Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Standstill...

I seem to have brought my blog to a standstill. I was having so much fun and now that fun has turned into frustration at the highest degree. I am able to post but I can't see my own posts. Web 2.0 is still awesome!

I was thinking about this the other day. In our co-hort, one of our students wanted to know if we could do our final assignment using one of the many Web 2.0 tools available to us. This student was told that as we are in an advanced program, the university still wanted to see paper. In this case, the paper was to be twenty pages long. Do you think our universities will ever advance their evaluation standards to include Web 2.0 tools? Can you visualize a university where papers were no longer necessary as long as there was evidence through one of the Web 2.0 tools? Just a thought.

6 comments:

Cheryl Morin said...

It took 2 hrs 45 min to download a home vid to my blog!!
My computer is angry, overloaded and I feel like I'm falling down into a bottomless well, at times:{

I created a blog for a special reading project with a class in Michigan. THeir school says no to blogging. The teacher is going to show them our stuff on our class blog using her own laptop at school and their parents have to agree first whether their children can work on at home!
True courage is working on despite your fears... although I understand their fears.
My students' parents just accepted that it would be okay and safe when I said I wanted to use the internet to help my students learn how to use tools to help them in their school work.
I even invited some parents to learn along with us and they politely said the computer was not for them.

As far as Univ. go , don't you think that papers are requested because they seem to hold some weight/proof for accountability... from the student's part, prof.'s part, Admin.'s part?
How else can they acct for the fees they charge for their efforts?
Maybe they don't really trust that their tech will hold up! WHat would we do if webct crashed for no apparent reason and U of R couldn't help us in May when our 50 pagers are being assessed? There was a problem with our last class and the losing of grades/comments into cyberspace.
Our blog in this class is in place of a paper, and our project in this class is also the devel.of a tool, so I guess like everything in life, small steps are better than no steps.

Unknown said...

I understand your frustration with the slow pace of change. However there are some people who are embracing the change but like everything else not everyone and not all at the same speed. It is important to keep posing the questions, and keep trying to teach both parents and others about the possibilities. There is a great fear out there - just look at the blocking in your school divisions. Blocking is about fear. How do we teach students about how to live and work safely in the online world, the world in which they are growing up, if the adults only see the negative sides?

Jim S. said...

I hope they do Rheda. This class is an example of what you wrote about. Way to go Marnie.

darcyhelmink said...

Rheda I'm not the master, but to view my posts, I just login to that main blog page and then hit the view blog button. darcy

darcyhelmink said...

Just a thought about universities including web 2.0 I think that it's started and that just recogninzing the need is a good start. I also think that this week's block6 evaulating information literacy on the web ties in nicely. I's thinking that it would be nice to give students the required tools so that they can evaluate the internet sources that they are all using. darcy

Unknown said...

We are on our way Rheda. I often think that this class could be the stepping stone to proving to the university admin the power of Web 2.0 resources in displaying knowledge. As you mentioned the concept of "time" plays a huge factor in my efforts on the blog. I would love to get to know what everyone is doing but lack the time. Technology is fast but not instant. It is the accumulated periods of waiting that creates hesitancy for me to support Web 2.0 as a means of knowledge sharing. Just think how fast a conversation can inspire meaning.