Below are excerpts of comments from teachers who participated in ED5607 Issues in Digital Technology in Education:
I've always been interested in life from a psychological point of view.
I was just wondering if any of you have done more reading in this course
than any other because of the mere fact that there is no end to what you
can read? I think the trick will be to make sense out of soooo much information.
I also could not sleep the other night. All the new and exciting thoughts
were running through my head and I got up any turned on the computer until
after 3:00 a.m. Had I known you were up too [student]...we could have had
a chat.
How does it feel to return to a "traditional" course after our
"paperless" virtual one last summer? I know it's changed my teaching--I
don't think I can ever return to the traditional style of teaching again.
Hi, Ron. Great to hear from you. And...another hello to everyone else that's
still connected.
As far as returning to a traditional course is concerned, I don't think
I'll ever tire of "curling up with a good book" and having face-to-face
discussion about the, but just saying that I miss the net research and on-line
conferencing is a gross understatement.
As a matter of fact, [a student] who is in Paradigms with me, proposed starting
an on-line conference for the course. Dr. [Professor] accepted (very enthusiastically,
I might add) and Ed Leslie has already made it a reality. I guess, slow
as it can be because of those darn naysayers I referred to my earlier message,
and despite every obstacle, the kind of ripple effect that wonderful new
ideas and methods has is virtually unstoppable. Congratulations to you for
being such a pioneer in this field at York! See what you've started!!!
As for the digital technology taking hold at the school and in the board
where I teach...that's another story: the number of hangups is unbelievable.
Oh well, I'm going to keep on trying to spread the good news of what's available
out there and be patient...very patient.!
I am finding as an on-line course that my communication
with fellow students is extremely different on-line versus in person communication.
As I was lying in bed last night I was thinking that everytime I have ever
taken a course I have made a friend. This is usually done as we chit-chat
before the professor comes or at coffee breaks. There is not a place for
this in an on-line course I don't think. Perhaps, the lounge, but no one
seems to be chatting there. As I am typing this I thought that is where
I will send this message.
The difference in the style of communication in a course may be that we
are all focussed on our subject and our choice of words is more formal.
There are the more personal things which do not get spoken about during
on-line conversation focussed on taking a course that people comment about
in person (weather, children, drive to university, how they are feeling).
Sometimes people have quiet senses of humour that appear in person, but
not in print. This type of communication, less formal, more personal is
probably appearing on chat lines.
I have never enjoyed learning as much as I have with this
course. There is so much out there and so much to learn that it certainly
is exciting. The possibilities that can be reached through digital technology
is only as limited as our imaginations. We each determine what paths we
take in the learning process, with computers and the internet and what I
have learned in this course my thesis will not be as scary.
After this week's class I continue to reflect on the paths I have journeyed.
Learning is taking on a new understanding and meaning as I construct with
my colleagues and Ron. I can't articulate in words how different this learning
feels. Much of it seems embedded in a child like curiosity. In many ways
I think my learning must be similar to how a young child feels when he/she
takes his first step, says his first word and so on...there is an awakening
at every turn, a real sense of wonder, and adventure. It seems to be a more
natural way to learn (the challenge even seems to be more natural; THE CHALLENGE
OF TRYING TO MASTER KEEPS ME GOING). Today, I ended the course on a new
high...This was partly due to the crash course on setting up a web page
(not that I didn't already have enough construction underway!!!) but more
for this personal revelation. As a student I have participated in many courses
led by excellent teachers. Even the outstanding ones who were skilled facilitators
and had us dialogue in groups did not leave me with this wonderful insight
that I am leaving this course with: I truly feel that Ron you modelled a
teaching style that foregrounded the student; at the same time you always
took your lead from from us and together we constructed our learning. I
believe that the use of the internet played an integral role in this transformation.
Do you think our students in the classroom feel that we' re constructing
and learning with them?
I think with digital technology that we can make individual learning a real
possibility. Ron, presented us with something we were all interested in
doing....we all wanted to learn how we can use technology effectively in
our classrooms. Technology brought out our curiosity, and desire to explore.
Will computers not free teachers to follow "the course prescribed by
the processes of natural learning".
It seemed like such a nice day on Monday. I enjoyed the
class and seeing everybody live and in person. After the class I went to
the library and then like a good little student I went home to send Ron
my submissions from the conference. I got on line at 2:00 and I was surprised
how long it took to copy the submissions. It was disappointing for me to
realize that I had gotten off topic many times and that some submissions
would have been better elsewhere. I tried hard to make sense of them and
connect my ideas in some logical pattern. Pretty soon it was 9:00 and I
was just about finished and ready to send the information to Ron when a
message popped on the screen that the link had failed.
"Oh, no! What does that mean?" I asked my husband in a panic.
He said that I should have been working on Word Perfect that way my information
could be saved. He told me to copy the information to Word Perfect and work
from there. No problem...to copy the information.
However, when I looked in the Word Perfect file things were underlined that
should not have been, things were bolded that should not have been. Some
things were missing and everything was in disarray, with parts of the submissions
repeated over and over again at random. Ahhhhhh.............! was the way
I felt. Why did I take this xxxxxxxxxxxxcourse?
After I got over my initial hysteria I began to fix the mistakes. I could
hear it raining outside but I wasn't paying much attention. I was thinking
about the deadline of 12:00 that I was trying to adhere to. In the background
I could hear the thunder and lightening.
The first really loud bang sent shivers down my spine, but it was not until
the power blacked out that I felt a jolt in my heart. Oh my goodness (I'm
being polite).....my file. I only lost what I had typed since I pressed
the save button. My husband suggested I turn the computer off but I insisted
I needed to keep going to meet the 12:00 deadline. Well, two short black
outs later when I got in the habit of pressing the save button practically
after each word typed I was finally finished.
I went to send Ron my work but the modem would not initialize. It just said,
'No dial tone.' By this time it was well after 12:00, but I felt the necessity
to keep trying. I still could not get through and I thought that there was
probably a problem because of the storm. Finally, I decided to go to bed
and try in the morning.
I got up excited in the morning to try and send the file to Ron and the
phone connected to the computer didn't seem to be working. I was getting
the same message when I went into Trumpet Winsock....no dial tone. At this
point I thought there was something wrong with the school's computers, because
of the storm, but I called and they were doing fine.
To make a really long story, a little shorter what happened was that the
lightening that was disturbing me in the night had fried the modem. It may
have also resulted in the link failure. I learned two very important lessons
the hard way and for those of you who don't know what I didn't know this
is what I learned:
Don't keep a computer on during an electrical storm unless you have a power
back-up system. (Do I have this right Ron?)
Don't do a lot of typing on First Class in case the link fails. (I'm not
listening to myself now, am I?)
I wonder if this is the equivalent of the age old excuse brought into the
future that my dog peed on it and that's why it's late.