RSS Reflection

RSS feeds are a great way of staying current without having to spend a lot of time going out to sites of interest. This would help you stay up on topics relevant to your own course content at a 1 stop location.

In my class (Technology for Educators), we talk a lot about how teachers are using technology in the classroom. A RSS reader would allow me to follow several sites (including other teacher's technology blogs) to quickly see ideas, challenges and success stories of other educators using technology.

With so much content out there, having a fast and easy way to sort through the material is essential.

Google Docs Reflection

Google Documents

1- One of the benefits of using Google Docs in online scholarly collaboration is the time it will save by not sending multiple e-mail revisions back and forth among participants. E-mail can be clunky when it comes to multiple people working on one project together. But with Google Docs, the document can stay in one place and participants can go to that one place to make their revisions. Everyone can see the revisions made using the "revision history" option. I think one of the drawbacks would be training on this tool. Everyone has a different level of both interest and comfort in using technology and while this is not a difficult tool to use, I think it might take some folks a little longer to ramp up to using it to replace e-mail.

2- I think the free Picasa photo editing tool might be a helpful one for the students in my class. Currently we tech both Movie Maker and Photo Story and this could help them to edit their photos for later use in either application. It also sounds like there is a small video creation program that may be a useful tool for them to use. In my class I am always looking for free tools to pass on to these future teachers. You never know how much money a school district may have to spend on technology so free is a safe way to go.

I also think the survey piece of Google Documents could be a real asset in any class. How easy would it be to create a short survey to use as a midterm or end of the semester evaluation tool. You could post the survey directly into Blackboard and receive immediate feedback as to how you are doing.

Video Tools:

Video Tools:

 

One of the best training sessions I recently took part in was a week long workshop on video tools.  The workshop exposed me to online video storage sites, real time video sites and tutorial creation software. 1 week was a good amount of time to work through the material as well as interact with our fellow participants.

Reflections on Embedding Video

Embedding video into an educational blog would be very helpful in helping the student learn the content in a straight forward manner.

The students is able to see the entire lesson all in one place. They will not need to be taken to an outside site in order to further their understanding of the material being presented. This cuts down on the amount "jumping around" that a student must due in order to gather all knowledge of the content. From a teaching standpoint, the more straightforward the learning is, the better the opportunity for a student to learn.

Blogs in the Classroom Video

Here is a video of an educator talking about how she uses blogs in her own classroom. The audio is a little low so crank it up on your end:

Introduction to Me

My name is Shannon Eastep and this blog has been created as a part of the Norse 2.0 project. In this project I'll experiment with and learn more about Web 2.0 technologies.

A little about me:

I've been at NKU for 6 years and enjoy my work as an instuctional designer for both the College of Education and Human Services and the College of Health Professions. I help design and support online courses as well as teaching an undergrduate technology class for Education students.

I'm married to a great guy named Jeff, and we have a 2 year old son named Brady and a second baby on the way this summer. Here we are: