ruConnectd

As I am reflecting on this Web 2.0 course, I first want to say thank you Dr. Dennen, I have enjoyed this course.  You have engaged us and opened my eyes to many concepts related to instructional development in the social media realm that I would've never known about or thought of. We have been introduced to a number of social media sites, my favorite social media site for instructional design is Youtube.  With Youtube, you can build an entire curriculum of videos.  Although it isn't as social as some of the other tools we have used, you do have analytics built into Youtube.  I can see myself developing a curriculum to train my new team members in Primerica on the Youtube platform. Soooooooo, which tool was your favorite?

I can remember being a kid and asking a group of girls what they were talking about, and being told, "none of your bees wax."  None of your bees wax was another way of saying, none of your business of course, but it raises the question of collaborating on in a class or business setting.  What is none of your bees wax, by this I mean someone who is not a member of the class.   How do you protect the identities and intellectual property of the members of the group?    Privacy is a major issue, especially with identity theft being the number one crime in the world.  There a so many ways for hackers to get information from the members in the class.  Even Facebook has experienced its share of hackers cloning people's profiles in an attempt to get the information of the friends of that person.  So the question is how do we as instructional designers protect those taking our courses information?  Please share your thoughts. 

In one of the discussions for #eme6414, Dr. Dennen introduced a term that I had never before, but I would actually be considered one.  The term is digital immigrant.  Dr. Dennen described digital immigrants as being somene who remembers black and white TV and rotary phones.  Now my family did not have a black and white TV, but my grandparents did.  However, I do remember rotary phones.  I also remember TVs with no remotes and using clothes hangers for antennas for the TV.  My dad still has and 8-track tape player at the house that still works. Although I do remember all of these, I would consider myself to be somewhat tech savvy.  I love electronics and the latest technology.  I am a member of Team Android though.  I just have not gotten into Apple at this point. I believe that digital immigrants can be taught how to use and incorporate social media and technology into their every day lives as well as their PLNs. What are your thoughts on digital immigrants?

As I reflect back over this week, I have gained a lot of knowledge on building a community to engage people in the learning process.  I was able to build a group on Facebook called No More Paycheck-2-Paycheck.  I conducted a survey through that group.  I created a new Youtube Channel called Wealth Builders Group.  However, I did not have enough time to develop and add content yet.  I also did not figure out how to add it to the sidebar of my blog.   I couldn't figure out how to incorporate Twitter to my sidebar or Facebook.  Therefore, it was somewhat of a frustrating week.  I am determined though  to figure them out and keep this blog going and growing.

In the readings for this week, I chose to read the article, "Lecturers’ Behaviors And Beliefs About The Use Of Social Media In Higher Education: A Study At Mahasarakham University In Thailand" by Thapanee Seechaliao.  In the article, he discussed the findings from research conducted about lecturers using social media. The article specifically stated, "In 2012, the Thai government launched the project “One Tablet PC Per Child” with the goal of improving education by addressing inequality and uneven standards of education quality."  I told my wife a couple of years ago, the day is soon approaching when all our kids will need for back to school is a tablet.  Their books will be online, all their assignments will be completed and submitted online, and their test will be taken online.  There will be no need for binders because you have Microsoft OneNote.  There will be no need for textbooks, as they will be online also. As I read the article, I realize that many of t

As the son of a teacher, and now the husband of a teacher, I found OER Commons to be a great resource for educators and instructional designers.   It was easy to search for information by grade level and subject. OER Commons also allows you to set up groups.  Some groups already exist on OER Commons, such as Hawaii Math Common Core, Designing Business Ethics Courses, and a few others.   Groups allow you to connect with other teachers and instructional designers. I also like the fact that OER Commons allows for Curation of different resources so a person can build a personal library of materials he or she can access readily. I am going to refer this site to my wife, and other teachers I know, as I believe it is a valuable resource.