A student's view

Hello, all -

As a new contributor to MITE and NROC I'm excited to start posting with views on education and the Internet from the view of a college student. To start, I am attending California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo, a school known mostly for it's programs in engineering and architecture although the list of majors is quite extensive.

To provide an underlying theme to my future posts, my main hope is to see my personal use of the Internet expand beyond just social networking and emailing my family back at home. As a graphic design student I am fascinated by the prospects of Web 2.0. As I look at sites like Digg and Facebook and seeing how much interesting and exciting content can be created and how such a strong sense of community can be fostered by intuitive, functional software, I'm eager for the same technology to spread to more "practical" aspects of everyday life, particularly as a student, education. With the software that is available and the strides that have been made by current designers and programmers, there is no reason that a majority of my web usage shouldn't be dedicated to expanding my education.

Hence, I find myself working on projects and writing in this blog for MITE, hoping to contribute in someway to this goal of taking the web off the sidelines and putting it at the forefront as a functional tool.

Teaching with Web 2.0 technologies

Hello from the TTIX conference in beautiful Orem, Utah. The snow-capped mountains ringing the valley a sparkling with new snow, in June!

I'm attending a conference sponsored by Utah Valley State College called the "Teaching with Technology Idea Exchange Conference." It's a great regional conference model, hosted by the distance learning team at UVSC and free to participants. UVSC invited proposals about using technology in teaching and gathered peers from around the region and afar.

Not surprising, the most common themes at the conference were collaboration and using Web 2.0 tools. Blogging, Wikis, Google Tools, Podcasting, Second Life and more. The sessions included presentations and hands-on workshops. I did a presentation and a workshop on social authoring. All the sessions where recorded for others to view in the future.

If you live anywhere in the Utah area, or just want an excuse to visit, watch for the conference next summer. One gentleman traveled from Ankara Turkey to present and share ideas, but most participants came from Utah and neighboring states.

Watch for our NROC webinars on Web 2.0 tools and on social authoring, or catch one of my upcoming presentations at the League's College Summit, Distel2, ALN or CIT.

- Ruth

More SL Sites

A couple of participants from today's SL webinar sent in great SL sites:

From Sharon Taylor:

June 5, 2007, 1:00 PM EST

Designing Effective Asynchronous Learning in the Virtual 3D Environment

Seminar Leader: Christopher Keesey, Ohio University Without Boundaries

Ohio University has recently opened one of the first and most comprehensive virtual campuses of any research institution in the country. The campus was built in the Internet-based virtual world called Second Life. This seminar will use Second Life as a frame for discussing how virtual environments like Second Life can enhance learning through asynchronous or simulation-style exercises. Developments like Ohio University's effort demand that educators think creatively about how to exploit the potential of these kinds of resources. That is to say, how do we seize the opportunities that virtual worlds provide to drive learning forward, as opposed to simply extending the traditional classroom model of learning?

Register: http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/ > http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/register.cfm

Produced and hosted by ULiveandLearn, the Innovate-Live Portal, featuring Innovate-Live webcasts and Innovate-Live discussion forums, is the interactive centerpiece of Innovate. http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/

And From LisaMarie Johnson a link to the list of accepted proposals for another SL conference - http://collegeenglish.wikispaces.com/SLBPE2007AcceptedProposals

best,
Lisa