Annotated Bibilography Sample

Alexander, Bryan (2006). Web 2.0: a new wave of innovation for teaching and learning? EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 2 (March/April 2006): 32–44. Retrieved April 18 from Educause Review Web site: http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/Web20ANewWaveofInnovation/40615?time=1208531641

Bryan Alexander is the Director for Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). The author’s premise is that the Web 2.0 moniker is not well understood in higher education teaching and learning circles. He attempts, in a very scholarly written way, to explain the basic concepts, projects and practices of using Web 2.0 tools in higher education. He effectively explains such concepts as social software, microcontent and folksonomies. In discussing projects and practices, social bookmarking is highlighted for its usefulness in the academic pursuit of collaborative information discovery. Tools like Writely (now Google Docs) are also highlighted for their usefulness in allowing students to collaborate with peers and faculty on documents. While highlighting some concerns, mainly about the constantly changing nature of Web 2.0 services, many advantages for teaching and learning are discussed.

Classroom20.com Summary

I spent most of my time exploring social networks on the classroom20.com site and its accompanying wiki, classroom20wiki.com. This social network boast a membership of 7400+ members. The membership and topics are generally geared to K-12. However, searches like “higher ed”, “college”, “university” and “professor” would return limited topics on the use of Web 2.0 apps in higher education. One of the most interesting things about the results of the searches was that many matches contained links to other social networks more geared towards higher education, including many Ning sites.

I believe this site can be a very useful tool for educators looking for ideas and support for integrating Web 2.0 tools into the teaching and learning activities in their classroom (especially K-12). Some of the most useful aspects of this site are:

• Groups - The site contains a large number of groups that people can participate in based on specialty, tools and interests. For the newcomer to the site, it was helpful that the groups page listed the groups by the default order of “most active groups”. Elementary 2.0 and Distance Collaborations are the two most active groups currently.
  
• Live Conversations – The site’s companion wiki, classroom20wiki.com, hosts a series of live conversations about a variety of Web 2.0 topics that members can participate in. The sessions can be “attended” using a variety of tools, but Elluminate is the sponsor and preferred software for participating. The site also hosts recordings of the previous sessions.
  
• Live Workshops - The site also sponsors live workshops held in various parts of the country. These local workshops allow members to participate in the planning and presentation of the workshops and also get together face-to-face. As I blogged about in a previous post, one of these events is tentatively scheduled to be held in Chicago in July but there are very few details about the event posted so far.
  
• Hosts - The site’s main page has an area that lists and provide links to the profiles of members who serve as site hosts. These hosts are available to answer questions members (or prospective members) have about the site.

Going forward, I believe I’ll try to spend time on some of the sites that were linked to in my search results of higher ed topics.

New Digital Toy

Just a quick blog to mention a new digital toy that's on the road to my office. It's the brand new Mobile Digital Scribe by IOGear. Check out full details at the IO Gear site.

The Mobile Digital Scribe is an ink pen that doubles as a digitizer. It comes with a companion receiver device that stores up to 50 pages of notes that you take with the pen. You then connect the receiver to your PC via a USB cable and upload your notes. The included software can convert your writing to text or can save it as an image file.

When connected to a computer, you can also use the pen as a mouse. If you have tablet functionality in Windows Vista or with Microsoft OneNote, you can use the pen to make any laptop or computer act like a tablet PC.

I'm hoping to have the pen in hand by Friday. I'll post later to let everyone know how well it works in real life compared to the marketing materials.

Classroom 2.0 Ning Site Live Event

**Cross posted on edmt592.ning.com**

I've noticed in the blog posts that several people in EDMT 592 have joined the classroom20.ning.com network. I noticed today that they have a LIVE event happening Monday, March 24th, at 9p. The event celebrates the network's one year birthday. An agenda and instructions for "attending" the event are posted.

Here's their description of the event:

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Monday, March 24th, at 6pm Pacific / 9pm Eastern / 2am GMT we'll be celebrating the one-year birthday party for Classroom 2.0 by having a "working party." Our goal--to set up a new volunteer host system, to say hi to as many new members as we can, and to look forward to the coming year of innovations in Web 2.0 / collaborative technologies in education. You'll have to provide your own refreshments for this party... :)

Thanks to Elluminate for providing us with our new hosting platform for these LIVE conversations. And a shout-out to Nate Lowell who figured out Monday, March 24th, was our first birthday!"
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I hope to be home from my son's wrestling banquet in time to join in. Maybe I'll see some of you online.

New EMU Email System

Some of you may have read that there is a committee currently working on identifying a new email/calendaring/collaboration tool to replace the ones included in my.emich. I've had the opportunity to participate in many of the meetings as an "unofficial" member.

The committee recently narrowed the choices down to two: Google Apps for Education (gmail) and Zimbra. Many of you are probably already familiar with Google Apps (gmail, calendar, Google Talk, etc.) but I suspect most of you have never heard of the Zimbra collaboration suite.

The committee plans to meet early next week to make a final recommendation. For anyone who has a few moments to spare this weekend, I would really be interested in your feedback on the Zimbra tool. It's easy to set up a demo account at:

http://www.zimbra.com/products/hosted_demo.php

The demo accounts come pre-populated with some email and calendar information to make it easier to get a feel for using the suite of applications. If you get a chance to check it out, please send me an email and let me know what you think. My demo account email address is:

221wa6bx@demo2.zimbra.com

The product also has some add-on tools to allow people to use Outlook (Windows) or the Mac OS suite of tools like Mac Mail, iCal, and Address Book. The Outlook add-on makes it work just like it was in a Microsoft Exchange environment.

Certainly I would also be interested in anyone's feedback on the Google Apps for Education suite, too (http://www.google.com/a/edu).

Thanks! All feedback will be welcome and I'll be sure to share it with the committee during their deliberations early next week.

del.icio.us links

Yes... I am just getting around to blogging about social bookmarking.

You would think a higher ed technology administrator would have used a tool like del.icio.us before, but I've just started using it during this class. I've enjoyed browsing the links that everyone has tagged with EDMT592. It's going to be very useful for completing the collaboration project.

I'm back...

Yeah, I know... I've been MIA for a few weeks. I won't bore anyone with the details. Needless to say, I've got a bunch of catching up to do so I'll start with blogging about that fact.

I just got back from the Educause Midwest Regional Conference in Chicago on Wednesday. This is the same conference that Dr. McVey attended and emailed the EDMT592 class about. It was a great conference. (NOTE: I am SO GLAD that the snow happened after I returned versus hitting while our group from EMU was in Chicago. That wouldn't have been any fun!)

Hope everyone gets to enjoy a long weekend.