rednorlandextension2.0

Wrap up

2008-10-14T16:50:19Z

Technology has never been a strong suit for me and my desire to know more isn't real strong either. My kids knew more about my cell phone after a half of playing than I did using it for a couple months. But gradually I will take the time to figure things out, or at least the things I see as beneficial for me. The same can be said for computers and all related to that. I can use a computer and the software that is working but don't ask me to explain how it works and forget it if trouble sets in.

Completing this blog and learning about readers and pods were of great interest to me and see as real uses for extension. UMconnect is a given but I had already experienced that to some degree. The flicker, facebook and twitter projects were interesting but I don't see being used in what I do currently. But hey, who knows, now that I know about it anything is possible.

This class has been good for me as it has exposed me to a number of things out there that I have heard about but would have never taken the time to experiment with. It has led to some good discussion time in our office regarding the use of these products and how they differ or are basically the same product just wrapped in different paper.

This project was well worth the time you invested in creating it and appreciated having somewhat of a deadline and goal to work toward to get it completed. I would participate in other.

web conferencing

2008-10-14T16:30:25Z

I have used umconnect in the past but in most instances it has been as a partiicpant and not as the host. I have created a few though just to try get a better handle on the basics. This was the first time i actually inserted a powerpoint and played with it and the different pods and also polling tool. I think this is an excellent resource for extension to use as a long distance teaching tool internally and externally. The challenge is the voice part, the voice over with multiple people doesn't work, so the phone line is the only way to use it.

Twitter (tweet,tweet)

2008-10-14T14:52:39Z

In all honesty, after going to the twitter sight, I thought it looked like a bunch of noise where you go and pick out topics of interest and read what you want and check out. Personal use but not much beyond that. What value could it possible bring to the classroom, other than to distract your students to send/receive twitter alerts!. But after reading the article regarding one teachers use of it, I can see some practical uses for it in that setting. Challenge is to harness the energy to use appropriately. You opened my eyes again.

social networking

2008-09-17T19:19:45Z

Social networking is a big part of what makes extension successful. I think most program teams will tell you that and I know that is the case in most of my experiences 'selling' a program. It is always helpful to "know" the right people in the community who will help promote a program to make it work. Whether they are part of a public agency, committee, private business, commissioner, health field, education, their marketing is critical. Our work hinges on the connnections we have to people. I don't see facebook or my space helping us in this realm. It is more personal/private in nature. But hey, I could be wrong.

productivity tools

2008-09-15T20:59:00Z

Again an eye opening session for me as I spend very little time exploring the web, using only the supplied by the University tech team. I am took a look at 'remember the milk," "doodle" and "slideshare" and all looked like tools that could be of value when used properly. I then signed up for google docs and found once I opened it up that there was actually a doc. in there from a mg group I work with. How that got there I don't know, it must have been placed there by one of the mg's that use google doc and it showed up on my account when I opened one up. (would that be correct?) I found the site to be very similar to microsoft word and downloaded a file from my word documents to check that out. It looked very similar to what it looked like in word.

wiki

2008-09-12T19:10:45Z

The concept of creating a community knowledge base where information is exchanged by multiple people is an interesting one. I can see both the good and bad of it (who controls and what makes it in) and found it interesting how the various wikis controlled what made the page and what didn't. It ranged from the Jefferson one being controlled by scholars on the subject matter and allowing views to go to the discussion page for comment to the wookeepedie(sp) site where they called them spoilers and you had to wait 30 days for something written to become part of the material. Hard to keep up with how information is disseminated!

podcasts

2008-09-08T20:53:17Z

When you start to pay attention there are a lot of sites with podcast availability and subscribing was very easy to do.

photos

2008-09-08T17:14:52Z

I went to the Flicker site and was surprised and impressed by the quality found there. I am still not sure why people load pictures onto a site like that for all the world to see unless they are hoping to use it a pr tool for their own business. I get the idea of connectedness, people like to see how the "family has changed and grown" even when they don't live close enough to see each other on a regular basis. This tool certainly allows for that. I would just make certain it was locked and private.

rss feeder

2008-09-05T19:51:46Z

just completed the rss feeder section and found it pretty informative for someone who is not a techy person. It was a little challenging get the blogline setup because I kept trying to add urls and they wouldn't accept. Then I went to outlook and found an email that said I need to accept what I had done. Once I did that I was able to load three urls. I just need to experiment more to get a better feel for this.

Is it really this easy?

2008-08-26T18:22:49Z

I have read blogs before but don't comment on a regular basis and would have never guessed I would actually create one on my own. I look forward to learning to how to utilize this and other technologies in this every changing world of education delivery methods.