Course Blog

Wrap Up

2008-10-14T14:43:45Z

* What were your favorite discoveries or exercises? -- web conferencing, photo sharing, and YouTube

* How has this program assisted or affected your everyday work? I have used photo sharing and You Tube for classes

* Were there any unexpected outcomes or take-aways that surprised you? There is a lot out there. I wish that my audience were better prepared to use some of the technologies. However, I can see using some to enhance communications with collaborators as we develop programming.

* What could we do differently to improve this program? Perhaps impossible to do but having someone who had time to respond to blog postings.

* If another enrichment course of this nature were offered in the future, would you try to participate? Definitely.

Web Conferencing

2008-10-14T14:30:52Z

I have participated in a few web conferences but never set one up. We have used it to discuss PowerPoint-based curriculum we were developing. It worked very well. I also participated in the promotion meeting that Mike Schmidt recently held. I can see doing similar things myself. Very slick.

Communication

2008-10-02T18:29:38Z

I can see where students would love a tool like Twitter. I may chat with a co-instructor about using it in a large class I teach this semester (we would use it next year). The article describing its use in academics provided some nice ideas where you can "get" students to think about course content outside of the face-to-face time. I wonder how that would work with older audiences who attend a workshop and then are "done" with the material.

Do you plan to leave the Extension2.0 website up for a while after the course? It could be a great reference in the future, although all of the links may not be active.

Social Networking

2008-10-02T12:56:55Z

I don't think that my target audience, loggers who tend to be older males, would get into social networking as a way to enhance their business. They don't tend to be computer savvy. I don't see them sharing information about themselves either. However, for personal use, it might have more application if someone else were to do the bulk of the typing.

Wikis

2008-09-16T12:33:49Z

I used to frown upon using Wikipedia for anything, having heard about how it is created and maintained. For scientific purposes, allowing anyone anywhere to make and edit an entry was a concern. Over time, I have gotten over it and now use it as a frequent source of information for presentations. I like the links to other information, allowing me to go deeper on parts of a topic and then to return. I am just not sure how I would benefit from building my own wiki.

Productivity Tools

2008-09-16T12:19:47Z

I have used Doodle before and found it to be very useful for scheduling meetings. After receiving inquiries to join a Doodle survey, I find that others have become users too. I use UMCal, but only for indicating standing things (e.g., class or class prep time) and for recording my out-of-town travel. I don't use it to record the myriad of meetings I have throughout the day, preferring to use my paper brain. When I travel, the paper brain is invaluable as meeting dates need to be created and I don't want to say "I will get back to you about my availability once I have checked my online calendar." I downloaded Jing and would like to try using it for screen captures. I have been looking for something like that and have heard others mention it. I think that it would be useful when making PowerPoint slides for presentations. I write things collaboratively with others (e.g., an online version of biomass harvesting guidelines training) and could benefit from using Google docs as we could all be working on the same document simultaneously. A downside is that I sometimes do my editing offline so it would mean having to enter in those thoughts later.

Podcasting

2008-08-29T17:02:57Z

I found a couple of interesting forestry podcasting sites. I was surprised how long it took to get subscribed to them though. In Amy's video, it looked to be almost instantaneous. For me, one took several minutes and I was unable to subscribe to the other, even though it does have an RSS feed. Hmmmmm.

Photos

2008-08-27T12:50:00Z

I can see where Flickr could be a nice tool for finding photos. Many of the ones I saw which might be useful were copyrighted. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get copyright permission to use a photo? How do you go about doing that?

Wow, I knew that Eli Sagor had put photos on Flickr. But, I never knew he had so many!

RSS

2008-08-27T12:08:30Z

It seems like many of the sites that I visit for work purposes don't have a RSS feed. However, more general sites do have that capability. Interesting.