Establishing a Professional Learning Network

A couple weeks ago we had a speaker in our class, Dennis Culver, a graduate assistant from the Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching at Iowa State University.  His main subject was Social Media as a way to create a professional network.  He talked about ways to connect, collaborate, and contribute to the subjects that we are interested on. 

Social media, for example Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter, can be used to make some professional connections and to discuss important issues in our careers.  One of the subjects was the way that people use these sites.  If people use these sites just to gossip, it is just like a gossiping magazine, it goes nowhere.  But it can be used in a productive way, in a way that we learn and benefit ourselves. 

I was aware of most of the sites he mentioned, and in most of them I do have an account, but how do we put them together? How can we follow everything that happens in each of them?  I found out that there are some “Social Media Management” websites, this was news to me. Under this management, we can schedule post for different social sites, or manage unlimited social networks and profiles under one interface.  I like this idea, and for me, it is a solution to incorporate the ones I follow and to form groups and lists, it is a time saving. 

What is your goal in these social media?  What role will you take?  I am more a passive follower, I learn by reading and following what other people post.   But I am willing to explore new roles and to express myself.  There are also many Professional Online Networks, for example, Adobe, Microsoft and Google, and I would like to start expanding and knowing about these other professional organizations.

Something new to me was “social Bookmarking” which is a “centralized online service which enables users to add, annotate, edit and share bookmarks of web documents”.  Some of the most popular are Diigo, Delicious, or Pinterest.  I have to research more on this subject.

Another subject he talked about was Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a recent development in online learning and been able to take university online courses for free.  There are thousands of students within the same classroom.   This was new to me, and I think a way to open new possibilities for many people who cannot take the classes in person.

Distance Education .

How is distance education reshaping education?

About fifteen years ago, I took my first online course.  The course was taught from Spain and I was in California.  I felt it was a privilege to have access to this online course that was teaching me about the www.   I have to say that sometimes it was not easy to communicate as it could have been if the class was taught face to face.  Things have changed a lot in the all these years, and now the technology is making education much easier.  The courses are much better structured, the design of the courses have also changed making them more attractive and easier to navigate.  I think that discipline plays a great role in the success of an online course.  It is very easy to fall behind because of the many distractions we have on our daily routine; many people enroll on these kind of courses, but there is a large number of people that drop and are not able to finish.   I think that the distance courses are giving facilities for people who cannot have a face to face class.  It is opening doors of opportunities to many people around the world. 

How might distance education shape education of the future?

Ten years ago I could not even think that I could upload my pictures or videos for everyone to see.  Therefore, for me ten years from now is unpredictable.  Now there are a lot of videos, podcast, and many other ways to learn in any particular subject, most of these are free, anyone can learn.  Technology changes so fast that I cannot even imagine how will change the future of education or the future of distance education.   I do think that there will be more and more classes available, hopefully more degrees or professional careers offered online.  The new technology coming to could revolutionize the way distant education is going. But technologically, I think it is difficult to say what the technology can bring into the distant education system. 

I found this interesting video:
 
http://youtu.be/nJ0nlh5FU5A 

Distance Learning

This week we have two articles to read.  The first one is called “College may never be the same” by by Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY.  This article talks about a higher education program called Massive Open Online Courses –MOOCs.  This a low cost program that offers university classes online.  The main concern is that after finishing the courses the students might get a certificate with the professor signature proving that they pass the course.  There are some universities as University of California, Berkeley, considering adopting this system and accepting the credit earns at MOOCs.   I think this is a model that could revolutionize the education system; I think it is very interesting and it will open the door to many people who could not go to class or afford to pay the tuition at a University.  I think it should be recognized as professional studies. 

My second reading is called “Modest Changes, Revolutionary Possibilities: Distance Learning and the Future of Education” by Gary Natriello.  This article discusses the revolution caused by the distance in learning education.  It called my attention and I think it is incredible that at this point in time there are some people, professors in the higher education that resist to the idea of learning online or distance learning.  I, myself, have taken many classes online that I could have not taken any other way.  I think that as technology keeps advancing there are going to be more and more opportunities to advance by taking advantage of the distance learning. 

Digital Equity

We had three reading for this week: “Educational Technology and Equity” by G. Solomon and N. Allen; “Digital Equity:  It’s not Just about access anymore – Sure, most schools now have computers and Internet access, but are all students receiving the same high-quality learning experience?” by G. Solomon;  “Technology and Equity in Schooling:  Deconstructing the Digital Divide” by M. Warschauer, M. Knobel and L. Stone.

The topic for this week is Digital Equity and Digital citizenship. 

     

Digital equity “is the goal of ensuring that everyone in our society has equal access to computers, technology tools, and the Internet".  This means that everybody should have access to computers, but in many places and especially outside school this is not possible due to some economic issues.  I think while in class students should have access to computers and the teachers should not assume that everyone has one at home.  The main issue is that some schools cannot have the funds to even connect each student to a working computer because or they don’t have good internet connection or for many other reasons, but at the same time other schools have so much technology on their hands that the teachers don’t have enough time to deal with everything; the students attending this schools might have others issues with so much distraction and the teachers could drop into giving less class lessons.

I know that digital items are so reachable and accessible now and that at one point the print formats will be a thing something from the past.  I do believe that students can benefit from technology if it is brought into the classrooms.  But, at the same time when there are way too many resources available in the classrooms, the student could lay back and search online for definitions or other issues and not work so hard to find out concepts and problems.  I believe that having instructional materials can help students to advance and get more ideas.   

Digital citizenship is your identity online; it’s the responsible use of technology; how people interact online; building who you are online; be able to speak online with being inappropriate;  and what is more important, been a good citizen in the digital world.  Therefore, digital citizenship can have benefits and disadvantages.  One of the advantages is that when someone sees ads and websites on the side of the screen, those sites are not random sites; they are subjects relating to the previous searches. This can be helpful to the user in the way that things are right there for the user to use. A disadvantage could be that some people do not think before posting online, so if they are blogging nasty and hurtful things; those things could come back to the blogger.   People are in control of their digital citizenship so we should all make sure to use it in a way that can help us not harm us.

What are the standard values of critical theory?

Critical theory is illuminating how social and technological structures within organizations assist to dominate workers.  The main goal is to develop a theory of society that targets at the self-emancipation of people from control. There is a sincere relationship established between the participants.  The critical theorists have the goal to try to reveal the communication practices, whether they’ll be personal, team-oriented, or organization, that only help to encourage an discrepancy in organizations. 

Critical theory has some big challenges like creating a more humane workplace, the oppressive reality of organizational life does not have to continue; encourage self-reflection, collective development, and individual opportunity.

Critical theory suggests elements of pressures and oppression and prescriptions for improving the situation. 

One of the main values of critical theory is communication which is the central and main point of the theory.  Communication is the way to freedom from the oppressive structures.  Critical theory realizes that it is through communication that oppressive structures come into being and, in turn, restrict the communication of certain groups.

In education technology, critical theory values educators analyzing their use of technology and seeing how to use technology in constructive ways.

Bringing attention to interests of the dominant group rather than moral values are the basis of historical change.