Lessons+Learned

Lessons Learned During Education 538  The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this course is that time spend playing around with Web 2.0 (or any computer) programs is never wasted time. In fact, it’s necessary to getting an understanding of all the tools at your disposal. You can’t just open a program for the first time and expect it to do exactly what you want to do with it. For that reason, I think my “Flow Channel” is pretty wide: I’m willing to put up with not getting something right away—especially if I can see examples of really cool products that can //possibly // be made by a particular program. That said, the one thing that can take me right out of the “Flow Channel” is having a strict deadline. Having loose deadlines and lots of time to play around with programs was one of the best things about this class—I just wish it was the only class I was taking right now. Then I would really have jumped into some of the programs I only scratched the surface of.  One big challenge of working with Web 2.0 tools is that I have a Mac, and occasionally the desired software doesn’t exist for Macs. This is getting MUCH better, and I’m sure it soon won’t even be an issue, but it can still be frustrating at times. I also was too quick to judge the possibilities of Protopages. I am absolutely impressed with the looks of some of my class-mates Protopage sites. If I had to do this whole project over again, I would aim for a Protopage (not that I’m dissatisfied with Wikispaces—but from a purely aesthetic point of view, Wiki doesn’t hold a candle to Protopage). Lastly, and this wasn’t a challenge with the course but with teaching in general, is all this work for not? I am absolutely SOLD on incorporating Web 2.0 tools into my classroom, but I’m guessing nearly all of them would be blocked by the crappy filter that Spokane Public Schools uses. The very fact that students can’t access their email accounts is based on ignorant fears of old fossil administrators, in my opinion. The harm of this practice far outweighs the benefits to student safety.  I feel like I’ve had many successes while taking this course. First of all, I love blogs, have used them for the past few years, and will continue to use them into the future—hopefully in my teaching practice. Glypho was a seriously cool find. I can see having some fun with that in the English classroom. Having tried to facilitate web-based research projects, I’m thrilled with the idea of social bookmarking pages as a place for students to start with their research. The web is intimidating for students who don’t know much about a subject they’re suddenly required to research. It’s no wonder they tend to cling to the first page they find. Social bookmarking would at least allow teachers to influence where and how they will make those initial searches. I think there’s nothing wrong with guiding them to good information. Back in the day (pre-Internet) if you had a tough problem with research, you asked a librarian. What’s wrong with teachers taking that role?  The best thing about this class was that it piqued my curiosity about Web 2.0 tools. I have already begun my search for simple Web 2.0 animation software. I can’t quite find what I’m looking for—but I know there are probably scores of people working on new programs that will be available soon. The problem seems to be that there’s a HUGE gap between Flash and the free stuff on the internet. Maybe I’m not looking in the right places. All I can say is, due to this class, I’ll keep looking.