August 2008 Archives

Education department class with Cole and Scott - course based instruction techniques are very difficult to adapt to library instruction methods.  Graduate students can drive last third of the course (probably wouldn't work for undergrads)  Big idea -> community of practice, open environment, Blog is their space.  "Data" says convergence of technologists and theorists in what they had difficulty with (technology of discussion vs. theory of reading literature) Pligg creates a community from a group of blogs, which can function like Digg and the highly voted posts would be discussed. For each disruptive technology, a group had to explain it to the class, develop an assignment, and present to the class.  Non-veterans of a technology like twitter were less engaged, but eventually the class come together around Twitter.  Very "high level" discussion of theory went beyond "social" interactions.  Course design -> you can't pick the "winner" like Twitter in this case, that emerged as the most effective course tool.  Social posts versus intellectual rigor -> was a bit intimidating, but turned into a very supportive tool.  "Distributed technologies cause distributed communication" and you "give up control" which is "very complicated and intimidating" for an instructor.