If you haven’t seen this yet, you need to check out Disruptive Technocrat. Rick is calling for a major overhaul of AECT’s electronic services and I, for one, agree with him.

One thing that’s missing here is a footpath to get us from here to there so let me propose that the board of directors establish a standing committee to manage and maintain the AECT’s web presence. Four or five people can certainly cover the bases in the aect-members.org arena and over the next year or so we should be able to migrate to a convention management tool that is not reliant on AIT network resources to manage it.

Rick, as the architect of the aect-members.org site, should certainly be on the committee and I’ll volunteer to help out. I’m sure we have a couple other server-savvy types who can contribute if we look about a bit.

What about it?

Posted in AECT, Wanderings | 1 Comment »

Changes in the technology marketplace have made server/domain space cheaper than ever. It is now possible for anybody to have a private domain, server, and all the tools necessary to engage in online social interaction including but not limited to:

• email
• list servers
• content management tools
• survey tools
• databases
• blogs
• wikis
• threaded discussion boards

The installation and use of these tools is trivial, altho the tuning and actual use of them is not. They represent, in my opinion, the professional toolbox for educational technology professionals but are not widely understood because the state of the art is changing so rapidly.

I would like to propose a BlogTrak presentation for AECT 2006 to address the issues of implementation and integration of such a space as a professional asset. My goal is to have 4 or 5 people who do not currently have access to private server space — novices in the implementation of online technology — collaborate with me in establishing individual servers to address your private instructional goals. Along the way, we will write about the experience of choosing tools, establishing goals, and conducting research into how these tools might be used in instructional settings.

The activity I am suggesting is

• each participant will subscribe to a hosting service. This will cost approximately $100 for the year’s service for each person. You’ll have to bear this cost somehow … one of the questions I would like to address is “Is it worth it?” This space will be yours and yours alone so you will be getting something for the investment.
• each participant will establish exemplar tools consistent with individual needs and interests
• each participant will write about the experience including questions like
  • ‘What am I going to do with this?’
  • ‘How hard is it to do?’
  • ‘Is it worthwhile?’

My role in this process is to coordinate, answer questions, and provide suggestions on how the tools might be configured and used. My hypothesis is that if more people understood how the tools work, then the learning environments they create can become richer and more diverse.

If you’ve ever wanted to get your own domain and server space but didn’t know where to start or what to do, this is a good chance for you to learn the basics and participate in the next generation of professional development.

Thanks!

Posted in aect2006, Wanderings | 2 Comments »

This showed up the other day, but I haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet.

When learning goes underground …
Administrators, learning designers, and teachers are facing a new kind of learner – someone who has control over the learning tools and processes. When educators fail to provide for the needs of learners (i.e. design learning in an LMS only), learners are able to “go underground” to have their learning needs met.

In my recent foray into online teaching, the University discovered that I was not using the approved LMS platform and was quite adamant that if I am going to be teaching in the future I must use ONLY the approved platform.

When I pointed out that said platform does not include a) suitable RSS feed, b) permanent student work space, or even c) a reasonable email system for group collaborative work, they said they’d get back to me.

It’s one thing when the students ‘go around’ the LMS … but the administrations sure seem to REALLY hate it when faculty do it.

Sheesh.

Posted in Wanderings | No Comments »