Elluminate Live-Not showing me the light..

I was very impressed with the presentation by Alex Couros. Even though he was one province over, he was able to keep everyone involved and interested. This is no easy task even in person, especially with our class, as I'm sure that Mike can attest to. I have to say though, I don't really think that distance education is such a great thing. I do understand that there are certain situations that render it as the best option, and sometimes the only option, but I think that much greater success would be had with real human contact in a teacher-student classroom. I was student teaching in Deloraine in my second placement and had the chance to teach a couple lesson in Pre-calc 40S over IITV, a form of distance education. The class had four students in my classroom in Deloraine, two girls in Waskada, and one guy in Pierson. The course is not offered in those two towns, and without the IITV system these students would have to drive a fair distance everyday just for one class. This is a big concern if these students want to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree, and therefore need the course credit. It is great that these students now have an opportunity like this, but I feel that they are not getting the same caliber of instruction as they would in a regular classroom setting. There is very little interaction over IITV and students are expected to do a lot more independant work. This is ok for a course like Pre-calc 40s because students are expected to be very self-motivated anyway, but I don't think it would have the same success rate in other areas of study.
This was just a very small side note from Alex's very well done presentation. Let me know what you think!

To Tweet, or Not To Tweet...

I have to say that after John's presentation on PLN's, my perspective on social networking sites, like twitter, has changed. At first I was so annoyed with the idea of twitter when it comes to strictly social use, because if I want to know what my friends are doing every minute of the day all I have to do is check facebook. I certainly don't need ANOTHER means by which to waste my time because I can come up with plenty of ways on my own. I also believe that as soon as I find myself compelled to see what random celebrities are up to on a day to day basis, that is about the time to get a real life. After hearing the presentation and reading some blogs and what not I see that twitter can actually be a great teaching resource. There have been many times where I would be looking for worksheets or a teaching idea/tip on the internet, but I would for the most part be searching aimlessly, not really sure where the look. Using tools like twitter and diigo I can have a lot of this information find me. I could see these sites being the greatest asset to me if I were to be teaching in a rural community where I was the only Math teacher on staff. Having a lack of colleagues to bounce ideas off of would no longer be a concern as I would have several people to discuss with. These people are obviously apart of these networking sites to be doing just that, discussing ideas, and I would never feel like I was bothering someone or wasting their time. The only problem I see with it is getting an account started and staying with it to reap the maximum benefit. The word is that these sites can take a little while before you really start to see them as worthwhile, so if I can just get over that hump I can look forward to seeing the benefit of my students having the most engaging, technologically up to date teacher they possibly can. I guess I have to say...tweet!

Huh..

Looks like I'm blogging...go blog yourself.