Final Q and A.

This class to me was not as much about new discoveries, instead it was more about application of things I was aware of but seemed too complicated or inapplicable to teaching. Before the class I knew about blogs. What they were and how they were the new big thing. I let the fact that I don’t use blogging close my mind to the possibility of using them. This class showed me the possibilities that exist for collaboration, assessment, and accessibility using blogs. This class made me rethink my bias when it came to what could be used for what.

What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

My favorite discovery of the course was probably the social bookmarking tools. I thought that it put you into a community of people with similar interests that let you find great resources faster. Typing in a simple term into delicious like “history” gave me access to a lot of sites I never found using traditional web searches.

Also, I like that I can access my links anywhere using the website. Before the course I was getting annoyed trying to bookmark things in IE. Now I have another option to save good sites I find. Out of all the tools, I think that this will probably use this on a day to day basis the most.

How has this course assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?
· Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this course that surprised you?

This course has assisted my lifelong learning goals because it has trained me in the usage of Web 2.0 tools. I thought that I was tech savvy so I knew all I had wanted to know coming into the course. I took this course mostly for a credit. After completing the course I found that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did, and could keep an open mind in the future. Almost everything we did in the course was new and useful. This course taught me some Web 2.0 skills, and re-taught me that the only thing I know is that I don’t know enough.

What could we do differently to improve upon this course’s format or concept?

I thought that the course format was effective for what we wanted to accomplish. We covered a bunch of topics and had good background information leading up to our experimenting with the tools. The only suggestion

I would have had for the class was to make it a requirement to get into groups at the beginning based on your subject area.
In the course it was mostly individual projects. Towards the end a lot of the projects would of benefited from collaboration. This would help to get more people contributing to the project and making it a stronger project. As most popular Web 2.0 sites are the result of a team of people working together to make it work, this would help our projects reflect that attitude more.

If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again chose to participate?

I would participate in a program like this in the future. I learned a lot and felt like it was worth while!
Thanks!