Steve's PLE

Finally got a chance to spend some time on my PLE, really helps to focus where my online time goes and of course at some point their is some time to relax.

Woolgar's Five Themes

Having read Woolgar’s five themes I can identify with two of the five themes that I feel most strongly reflect the way in which I perceive the effects that technology is making currently in a context known to me.

Student geographical location

Theme 4: The more virtual the more real
Following along the theme used of face to face tutorials it is my experience that offering online tutorials as an alternative to face to face tutorials has not lead to increase in attendance. I find this surprising considering the area covered by my group this year attendance at F2F was more supported that a recent online tutorial. What was even more interesting was the fact that only one of the attendees had not previously attended a traditional f2f tutorial earlier in the course.

Given the opportunity I wrongly thought I would be giving an opportunity for students further afield to take part. Perhaps there are other barriers that I did not perceive.

Theme 3: Virtual technologies supplement rather than substitute for real activities

Following on the theme of the paperless office, I am surprised at how much I have printed this year and yet at work I am trying to reduce the amount of printing. A case of ‘do as I say’ not ‘as I do’. Despite Diigo and delicious coming to my aid there is often a need to sit away from the PC and study. I have tried hard this year to reduce printed material and have even contemplated the purchase of an iPad.

Tags on my Blog

Therefore Diigo certainly supplements the storage of reading material but when it comes to preparing for an assignment I prefer to throw all the material on the floor and start selecting important readings that help before highlighting sections and perhaps identifying quotes. It is only then that I will refer to the electronic media which includes Google Reader and Diigo. Tagging certainly helps but I wish I had given more thought to this as the my studies have progressed why for example is H808 more dominant than H800 because now I avoid using the course as a tag and tend to be more selective.

I guess I am not quite all electronic yet, but not sure really why this is.  

Woolgar, S. (ed.) (2002) Virtual Society? Technology, Cyberbole, Reality, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Give us a job, teachers redundant as a result of Web 2.0

I don't think so having just read Read Haythornthwaite (2008), yes the role is certainly changing but are practitioners surplus to requirements? Who will ensure that the learners are making sense of what they read or indeed are they sourcing the right material. A quick wander around Wikipedia is evidence enough of inaccurate and irrelevant material being used in education.

As practitioners we are responsible as leaders to help guide our learners through their education this now involves a changing role or should I say additional roles. We need to manage information and collaboration as Haythornthwaite puts it, transformations are occurring in who learns from whom, and where we learn and engage with others. Or is learning just about 'Google' and an ability to type a question into a search engine, surely students need a 'Guide on the side'.

So as a practitioner my job is safe as long as I move with the times, I can't see many dinosaurs lasting much longer if the technology is not utilized within the learning environment, not that I have a say but I am sure our future learners will have a big say.

Haythornthwaite[Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]  (2008), ‘Ubiquitous Transformations’: Proceedings of the Networked Learning Conference, Halkidiki, 2008.