Social Sharing, Discussion, Commenting: A Reflection of Learning in OLTD 505
In this reflection my goal is to reflect on and review my contributions to the learning community. I have divided my commentary into different categories: Twitter, Google Communties, Diigo, Blogging (RSS Feed), and the OLTD Facebook page.
Twitter Reflection
Using Twitter with this class represents my 3rd effort to engage in this form of social media. After having my Twitter account hacked, and awkward messages sent out to those following me, I was initially less than impressed. I attempted a second time for OLTD 502 with Randy Labonte, and engaged in a Twitter conference which was pretty amazing. I even attempted a couple of lessons using Twitter (which I sadly admit, for fun, but less than successful) After a brief hiatus I returned for a 3rd attempt with this course. I did follow the class Twitter feed, but preferred Diigo as a posting site as I see it as more permanent. I have felt hesitant to engage in Twitter, as it has never felt natural to me, strangely this past Monday I had a Twitter breakthrough and I think I have overcome my fear of Twitter. At the end of a meeting with one of our assistant superintendents, he mentioned that he followed me on Twitter. That night I went home and for the first time looked at my list of followers and reviewed my past Tweets. I think maybe the problem I have had with Twitter is that when we’ve used in class, it has almost been an artificial community. Almost as if we were using it for the sake of using it. If I look past the completion of this program, I am starting to realize how Twitter can be a valuable tool for maintaining a network of learners, and sharing knowledge and ideas, fuel for the educational fire.
Tweets
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 29sFree music site, registered under creative commons, I discovered while working on my summary of learning for #oltd505 http://www.jamendo.com/en
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 4mAn alternative perspective on Sir Ken's famous TED talk. http://workingtogether68.blogspot.ca/2013/05/sailing-into-headwind.html … #OLTD
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 12 Jun#OLTD505, #OLTD Interesting article about Twitter and Facebook. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/11/tech-facebook-narcissism.html …
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 25 May#oltd505 Very excited to be learning online with Steven Downes right now!
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 19 MayWeek 3 post: http://jmarklearnsonline.weebly.com/6/post/2013/05/evaluating-oer-repositories-from-a-k-12-french-language-lens.html … #OLTD505
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 14 MayWow Christ Clark and the BC Liberals out to an early lead. I wonder what this means for the future of education in BC #oltd505
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 13 May#sd68celebrates. Really can't wait to work with my colleagues.
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 27 Apr#oltd505 great session this morning! Nice to be back!
Google Communities: OLTD 505: Open Educational Resources Reflection
Perhaps the best thing about OLTD so far has been the diversity in our instructors and how they have pushed us in different directions and to try and experience different tools. By leaving the relative security of VIU’s D2L and hosting our course in Google communities I felt we were exposed to a truly open learning experience. Quite soon after becoming a part of the “OLTD 505: Open Educational Resources” learning community I realized that my learning experience was going to become imbedded into my daily routine, and not the typical daily escape to the safe confines of VIUs D2L. By adopting Google + my cell phone would alert me anytime somebody added a post or a comment and my email was inundated with OLTD 505 material. At first I was a little taken aback, perhaps even annoyed. A constant and nagging reminder in my already busy schedule that I should be paying more attention to my studies. I quickly realized how to redirect the traffic (Thanks Marieke) however as a social experiment I chose not to, and learnt to embrace the constant bombardment of new ideas. Not always having the time to completely read everything, I found myself skimming articles and comments, and sometimes adding to the dialogue, even in the grocery store check-out line. After final reflection, I’m not sure I prefer this open forum to D2L. I liked this forum for commenting, but I found there was an element of information overload at times. My strategy was to read at the end of the week and cherry pick the links that I found useful, either comment on them, or add them to Diigo. There is something to the organized system of required comments and posts that my linear mind still appreciates about the forums in D2L, however I am thankful for this new experience and I would consider using it with students. For my contributions to the community I have a summary of my posts linked here. Justin’s Posts
Diigo Reflection
Diigo was a tool I was enthusiastically introduced to by Avi Luxenburg our OLTD 504 instructor. I had previously been using “Delicious”, but switched and we created a group titled “VIU - Online Learning”. What I like about Diigo is that I’m able to easily archive and share work that I find interesting. What I’ve gotten into the habit of doing is constantly bookmarking and sharing articles or resources that I find interesting, knowing that I have an interest in using them, but also knowing that I don’t necessarily have the time in the present to best employ the resource. I often find myself returning to my bookmarks, for research purposes, lesson/unit/course development, or sharing with colleagues. While I made an attempt to share within our Google community, I suppose my largest contribution would have been sharing my resources through Diigo. These included resources suggested in the course outline. Below is a list of contributions I have shared with the VIU - Online Learning group we established in OLTD 504
DIIGO POSTS
2013 Internet Trend
27 May 13
A K - 12 Primer for British Columbia Teachers Posting Students’ Work Online
26 May 13
Incompetech - Royalty Free Music
Royalty Free Music
Dean Shareski - Sharing: the Moral Imperative
Dean Shareski Video - Sharing: The Moral Imperative
25 May 13
The Daily Create
A daily creation site
Patterns of Change
Stephen Downes - Patterns of Change
Rhizomatic Learning - Dave Cormier
Rhizomatic Learning - Dave Cormier
Three Kinds of MOOCs
The MOOC GUIDE
Run Keeper
An online resource to track workouts.
Downes on the wrapped MOOCs
Stephen Downes article on Wrapped MOOCs
Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources
An article by Stephen Downes
Considering CC-Non Commercial
Alec Couros blog post on considering CC - Non Commercial
Stallman's 4 freedoms
The 4 Freedoms – Richard Stallman
Green Shot
Greenshot - a free screenshot tool optimized for productivity
Terry Anderson - Slideshare - Social and Cognitive Presence in virtual environments
22 May 13
Saylor.org - Free Education
20 May 13
P2PU
At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback.
Wiki Educator
The WikiEducator is an evolving community intended for the collaborative:
20 May 13
TED-ED
Open Learn
UNU Open CourseWare
The United Nations University formally joined the OpenCourseWare (OCW) Consortium on 24 May 2006 and became a member of the Japan OCW Consortium on 26 March 2008.
Lab Space
OpenLearn’s LabSpace makes many different open educational resources (OER) available to you from a wider OER community associated with The Open University.
Khan's Academy
The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is "providing a high quality education for anyone, anywhere".
Curriki
Curriki is an open community of educators, parents, and students who share curriculum.
CK12
The CK-12 Foundation is a California-based non-profit organization striving to reduce the cost of, and increase access to, K-12 education in the United States and worldwide. A leading provider of open educational resources, CK-12 provides free and fully customizable K-12 educational materials aligned to state curriculum standards and tailored to meet student and teacher needs.
19 May 13
MERLOT
Putting Educational Innovations Into Practice
Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues. Be recognized for your contributions to quality education.
Top Online Courses and Classes on the Web
List of Free Lectures Online
Jorum
Through Jorum, you can find and share learning and teaching resources, shared by the UK Further and Higher Education community.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public.
OER Commons
The network that brings together 44,519 OER, tools for sharing curriculum with the world, and news and training on the brave new world of open education.
Connexions
a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
09 May 13
Boise State Football - Blueprint for organizational greatness
An amazing example of how to build a culture of success.
Reddit
A social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text ("self") post.
06 May 13
Open Education Sources - Slideshare
A nice Slideshow outlining how to access Open Education Sources.
01 May 13
Major Players in the MOOC universe
A great graphic that explains who's doing what in the MOOC world
30 Apr 13
10 important OERs
David Wiley's Keynote on Open Education
56 minutes -
Why Open Education Matters Video
Great 2min intro video - basic but compelling
27 Apr 13
Alec Couros Website
Summary of Learning examples for 505
Poll Everywhere.com
Cell Phone/Texting or Browser texting
Alex Couros Mooc
24 Apr 13
Will MOOC technology break the educational cartel?
23 Apr 13
The organization as a cycling peloton
Blogging and Blog Aggregate
The weekly blog routine is an exercise that I enjoy more and more. OLTD has introduced me to the idea of an online learning community, and blogging almost cements my place in it. I have appreciated the freedom that this course has allowed us on our blogging topics. I can proudly say that I have finally completed reading my colleagues wonderful work, and although I didn’t come close to commented on everything I enjoyed and grew from their ideas. As this course draws to a conclusion I am preparing myself from online learning withdrawal. I have recently discovered Feedly and I’m building a library of my favorite blogs to follow this summer and beyond. I feel that it is the desire to learn and share outside of the context of the program that helps me understand how profound and revolutionary my learning in OLTD has been.
Sample Comments:
In this reflection my goal is to reflect on and review my contributions to the learning community. I have divided my commentary into different categories: Twitter, Google Communties, Diigo, Blogging (RSS Feed), and the OLTD Facebook page.
Twitter Reflection
Using Twitter with this class represents my 3rd effort to engage in this form of social media. After having my Twitter account hacked, and awkward messages sent out to those following me, I was initially less than impressed. I attempted a second time for OLTD 502 with Randy Labonte, and engaged in a Twitter conference which was pretty amazing. I even attempted a couple of lessons using Twitter (which I sadly admit, for fun, but less than successful) After a brief hiatus I returned for a 3rd attempt with this course. I did follow the class Twitter feed, but preferred Diigo as a posting site as I see it as more permanent. I have felt hesitant to engage in Twitter, as it has never felt natural to me, strangely this past Monday I had a Twitter breakthrough and I think I have overcome my fear of Twitter. At the end of a meeting with one of our assistant superintendents, he mentioned that he followed me on Twitter. That night I went home and for the first time looked at my list of followers and reviewed my past Tweets. I think maybe the problem I have had with Twitter is that when we’ve used in class, it has almost been an artificial community. Almost as if we were using it for the sake of using it. If I look past the completion of this program, I am starting to realize how Twitter can be a valuable tool for maintaining a network of learners, and sharing knowledge and ideas, fuel for the educational fire.
Tweets
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 29sFree music site, registered under creative commons, I discovered while working on my summary of learning for #oltd505 http://www.jamendo.com/en
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 4mAn alternative perspective on Sir Ken's famous TED talk. http://workingtogether68.blogspot.ca/2013/05/sailing-into-headwind.html … #OLTD
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 12 Jun#OLTD505, #OLTD Interesting article about Twitter and Facebook. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/06/11/tech-facebook-narcissism.html …
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 25 May#oltd505 Very excited to be learning online with Steven Downes right now!
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 19 MayWeek 3 post: http://jmarklearnsonline.weebly.com/6/post/2013/05/evaluating-oer-repositories-from-a-k-12-french-language-lens.html … #OLTD505
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 14 MayWow Christ Clark and the BC Liberals out to an early lead. I wonder what this means for the future of education in BC #oltd505
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 13 May#sd68celebrates. Really can't wait to work with my colleagues.
Justin Mark @jmarksd68 27 Apr#oltd505 great session this morning! Nice to be back!
Google Communities: OLTD 505: Open Educational Resources Reflection
Perhaps the best thing about OLTD so far has been the diversity in our instructors and how they have pushed us in different directions and to try and experience different tools. By leaving the relative security of VIU’s D2L and hosting our course in Google communities I felt we were exposed to a truly open learning experience. Quite soon after becoming a part of the “OLTD 505: Open Educational Resources” learning community I realized that my learning experience was going to become imbedded into my daily routine, and not the typical daily escape to the safe confines of VIUs D2L. By adopting Google + my cell phone would alert me anytime somebody added a post or a comment and my email was inundated with OLTD 505 material. At first I was a little taken aback, perhaps even annoyed. A constant and nagging reminder in my already busy schedule that I should be paying more attention to my studies. I quickly realized how to redirect the traffic (Thanks Marieke) however as a social experiment I chose not to, and learnt to embrace the constant bombardment of new ideas. Not always having the time to completely read everything, I found myself skimming articles and comments, and sometimes adding to the dialogue, even in the grocery store check-out line. After final reflection, I’m not sure I prefer this open forum to D2L. I liked this forum for commenting, but I found there was an element of information overload at times. My strategy was to read at the end of the week and cherry pick the links that I found useful, either comment on them, or add them to Diigo. There is something to the organized system of required comments and posts that my linear mind still appreciates about the forums in D2L, however I am thankful for this new experience and I would consider using it with students. For my contributions to the community I have a summary of my posts linked here. Justin’s Posts
Diigo Reflection
Diigo was a tool I was enthusiastically introduced to by Avi Luxenburg our OLTD 504 instructor. I had previously been using “Delicious”, but switched and we created a group titled “VIU - Online Learning”. What I like about Diigo is that I’m able to easily archive and share work that I find interesting. What I’ve gotten into the habit of doing is constantly bookmarking and sharing articles or resources that I find interesting, knowing that I have an interest in using them, but also knowing that I don’t necessarily have the time in the present to best employ the resource. I often find myself returning to my bookmarks, for research purposes, lesson/unit/course development, or sharing with colleagues. While I made an attempt to share within our Google community, I suppose my largest contribution would have been sharing my resources through Diigo. These included resources suggested in the course outline. Below is a list of contributions I have shared with the VIU - Online Learning group we established in OLTD 504
DIIGO POSTS
2013 Internet Trend
27 May 13
A K - 12 Primer for British Columbia Teachers Posting Students’ Work Online
26 May 13
Incompetech - Royalty Free Music
Royalty Free Music
Dean Shareski - Sharing: the Moral Imperative
Dean Shareski Video - Sharing: The Moral Imperative
25 May 13
The Daily Create
A daily creation site
Patterns of Change
Stephen Downes - Patterns of Change
Rhizomatic Learning - Dave Cormier
Rhizomatic Learning - Dave Cormier
Three Kinds of MOOCs
The MOOC GUIDE
Run Keeper
An online resource to track workouts.
Downes on the wrapped MOOCs
Stephen Downes article on Wrapped MOOCs
Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources
An article by Stephen Downes
Considering CC-Non Commercial
Alec Couros blog post on considering CC - Non Commercial
Stallman's 4 freedoms
The 4 Freedoms – Richard Stallman
Green Shot
Greenshot - a free screenshot tool optimized for productivity
Terry Anderson - Slideshare - Social and Cognitive Presence in virtual environments
22 May 13
Saylor.org - Free Education
20 May 13
P2PU
At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback.
Wiki Educator
The WikiEducator is an evolving community intended for the collaborative:
20 May 13
TED-ED
Open Learn
UNU Open CourseWare
The United Nations University formally joined the OpenCourseWare (OCW) Consortium on 24 May 2006 and became a member of the Japan OCW Consortium on 26 March 2008.
Lab Space
OpenLearn’s LabSpace makes many different open educational resources (OER) available to you from a wider OER community associated with The Open University.
Khan's Academy
The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational website created in 2006 by educator Salman Khan, a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School. The stated mission is "providing a high quality education for anyone, anywhere".
Curriki
Curriki is an open community of educators, parents, and students who share curriculum.
CK12
The CK-12 Foundation is a California-based non-profit organization striving to reduce the cost of, and increase access to, K-12 education in the United States and worldwide. A leading provider of open educational resources, CK-12 provides free and fully customizable K-12 educational materials aligned to state curriculum standards and tailored to meet student and teacher needs.
19 May 13
MERLOT
Putting Educational Innovations Into Practice
Find peer reviewed online teaching and learning materials. Share advice and expertise about education with expert colleagues. Be recognized for your contributions to quality education.
Top Online Courses and Classes on the Web
List of Free Lectures Online
Jorum
Through Jorum, you can find and share learning and teaching resources, shared by the UK Further and Higher Education community.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public.
OER Commons
The network that brings together 44,519 OER, tools for sharing curriculum with the world, and news and training on the brave new world of open education.
Connexions
a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
09 May 13
Boise State Football - Blueprint for organizational greatness
An amazing example of how to build a culture of success.
A social news and entertainment website where registered users submit content in the form of either a link or a text ("self") post.
06 May 13
Open Education Sources - Slideshare
A nice Slideshow outlining how to access Open Education Sources.
01 May 13
Major Players in the MOOC universe
A great graphic that explains who's doing what in the MOOC world
30 Apr 13
10 important OERs
David Wiley's Keynote on Open Education
56 minutes -
Why Open Education Matters Video
Great 2min intro video - basic but compelling
27 Apr 13
Alec Couros Website
Summary of Learning examples for 505
Poll Everywhere.com
Cell Phone/Texting or Browser texting
Alex Couros Mooc
24 Apr 13
Will MOOC technology break the educational cartel?
23 Apr 13
The organization as a cycling peloton
Blogging and Blog Aggregate
The weekly blog routine is an exercise that I enjoy more and more. OLTD has introduced me to the idea of an online learning community, and blogging almost cements my place in it. I have appreciated the freedom that this course has allowed us on our blogging topics. I can proudly say that I have finally completed reading my colleagues wonderful work, and although I didn’t come close to commented on everything I enjoyed and grew from their ideas. As this course draws to a conclusion I am preparing myself from online learning withdrawal. I have recently discovered Feedly and I’m building a library of my favorite blogs to follow this summer and beyond. I feel that it is the desire to learn and share outside of the context of the program that helps me understand how profound and revolutionary my learning in OLTD has been.
Sample Comments:
- Hi Ben, just re-reading older posts. Great reflection. I recently returned to Uvic where I did my undergrad degree in 1992 and my son and I took a tour of the library. It seemed that half of the books were replaced with computer stations. It forced me to reflect on how quickly things have changed, and I suppose in some ways inspired me to sign up for this program as to not get left behind. I’m encouraged by the open movement and I hope it continues to proliferate.
- Thanks for the post Kim. I missed John Abbot's presentation. I meant to go, but got caught up in something else. Taking chances in my own classroom and handing over the reigns of control is a difficult process, but my experiments with it have been mostly positive and rewarding. I will definitely look for some of his work.
- I can't wait to see the final product Andrew. Great idea! I've used iMovie quite a bit and I find it quite intuitive once you get going. I must warn you though. It is addictive, I've had some really late editing nights. Good luck! Cheers Justin