Learn something new every day

Alec Couros, my colleague and for at least the next little while, my doctoral student, made a presentation to my classes about the use of technology in teaching. He spent a bit of time talking about the social aspects of the internet and how this has changed the dynamic of the net.

These social aspects have obvious issues related to them - web stalking, inappropriate contact between adults and children, etc.

But the social aspects, the relational aspects, also open the possibilities for teachers that would have been unthinkable perhaps even only 3 or 4 years ago.

There are a number of things that Alec talked about that I plan on using as part of my courses next semester. I haven't exactly thought it through but somehow we will use blogs, perhaps wikis, collaborative endeavours on the web, etc.

Next semester I will be working with 7 business education majors who are preparing to intern (student teach) in the fall. We'll be focusing on instruction, materials development and student evaluation. I invite anyone interested to collaborate with us. There is more than enough work to go around and of course anyone that participates will be acknowledged and have access to whatever materials are created and/or used.

One of the specific things I learned from Alec was the Bluedot site. Go to Bluedot.us and become one of my friends. This site allows us to build bookmarks together on topics of common interest to all of us. Quite an intriguing idea.