Jing

Jing I hope it is as good as it looks. I use Snag it quite often and what I can tell you is it works pretty well. I have never been a fan of the camtasia product because they keep raising the price with no more value add. I hope this is a revolution for techsmith and they do not suck you in and jam you later.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere this is a pretty cool technologies and can definitely change the way we do things in and instructor lead forum. I can see the future for schools and corporations using this same type of technologies to engage and wake the sleepers.

As far as web conference though... I can do with out. Most web conference technologies have some sort of pulling built into them so that is not the right audience.

Overall a good product and I like the free price point (30 users).

Diigo

Diigo like Delicious are pretty lame. I do not feel that they serve a great purpose. Many ning's or social network pages have link list capabilities. I think this is more part of the growing trend of unorganized tools that allow more ads to get in your head. I axed nings before because you can accomplish the same things with out of the box social networks.

So here is the problem. We need more innovation with integration. I think I'm pretty tired of all the half baked solutions.

Blog Review

http://leisa-what-was-i-thinking.blogspot.com/
http://chadlynch.blogspot.com/
http://ideasonelearning.blogspot.com/
http://katnatlin.wordpress.com/
http://iltctaylor.wordpress.com/
http://bethslabodaidr.blogspot.com/
http://jessicastrendsinelearning.blogspot.com/
http://kerryescobado.blogspot.com/

Well I would have to say it is interesting looking at all these different blogs that are about the same things. Many of them I was able to start a post or add to a comment thread. I would say the most least effective part about reviewing all of these blogs is dialog. When I say dialog I mean contiuned dialog. Every blog has 3-4 new postings a week that it is hard to create deep discussion and remember where you started.

Blog Roll

Well I figured I should try a blog roll. If you are viewing the blog via RSS like the one I have at work you will not see. On the left side of this page under School Blog's you will see a list of all the class peeps. If I left you off please let me know. Maybe this will help in my review pursuit.

Writing Objectives

As part of my individual development plan (IDP) at work I tasked myself with learning how to write objectives. I worked with a colleague of mine (to protect the innocent) we will call him Utah, on a recent project and decided to use him as a resource to help me complete this portion of my IDP. I felt the best way to document the interview would be on this blog because not only is it funny but I learned a lot You must know that we started the conversation with how we write objectives at our company and then we transitioned to how he writes objectives to these guideline or constraints.

First of all we defined objectives as observable/measurable behaviors that can bridge the gap between desired performance and actual performance.

Examples that were used were based on his 6 year old son (here is where the humor comes in)

• Zipping up your pants
• tying your shoes
• peeing on the floor

The gap that we need to figure out is why are these behaviors being performed or not. We focused the rest of the conversation on peeing on the floor.

You need to ask what are things that can be done to bridge the gap and stop the behavior of peeing on the floor like:

• aming
• what are the the problems associated with peeing on the floor
• problem with mom slipping on the floor when it is wet

Back to the 2 types of objectives:

• Enabling = goal "peeing in the toilet"
• Terminal = actual objective "aim straight while peeing in the toilet"

When writing the above objectives first consider the behavior then look for resources such as subject matter experts (SME's) to help you establish what the objectives may be. Schedule a meeting and interview your SME's most of the time you will get lots of information that will help you successfully write your objectives. From the dialogue you will get many goal statements or enabling objectives you need to make sure to take the conversation a step further to determine who to meet your enabling objectives with your terminal ones. Once you have considered the information from the SME's move on to the actual objective writing. Utah provided me a resource that he created based on his knowledge of Bloom's taxonomy which with his permission I provided below:

Bloom's Taxonomy
Level 1: Knowledge
Competence	Information gathering Remembering The recall of specifics, processes
Skills	Recall of information Knowledge of dates, events, places Knowledge of major ideas
Verbs	Arrange, collect, describe, define, draw, duplicate, examine, identify, label, list, locate, memorize, name, order, quote, recognize, recall, recite, repeat, reproduce, select, show, state, tell, tabulate, who, when, where, write
Questions	Who? What? When? Where? How? Describe
Level 2: Comprehension
Competence	Understanding of information The "knows" the material and can use it. Yet they cannot relate it to other material or see its broader implications The lowest level of understanding
Skills	Understanding information Grasp meaning Translate knowledge into new context Interpret facts, compare, contrast Order, group, infer causes Predict consequences
Verbs	Associate, change, classify, compare, confirm, contrast, defend, describe, differentiate, discuss, distinguish, estimate, explain, express, extend, generalize, illustrate, indicate, infer, interpret, locate, match, paraphrase, predict, relate, report, restate, review, select, summarize, transform, translate
Questions	Retell
Level 3: Application
Competence	Making use of knowledge The use of abstractions (for example, principles, ideas, theories) in particular and concrete situations
Skills	Use information Use methods, concepts, theories in new situations Solve problems using required skills or knowledge
Verbs	Apply, calculate, change, choose, classify, collect, complete, demonstrate, discover, dramatize, draw, employ, examine, experiment, illustrate, interpret, make, model, modify, operate, paint, practice, prepare, produce, relate, report, schedule, show, sketch, solve, use, write
Questions	Why is it significant?
Level 4: Analysis
Competence	Separate knowledge The breakdown of a communication into its constituent elements such that the relations among the ideas are made explicit
Skills	Seeing patterns Organization of parts Recognition of hidden meanings Identification of components
Verbs	Analyze, appraise, arrange, calculate, categorize, classify, compare, connect, construct, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, divide, examine, experiment, explain, infer, investigate, order, point out, question, research, select, separate, sub-divide, survey, text, take a part
Questions	What are the parts or features? Classify according to x Outline/diagram How does x compare/contrast with y? What evidence can you list for x?
Level 5: Synthesis
Competence	Linking knowledge Working with parts and combining them in such a way as to constitute a structure
Skills	Use old ideas to create new ones Generalize from given facts Relate knowledge from several areas Predict, draw conclusions
Verbs	Add to, arrange, assemble, collect, combine, compose, construct, create, design, develop, formulate, generalize, hypothesize, integrate, invent, manage, modify, organize, plan, prepare, produce, propose, rearrange, rewrite, role-play, set up, substitute, what if, write
Questions	What would you predict/infer from y? What ideas can you add to x? How would you create/design a new z? What might happen if you combined w? What solutions would you suggest for x?
Level 6: Evaluation
Competence	Judging the outcome Judgments about the value of material and methods for the given purposes
Skills	Compare and discriminate between ideas Assess value of theories, presentations Make choices based on reasoned argument Verify value of evidence Recognize subjectivity
Verbs	Appraise, argue, assess, attach, choose, compare, conclude, convince, core, criticize, critique, defend, decide, discriminate, estimate, evaluate, explain, grade, judge, predict, measure, rank, rate, recommend, relate, select, solve, summarize, support, test, value, weigh
Questions	Do you agree? What do you think about? What is the most important? Place the following in order of priority How would you decide about What criteria would you use to assess z?

He advised that he keeps an exact copy of the tool above at his desk and looks at it frequently when writing objectives. He did make it very clear to me that when writing your objectives it is important to keep your assessment in mind. If you cannot asses the objectives appropriately then you will need to write them in such away that you can. Thinking back to our situation with the 6 year old peeing on the floor we considered some of the following objectives at different levels in the taxonomy.

Level 1

Identify the importance of peeing in the toilet

List reasons why it is important to pee in the toilet

Level 3

Interpret mom's reaction when you pee on the floor

Level 5

Pretend you are mom and you pee on the floor. How would you react?

Level 6

Which is worse soda or pee on the floor.

From Utah's experience 90 percent of the objectives that he has seen in a corporate environment range from level's 1-3. When writing your objectives you need to make sure that you try to use some from each level but it is important to remember if your enabling objective is a needs a level 3 result then your terminal objectives need to be level 1 then 2. Utah also mentioned that it is important to make note of the level that you are using while writing your objectives so you can balance them out.

*Remember the higher level objectives are harder to asses whether it is for instructor lead or distance education.

Some additional words of advice when writing objectives is:

• look at other objectives before writing your own
• work with the SME's to develop them
• prepare for review once they are written (come with thick skin)

Overall this was a good conversation I was able to take many of the teachings that he provide during the interview into refection on past experiences. I hope you are able to get some valuable tips too.

Skrbl

Skrbl is to much hype for not alot of follow through. When I first went to the homepage I was not very impressed it was very messy and not very organized. I did not sign up for an account because they have the live applet code at the bottom of the page.  As stated by the page the live applet is just like the real deal. So I'm here to tell you it sucked. On the main page it states that it competes with the GE whiteboard app, the only advantage it has is the sharing feature, which is not all that great.

GE Whiteboard

One of the best tools I have reviewed in a long time GE Whiteboard. The only flaw this program has is the availability to live share. I think with how fast connection speeds are this can be accomplished.

Mogulus

Mogulus is pretty cool for those who need face time.  I like the concept I mean think about it the day has come that un censored news can come into action. I do not mean that we need nudity and vulgarity but we as humans need to be able to cut through the crap and have a non media influenced news channel. Imagine if some million/billionaire decided to fund reporters that truly reported on what is out there. Let the viewer determine if it is crap or not.

Twitter

Pretty cool concept but I think I'm busy enough and honestly I do not care if someone is eating, heading to a meeting or the bathroom for that matter. 

I checked out toanswer as well and I think I would rather take less steps and look it up on google on my own.

Ning and Pownce

Seriously do we need another social network system facebook and myspace not good enough for you you really want to manage your own. Well for those of you that do go for it not for me though.

Ning and Pownce Thumbs down!!

ClassSpot

ClassSpot Now this is the kind of stuff I love to see. Actually this link sparked a 40 minute conversation between myself and another ID a AAA NCNU. One of our values is collaboration and it is something that is talked about but never done effectively. I sent off a request for more information because I would like to see how this would work with multiple people in multiple different locations. I see it's use in the class room for sure and I think it should be used. 

I recall a time Biology 101 my first real exposure to the use of high speed Internet access. As the teacher was talking I was searching the web and finding additional information to support what she was talking about. I would print the info and she would go pick it up and communicate it to the class. This is not something that I was asked to do but it kept the information fresh and real time. Now imagine having a tool like ClassSpot that effectively recreated the scenario above with out wasting paper and having the annoying printer in the background.

Kindling

Kindling I went ahead and requested to get access for our Instructional Design Community. I think this could be a great tool oraganizationally too. As far as intiatives are concerened put them out there and let your people vote. I will update as I use.

Audacity

For those of you who need a very functional sound tool that has many of the major application features of an expensive sound system. We use Audacity at work because 1) We are able to install it without admin rights 2) It is more effective then CS3 soundbooth.

Thumbs up!! to Audacity

Skype

Skype is super cool. For a long time I used Google Talk for chat and group chat. Last semester I was introduced to Skype for the simple reason to provide VOIP. We as a group were able to communicate via Skype VOIP at the click of a button. Our group would use the chat function and if we were unable to get what we needed done we would start a group call to communicate. I do not use any of the other phone features because I have a mobile phone and I do not want to spend money that I do not have to.

Response to Reflections article 5650

So as I read this article I feel humbled in away for the following:

• I'm a pretty tech savvy person and I feel lost some time I do not feel that our classes are affectively using our web technologies blogging for one
• Blogs are 2 fold I do not want to read a dissertation and I feel that my post do not get read because most others right to damn much

I try to approach blogging as a conversation to spark ideas in others. Which according to the article "Reflections from the Introduction of Blogs and RSS Feeds into a Pre-service Instructional Technology Course" seemed to apply this is the correct assumption, but... As it also stated students are confused between the differences in the different tools that they are required to use and the ones they will actually get credit for.

 

Coming into this semester I feel that something that the article also points out was missed for our cohort which was implied in and email either from Joni or Laura that stated that they did not realize that they both required a blog. That seemed odd to me and I felt that as part of the planning for both courses that should have been laid out. Not only what tool that we would be using but how they would be used.

 

On page 58 of the article is mentions and easier technology by the name Wordpress. I have not checked it out but as I reviewed some blogs it looks like some of the others have. 

 

I may appear to be rambling but I'm trying to follow my notes in the article. I to have the following questions:

 

What is an ATOM feed, why do I need it if I can use an RSS feed?

What and why would I need an aggregator?

 

I have other questions around 2.0 technologies and how it can be used effectively but I think in order for me to pass the answers along, I need to see them demonstrated effectively. I do not understand why there are so many tools that do the same thing. Why is there not more consolidation of tools I have to many passwords now how many more do I need?

 

Another thing I guess I should have mentioned above many of us are in the same cohort so many of the activities seem redundant. I mean just because they are in a different tool does not make it a different activity. I feel that we should rely less on ecollege or more on ecollege and our course need to have less overlap. The article mentions an instructor site and all other work is done through 2.0 technologies. I see this working but I also see all things in ecollege working out effectively too.

Lets chat it up!!!

Decided to Blog for IT 5650 Today

I decided to take the every other one appraoch until I got to mine. Does any one have Laura's bog info or should I assume her's is the weekly update. Update not sure how I missed it but thanks to Jennifer Olson's blog I found it (http://blog.laurasummers.com/ but after reading it appears there is a comments section but no way to comment)


Jenn McCarty's Blog

http://jennselearning.wordpress.com/ Dena Fife Blog

http://denafifeit5650.blogspot.com/

Sheri's Blog

http://www.imsummaryblogging.blogspot.com/

Linda's Blog (unable to leave a comment)

http://elearnbiztro.com/guillory-elearn/

Jennifer Olson

http://jennspolicies.blogspot.com/