Deliciously del.icio.us, wikis, blogs, etc.

I was first introduced to Web 2.0 applications in an ETEC course a few semesters ago. At that point I did not use any of the applications. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know that some of them exist. During the past year and a half, I have not just learned how to use all of the Web 2.0 applications; I have also become an advocate of Web 2.0 in education.

Working at elementary level for a large school district I am faced with many challenges when promoting social bookmarking, wikis and blogs. Most of the issues are related to understandable concerns about online safety of our students. However, there are many of Web 2.0 application hosts that offer special customized settings for educators allowing them to protect their students from online predators limiting the access to the application to certain and invited group of students and fellow educators.

My wiki account created for ETEC 524 is serving only for the purpose of this class. In addition, I am planning to open another wiki account which will serve only for the purpose of our journal article discussion. I also opened a blogline account where utilizing RSS feature I can read updates on all my classmates’ blogs. I have also subscribed to RSS at a dictionary web site to receive a word of the day which truly brightens my day every morning.

The life is becoming much more delicious with wikis, blogs, and del.icio.us. Viva Web 2.0!

Is This The Beginning or The End?

I am about to graduate with a Masters Degree in Educational Technology and Information Systems and until last night I was so sure I know everything there is to know about searching techniques. Now, I don’t even know how valid any of the online researches I have conducted so far are. While I used to dissect the structure of most of URLs, I never checked history of a website before. While I tried to look carefully who is the author of the website, I never used such a powerful tool as http://www.easywhois.com/. It never occurred to me that someone would create a perfectly good and professionally looking web site with inaccurate information. First, why would anyone do such a thing? Second, who has time to do it?

Anyway, I have learned my lesson. I will not just pay attention and use techniques I have learned in MAPing Information assignment myself; I will try to spread the word around my district and help others understand the importance of it.

Internet is the biggest resource we have and all of us use it on a daily basis. It is our responsibility to make sure our students know how to justify validity of information obtained online. I just wonder if instead of going forward we might eventually turn back and return to our good old public libraries to avoid the unaffordable inconvenience of invalid information.

Educational Technology Organizations

One of the most important organizations in educational technology is for sure International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). This organization provides members with constant updates in educational technology and offers many workshops around the world. A huge selection of wonderful resources for educators can be found at their website http://www.iste.org/.

I highly suggest to all my classmates to join Texas Computer Education Association - TCEA (http://www.tcea.org/). This organization provides educational technology trainings and conventions all over the state of Texas. One of their most important events is annual TCEA Convention which is held first week of February in Austin, TX.

Where am I in Educational Technology?

Duffy, McDonald, & Mizell (2005) have defined Educational Technology as “any technology used by educators in support of the teaching and learning process” (p. 416). But does educational technology really includes ANY technology? Can we really use everything and anything in the classroom setting? My understanding of it is a little different and involves not just use of technology resources in education but the constant learning and introduction of new technology resources in an effort to make teaching and learning process a little easier and more attractive (and inviting) for educators and students at the same time.

I have taken many graduate courses related to educational technology and this class is just one of them. My goal in this class is to learn more of new technologies and hopefully more effective strategies to implement those technologies in the classroom settings. Learning new technologies without knowing how to implement the same in the classroom is pointless.

Being a technology facilitator for a large school district in Texas, I am privileged to constantly have opportunities to explore and evaluate many different technologies before they are implemented in to classrooms.

There are many educational technologies that I have explored and mastered in my ETEC classes that I would like to share with my classmates. Some of them are effective use and creation of WebQuest, benefits of some of Web 2.0 applications such as Social Bookmarking, and finally the power of an open source management systems such as Moodle.