Practice Session

Welcome to EDC922---"Online Texts in the 21st Century Classroom."


Throughout these 10 weeks we will be covering a vast amount of information.


New sessions will be posted once a week (by the end of business on Wednesday, but this week only,  the first session won't go up until Thursday night to allow everyone to try this practice session). 

Please keep in mind that there are new developments and trends in online information every day, therefore we may have to be flexible when interpreting the syllabus. This may mean some modifications, changes and condensing of information.


To ensure that we are covering the most current skills, I will be assimilating and collating information right up until the moment I post a session. This means that each session's link (over in the left-hand margin) will not be accessible until its respective Wednesday. Even so, there may be times when a cited link is dead. If that is the case, I will try to keep saved copies of all the information. Just email me (davefontaine1@gmail.com) and I will forward the data to you.


During the first few sessions we will be covering foundational skills. This is to ensure that we all have the basic essentials ‘down pat’. Once this is covered, we will pick up the pace and begin to delve into the mechanics, nuances, and meat of our course.


To ensure continuous accessibility to the information within these presentations I suggest you immediately download, and save the sessions, to your computer. I cannot emphasize this enough. Along the left-hand margin, there will be a link for each session. When you click on this link you may be prompted to 'save' or 'open' the session.


Always ‘save’ it to your desktop. Previous participants have found it easiest to organize if they create a folder and store all the sessions in one place. Another option would be to right-click on the link and choose, 'save target as.'


‘Saving’ the sessions will decrease problems relating to your bandwidth. Also, although it may take a while for a presentation to download (up to 10 min. or more depending upon the speed of your connection) it will be much easier to toggle between a PowerPoint and the Internet if you have it saved to your hard drive. Weekly sessions will also become portable if you save them to a thumb drive.


Additionally, you will need to have access to a computer that has PowerPoint version ’97 or above to view the presentations. (As a last resort I will also upload a copy each week to an online service where you can stream it live. You will find that link at the bottom of each weekly posting.) If you cannot hear the sound on them it is possible that the “wave” element of your volume is either on ‘mute’ or not turned up enough.


Please remember that we are all educators, and that this is a collaborative course. So, as you post your reflections and comments we will all be responding to you. Therefore, timely responses are imperative. After you have posted your weekly assignment, make an effort to return again later to read and comment about other participants’ assignments.


Once again remember that we are all perpetual learners; constantly growing. I hope to learn as much from you---as you will from me.


Now I would like you to try a practice download. Thursday evening I will update this page with information about our first session. Along the left-hand margin you will see the words "PRACTICE SESSION." Please try to download this session to your computer, strictlyfollowing the directions above.


Once you have been successful with this process, please also download the syllabus. There is only one required, purchasable text.   Don't worry if it takes a week to arrive.


You may order it from most online book sellers. Until then you may want to read it online (not ideal and you usually can't access the entire text), but here is the link: Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasts

You could also check your local library here.

If you run into problems, please review the directions again. It is not uncommon for participants to 'stumble' a little getting used to this forum.


If you run into any trouble after that, then please feel free to email me or call.


You'll hear from me again on Wednesday.

Thank you,

Dave Fontaine
Internet Librarian and Information Specialist, NBCT
DaveFontaine1@gmail.com
401-835-3782

922-Session 12--The Beginning of the End

Well--Our semester is coming to a close. The Final Projects will need to be completed by midnight on Friday, July 24th, so please spend some time adding images, links, and multimedia to your chapter, then post them under your name on our class wiki page here. Abbe's has some good examples of videos and Nicole's has some great examples of visuals.

Good luck and as always, feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.

You may also see, last semester's participants' comments on the Deliverable #3 assignment that you skipped. Those are below.

DF

922-11--Multimedia Resources for Your Wiki Chapters

This session focuses on how to access, discover, and use multimedia resources to embed w/i your wiki chapters. One of the elements we'll be covering will be online videos. We will learn how to enrich your chapter content and bring it beyond mere text, through the use of videos to help support your learning concepts.

I've shown you a few examples on our class blog this semester. One of the great things about this tool (and there are many to choose from) is that every resource and skill I will be showing you can be done for free. You may read past participants' comments about this topic from my 921 class here, and this past Summer's group here.

Here is example of a college using a vodcast (a video podcast), to help them solicit prospective students. They've posted this to YouTube so whenever a potential student does a search for Franklin College they'll receive this video as part of their results:






This session you will have the ability to go into as much depth as your curiosity (and time) allows. There is basic, elemental information available, as well as advanced information, instruction tutorials, and text directions for you to recreate and duplicate what these models show you. Similar to the distinction I made with Podcasts about the ability to simply use this tool, as opposed to creating videos yourself, please remember that I try to give you more information than you can digest with the hope that you will revisit these sessions in the future when the need (or desire) arises.

Here are a few more tutorials showing you services that make podcasting seem simple:

And then this one from GCast:

Most of these tools are free and they allow you to embed them w/i a blog, website, or wiki chapter.

Good luck, have fun, and keep an eye on the clock.

DF

922-10--Collective Intelligence

Let's start by going over the schedule for the rest of the semester:

• 7/14--Session 10
• 7/15--Session 11
• 7/21--Just focus upon your Final Project due:
• 7/24--Midnight---All outstanding assignments due.

Today you will make some more additions to a wiki.

But first I would like you to visit some of your peers' pages. Just click on their names and view their wiki chapter. Once there, use the Discussion tab to give them feedback. Here is a brief video walking you through it:

Next I'd like you to explore the "History" tab on our wiki. You should have already explored this in a GDoc. As I said earlier in the semester this can be a tremendously powerful tool if you make a mistake. Check it out:

Good luck and don't forget that Session 11's blog entry will be posted in a few days, so that you can blitz over the next week completing your Final Project.

You may also read past participants' D3's here. Even though yours was eliminated you may be interested in reading their's. Just click on their names and under their D2's you should find their D3's. There are lots of great persuasive letters, so why recreate the wheel. If you see a great way to say something---borrow it yourself.

Good luck and have fun!

DF