I did find the blog as an effective educational tool...and continue to be surprised by the buzzing blogging community that exists around libraries, information and social software. All in all - I learned a significant amount and am very happy with this course experience.
My only suggestion: Doing our group project on a wiki, creating a blog, having a Facebook profile, tagging things, etc. enriches understanding significantly...but writing almost every week, in addition to a blog review, written presentation and a research paper didn't leave as much time to explore the applications. While I appreciate that the weekly blogging is a key element of the course (and a good one in my mind), perhaps one of the assignments could be more functional/pratical (I don't know...tell a story at a campfire in Second Life or create useful RSS feeds for an imagined researcher...ok, not very inspired examples, but you get the idea) to move us a bit away from the theory/analysis?
...just a thought....
2 comments:
Hi Joanne - actually, I do think your suggestions are inspired! In my "things to change for next time" notes for the course, I've jotted down some ideas to do just what you've suggested -- drop one of the more traditional, written assignments in favour of something that gives you more practical experience with one or more of the tools we look at in the course. Maybe join wikipedia as an editor and edit an entry? Or do a "treasure hunt" in Second Life? Still not sure, but the possibilities are endless! Thanks for the suggestions :)
Hi Joanne,
I think that you raise a valid point. We did have the case studies in which we explored the applications, but I found that I was often rushing through them. Most of my time was spent reading the weekly articles and blogging about my readings. An application-based assignment would be great hands-on experience. Congrats on being DONE!
Alexandra
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