This was the weekend of technology challenges for me. I feel our students pain and completely relate to their frustrations when relying on technology to access and do their homework for online classes. When the power went out on Saturday night, I turned to my smart phone and set it up as a wireless hot spot so I could continue to post. Awesome...until my laptop, which I did not have fully charged prior to the power outage, died. Today, I wrote what seemed like an absolutely brilliant response to Thomas's blog post...only to lose it when it prompted me to sign into WordPress before allowing the post. Of course, the second iterations wasn't quite as smart-sounding...but it didn't matter, because I lost that one, as well, when I accidentally closed the tab on my browser when toggling back and forth to access a URL I wanted to share in my response. Oh, well...third time's a charm? Not necessarily, as my laptop froze and I had to restart. On the bright side, by that time I had decided to compose my post in Word and copy/paste to the web. It hasn't been the best couple of days for me in terms of technology!
Again this week, I have tried to tweet resources that others in the course might find useful. The more I use Twitter, the more I like it. The quick posts are so liberating! No need to compose something long and detailed; just the gist of the idea or the resource or the fact. I also spent some time earlier this week cleaning up my TweetDeck and reorganizing it to include colleagues from this class.
The BIG "wow" for me this week had to do with MOOCs. "The MOOC Model for Digital Practice" (this week's reading) was absolutely amazing. I started the week with such limited understanding of what a MOOC even was...and I'm ending the week with a much stronger grasp of not only what a Massive Open Online Course is, but the potential MOOCs have to alter the face of education, as well. Nicole's blog post helped me understand MOOCs even more...and I was blown away by her description of a gamification course she took with 60,000 other learners. It was interesting to note that only 8,000 completed the course. On the other hand, wow! EIGHT-THOUSAND completed the course. As MOOCs grow in popularity, I wonder what the implications will be for universities and education, in general. Thomas and Naomi helped expand my understanding of MOOCs, as well, by sharing articles and links they had come across related to the topic.
In my school district, we recently invited teachers and administrators to submit questions related to a number of "hot topics" through a Google form. One of the questions submitted was about MOOCs and if, at some point, the district might consider allowing students to take this courses for credit. That was one short week ago...and at that time, I really couldn't tackle the question because I didn't know enough about MOOCs. I know more now, but I still have so many questions about how it would work if MOOCs become an option for students. How would we track completion? How would we issue a grade? How would we ensure that the content and rigor and time required for the course meet standards and requirements in board policy? Hmm. I have a feeling these are questions we'll have to answer sooner rather than later.
Again this week, I have tried to tweet resources that others in the course might find useful. The more I use Twitter, the more I like it. The quick posts are so liberating! No need to compose something long and detailed; just the gist of the idea or the resource or the fact. I also spent some time earlier this week cleaning up my TweetDeck and reorganizing it to include colleagues from this class.
The BIG "wow" for me this week had to do with MOOCs. "The MOOC Model for Digital Practice" (this week's reading) was absolutely amazing. I started the week with such limited understanding of what a MOOC even was...and I'm ending the week with a much stronger grasp of not only what a Massive Open Online Course is, but the potential MOOCs have to alter the face of education, as well. Nicole's blog post helped me understand MOOCs even more...and I was blown away by her description of a gamification course she took with 60,000 other learners. It was interesting to note that only 8,000 completed the course. On the other hand, wow! EIGHT-THOUSAND completed the course. As MOOCs grow in popularity, I wonder what the implications will be for universities and education, in general. Thomas and Naomi helped expand my understanding of MOOCs, as well, by sharing articles and links they had come across related to the topic.
In my school district, we recently invited teachers and administrators to submit questions related to a number of "hot topics" through a Google form. One of the questions submitted was about MOOCs and if, at some point, the district might consider allowing students to take this courses for credit. That was one short week ago...and at that time, I really couldn't tackle the question because I didn't know enough about MOOCs. I know more now, but I still have so many questions about how it would work if MOOCs become an option for students. How would we track completion? How would we issue a grade? How would we ensure that the content and rigor and time required for the course meet standards and requirements in board policy? Hmm. I have a feeling these are questions we'll have to answer sooner rather than later.