CE5560-Elements of the Web 

Theory

• Constructivism
• Connectivism

Domains

• Authorship
• Collaboration
• Reflection
• Knowledge Management
• Learning

Discussion Primers

• Educational Philosophy -  Post a discussion response that speaks to your current (or future/desired) role as an educator. Include within this post your educational philosophy and how that currently applies to the classroom experience of your learners.
• Technology: Blessing or Curse? -  Discuss both the positive and negative impact that technology has had on the classroom in the past decade.
• New toys or new tools? - Discuss how new communications tools can be effectively employed in today's classroom.
• Digital Native: Is That A Fact ? - Discuss the fallacy of the digital native or millennial student.
• Digital Native: That's A Fact! - Discuss the realities of the digital native or millennial student.
• Philosophy of Technology Integration - Discuss the effect that technology has on your pedagogical practice and tie this into your earlier stated educational philosophy.
• Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) - Discuss the value of a PKM system/strategy and explain what your PKM system might look like.
• It's a small world - Discuss the effect that technology has had in "shrinking" the world in terms of how humans communicate.
• Technology Inventory - Discuss current learning technologies that you employ in the classroom.
• Collaboration - Discuss the evolving definition of collaboration and how technology has shaped the collaborative skill set.
• Who are you and what do you want? - For those of you who are fans of the Sci-Fi genre, you may recognize the origin of these questions. For the uninitiated, this is not a rude brush off but rather the conflicting questions posed to the protagonist in the series Babylon 5. Take a look at the preceding link to the Wikipedia article about the series, particularly in the section at the bottom of the article entitled: Themes. From an educational perspective, we often find ourselves living in a similar limbo, trying to choose between authoritarianism or chaos, black and white. This theme holds import to us as it can serve to allow us to consider and guide our actions and behaviors in our online community and in the ways in which we encounter, perceive and process information.

  Assignment

  Please respond to this discussion topic and speak to the question of “Who are you and what do you want?” as outlined below.

  Part I - Who are you?

  Consider your philosophy as a learner. Now consider your philosophy as an educator. Combine these two perspectives and describe them in terms of your role as a member of our classroom community and be sure to include the following:

  • A description of how you believe you learn best
  • A description of your perception of your role in this class

  Part II - What do you want?

  My philosophy is that this class is learner-centric. It is my belief that while we are addressing certain topics that are central to the course, it is important for each of you as learners to take control of your education and focus on areas that you wish to improve. Please discuss the following:

  • What do you desire to achieve or accomplish as a result of your active participation in this course. Be insightful and true to your hopes and aspirations.
  • Discuss one area of weakness that you would like to improve as a result of this course.

Domains

• Authorship
• Collaboration
• Reflection
• Knowledge Management
• Learning

Tools of the trade

• Blogs
• Wikis
• Podcasts/vodcasts
• Social networks
• Social tools
• New media

Consider

• 21st Century Skills
• Digital/information literacy
• Net defense
• Open content

Texts

• Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms - Will Richardson (Find it here)
• HeadFirst HTML with CSS & XHTML - Freeman & Freeman (Find it here)

Pre-course Activities

• Prep syllabus
• Prep wiki pages

Activities

• Using either the readings provided or information found in your own research about your audience, write a post identifying the primary drivers and shifts facing your audience. How can you leverage the tools available to build your own virtual community?
• Find and subscribe to 5-10 RSS feeds that pertain to a specific area of interest as it would pertain to your goals for this course. Remember than an RSS feed is not necessarily just a blog post. Cite these feeds in a post.
• The web paradigm has shifted from consuption based (the read web) to creation based (the write web). How does this shift affect your practice? Predict the next shift.
• Research, test and develop a training program for one piece of software or an application. Refine  and improve your report as you  progress through the course.
• Discuss the explosive popularity of social media sites  such as YouTube and Flickr. What makes them so attractive, how can its power be leveraged and is there a cost?
• Build a social bookmark account in either del.icio.us or Diigo. Save and tag all of your class resources here.