iGoogle, Pageflakes, Netvibes
Here was also some discussion around Google apps, a technology very prominent at CIT 2007
The coolest part of this workshop was its collaborative and sharing nature. All of the materials, sites, tips, hints, and suggestions that we re talked about are posted onto the Jetsons wiki, developed for this workshop. Check out this wiki - it is full of great resources.
A really nice way for me to kick off CIT 2007. Shelley did a great job with this workshop, getting all of us engaged in the process. The participants left with great resources, in particular the wiki. The potential of Web 2.0 tools in community college education was clearly demonstrated. Even tough I have been fully immersed in Web 2.0 for a long time, I learned several things from the workshop (can teach new tricks after all...). Now I can't wait to take theme home, show others and use them myself...
2 comments:
Having just completed a PR degree at MSVU, I'd like to point out that thankfully some professors are paying attention to technological advances. Throughout my program, instructors have used blogs, wikis, and even Second Life to test their potential in the classroom.
Blogs proved to be a great way to encourage higher quality material by raising the stakes to a push-button published level for each paper; wikis left a long-lasting impression on me that has led to more use in nonprofit initiatives (http://bensprblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/wikied-success.html); and Second Life, well, it was an experience...
More educators need to update their toolboxes and continue to prepare young professionals for the cutting-edge world that is changing by the second.
Thanks for the comment and it's great to see that these tools are actually being used in the classroom. I've heard some great things about the PR programme at MSVU - sounds like they were all true! I am convinced that the immediacy and collaborative nature of blogs and wikis make them essential learning tools .
Loved your blog Benjamin - very cool!
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