So, last week, we again made a charming attempt at UStream, and had yet another failure. Obviously, you cannot evaluate this as a form of communication since we have had epic fails every time we've tried , but you can postulate on how this might work, if indeed we could get it to work. Having said that, I want you think about how doing a live webcast could be a functional form of communication. What are the benefits of "going live"? What might be the downfalls, other than the obvious hurdles we experienced? How can this form of communication be used in an educational setting effectively? What purposes would it have? Can you see yourself using this form of media in an academic setting? How?
So, because we had such utter failure with our live streaming attempts, we resorted back to the weekly rubric, to which you all moaned and groaned. However, I rest comfortably at night knowing the following: I am teaching you how to build a PLN, a personal learning network, a concept surrounding the use of other peoples' learning. This is a concept that had grown exponentially because of the use of tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, and other similar social networking tools. Professionals know that this is how real learning happens, and many students are quickly learning, as well. To have power, you no longer get to be the gatekeeper of knowledge. In today's day and age, your power comes from how much you can share and with how many people. Online etiquette states that unless you source the knowledge, you give credit to the source. If people follow the "code" then you could quickly become fairly powerful, if people like what you are posting. There was a post not too long ago on Twitter that said, the ultimate compliment is to have your post retweeted. Why is that a compliment? Because your information is getting sent out all over the Twitterverse. The more people like your post and retweet it, the more people want to know about you, the original poster. The end result? You have grown in power based on your knowledge. And the converse will hold true for you. You will learn from others, as others learn from you. It's a powerful concept.
For example, last night on Desperate Housewives (yes, I'll admit to being a junkie of that show), one of the main character's husband didn't get an advertising job he interviewed for, and when his wife asked, "What happened?", his response was, "I was asked if I had ever mass marketed a campaign using Twitter? I had no clue what he was talking about." And so it goes. This is not pop culture, PLNs are main stream. After all that, what did you get from this week while you dabbled yet again in the rubric? What new ideas, concepts, tools, tricks, etc did you learn? Or did you fall into a rut and just do the same ole', same ole'? In short, what did you learn this week? Remember, your posts here will be graded using the Output Rubric (the 1st rubric on the page), so freshen up on those standards.
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The rubric did help us learn new things at first but now that we have done it a couple weeks it just seems to be dragging out the hour and half I have in here because I am not really learning anything new by doing the rubric now.
ReplyDeleteTwitter would have to be my all time favorite thing learned by this rubric because so many celebrities use it to keep their fans posted about what is going on in their life and if any new things are coming out, ect.
I really wish technology wasn't so advanced. we literally have almost everything at the tips of our fingers but we still are not happy. Technology will always go further and further no matter what. It has already taken over most of our life's, we really can't live without our cell phones, TVs, computers, ect. What would happen if it all went away??
Mele,
ReplyDeleteIs your discontent with the rubric akin to your statement that "we literally have almost everything at the tips of our fingers but we still are not happy"? Are you really learning nothing?? I find that difficult to believe. If you can make the statement that indeed you love Twitter, and it keeps you up to date with the celebrities whom you follow, then you have to be learning something new... if nothing else, then you have learned a new way to stay in touch with celeb current events. How many followers have you gotten on Twitter? Have you tried to expand your PLN to include people other than celebrities who have similar interests as you? This is where you indeed will start to learn new things. If you don't seek people, then you won't expand your network. If you can say you didn't learn anything, I might say you fell into the rut. PLNs don't just happen. It takes some work to cultivate them. Have you extended yourself to truly grow as someone who uses technology?
Yes we had major struggles last week with UStream and this was a bummer. I was actually excited to broadcast live because the live world is just so fascinating, especially when you are able to see how many people are actually viewing your broadcast and for so many other reasons. I am hoping one day we will revisit UStream and finally win the battle!
ReplyDeleteI really don't know any good reasons for broadcasting live maybe besides the fact that it might be useful for people who want to access this information faster than it may take us to post this information on some other network. Plus it would be easier for people to most likely access what we are putting out there when it is live because UStream may be very well known, but with limited places to post something we may film, this may limit us to a smaller audience. But then again you have the downfalls to everything and the most obvious one that might happen when broadcasting live is the mess up that could occur. This could be simply a bad word that may slip, you stutter over your words, you may have to burp in your broadcast. These are things that would stink about broadcasting live and having an audience that you do not know who is really apart of it, watching you mess up. I think this UStream idea can be used in an educational setting and what we were working with the week before when we just filmed for the different school levels plays a huge factor into this. Broadcasting live to the elementary school I personally think would be a great idea as we wold be delivering important current events, but at the same time we would think about who our audience is and kind of make the news cast more appropriate for that particular age group. UStream could be a huge break through in the education setting, not only for younger age groups but maybe even college. A teacher could now easily make their lecture live, even though I doubt this would ever happen as this would give anyone access to this class in which people are paying a lot of money to already take. But I don't know it just may be a good idea, maybe not just in college but we could bring it down a level and do something like this in the high school, taking the podcast to a whole new level. And if this were to be incorporated into the school for academic purposes I would most definitely use it because it reminds me of Twitter only because it is allowing you to access information that may be extremely helpful to you in the long run. So this whole UStraem thing just may be a great idea to incorporate into the academic world.
Ahh as if we have not talked about this rubric enough! I am sorry but this rubric is torture, though simple to do, it is just boring and seems too repetitive. I will not be sad the day we stop using this rubric for the rest of this class, it just does not have any motivation or excitement to it. Though I will say I did have a better tiem with it this week despite my issue with the forum I was banned from. As I had learned this time of the many time we have already done this rubric, I was suppose to find a blog and forum of my interest which was hard to do but also interesting when I actually found a couple of my interest because now these are blogs and forums I will not just follow in school but also outside of the class on my own time. And I known this may be a sin to say but I am sorry I do not know what the huge hype is about Twitter, I personally have no interest for it besides the fact I can follow celebrities and see their latest updates. But Twitter just seems odd to me as you see several posts and the people that take it to the extreme like where someone might twitter to the community cameronw2010..is going to school, cameronw2010..is going to the bathroom, I just find it weird that you might find posts like these where people are literally posting every little they do with their life. I don't know about other people but I do not have any interest in knowing every single detail about one's day.
Though not mentioned in this reflection due to the fact this pertains to this week, I am very very very very excited we have finally entered the music world. This is something I have been wanting to do because music is everything to me and I think being able to create my music can express so much about myself. This will definitely be a great week I think, finally a break from the rubric!
I think that if we were able to use the live stream that its form of communication would be very affective. Live stream is a good way to communicate because you can communicate visually with pretty much anyone in the world. But its to bad that it didn't work out. But since that didn't work we did our weekly requirement stuff. I actually did all of it except for the podcast because I can't get myself to do a podcast when there are people in the room listening. I tried to do it once but the classroom was really silent and I was afraid that people could hear me. But I am just not a podcast kind of person. But I thought that last week would've been more productive if we got the live stream to work.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, going live has its benefits and downsides; especially in our class. We had our troubles with UStream, but I do not think that's even the tip of the iceberg involving the baggage of live streaming.
ReplyDeleteMany live streaming web services use RealPlayer, which is extremely faulty for its popularity. Before playing your video, it displays the infamous "Buffering" message, and cannot proceed until the program is sufficiently "buffered." Sometimes it will even stop your stream to buffer.
Furthermore, anything live has its innate perils. The stream can be affected or even wrecked simply by the whimsy of onlookers. People who wave hands in the shot, or say "Hi mom" can easily ruin a whole take.
As for our rubric situation, I wasn't here last week, but I'm pretty sure that the rubric is all tired out by now. Let's give it a rest. Forever.
I have learned that i have learned more about computers that i didn't know before sometimes they are boring but sometimes they aren't and yes i have learned a lot about computers just from being in this classroom for 3weeks
ReplyDeleteThis project could of gone well if it worked. The bad things to it though are that it is live and there isn't any way to rewatch it in the future. SO you would have to be on at the exact time to see it. The up sides to it is that you know that it isn't edited and that it is all real with no affects added. I could see using it if i was at home and needed to show something at the school or even morning announcements but not me doing it. I think the rubric might help use but after a while it starts to get annoying. Thats why we all moan and groan. But you are the teacher.
ReplyDeleteI think that Ustream could be a productive source of communication if it actually worked. I think it is interesting to watch live things take place, especially the nature cams that the site has. I was looking forward to broadcasting live and watching others live, but at the same time I am happy that it didn't work, not because we had to do the rubric, but because I did not want to be in front of the camera. The possibilities of live broadcasting are vast and it is a viable form of communication. It can be the most raw of all forms because once a mistake is made you can't erase a word or delete a scene. I think that is what makes it so exciting.
ReplyDeleteThe rubric on the other hand lacks all sense of excitement. I understand that it is teaching us to enlarge our personal learning network, but it is extremely dull and repetitive. Once the initial fun of posting wore out I was just going through the motions. You can't really learn something unless you are interested and motivated in the subject. I personally will never use Twitter outside of this class because I just don't understand the point. I don't like putting myself out there because I have had some bad bad bad experiences in the past with that. I think technology use has to be monitored and to put my thoughts and feelings into an expressionless machine is not my idea of pleasant. I can't say I blame others for using this type of communication, but it is just not for me. For everyone that is enthralled with Twitter, did you even know about it last year? I just don't understand the big hype about it.
I think that you can be powerful even if you don't get retweeted or what ever it is called. I kind of disagree with what you say about power being the ability to share information. I don't see that happening in the workplace or in the "real" world. People still keep what they don't want people to know and gradually dole it out over time so that they can make an income. I don't think you should give all your information out at the same time because then you won't be "powerful" anymore. I think I will stick to working my way up the old fashioned way, that is, not twitting about everything that happens in my life and hoping somebody in India will decide to follow me.
If UStream wold have worked the benefit of going live would have made knowing the news as it happened much easier than it is right now. The downfall of UStream would be that the broadcast is lagged on the computer you are watching it on. Another thing that could be a downfall is the broadcast could just stop and you would have to wait for some amount of time for it to come back on which would slow down the viewer computer. This form of communication can be used in an educational setting by connecting school that don't have that class and still offer it. The only way I can see myself using this form of communication in a school setting is if the school get cameras in every room and the classes are streamed live. If the school did that and the students had a computer at home they could watch the class if they were sick.
ReplyDeleteWhat one thing I learned from last week was how to edit photos, more than I normally do, using Photoshop. I also learned that some things shouldn't be said on Twitter. You also shouldn't leave your computer on when your friends are over. Another thing I learned was that if you say something intelligent on line your post will be sent to many other people in the world.
I agree with Derek that the live stream would be affective, however we need people to watch us. I suprisingly got all of my work done. I like what were doing this week but i cant really get anything good like Alex and John have so far. I still think that that rubric is the antichrist's digital form. I actually might have finally realized something in this class, the work isn't all that hard if you put your mind to it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Mele says. We really are not learning anything new by just doing this rubric over and over again, and it just becomes tedious and a waste of time in my opinion. It may have seemed like a good idea when we first started it, but now it is just something that doesn't need to be done. I mean sure we may be getting our voice out on the internet and learning new ways that we can be social, but when you just think of all the things that we could also be doing, this just seems wasteful. We should be exploring more ways that we can get known on the internet, not just twitter and blogs.
ReplyDeleteWe wasted too much time on the Ustream program. I think that we should have just abandoned it in the beginning to save ourselves the large amount of class time that we took up. Not to say that it was a bad idea, though. If it had worked, it would have been a great way for us to get our voices heard out on the web using more advanced technology then just posting a video of us reading news articles. In the future, I think that this class should be geared more towards how we can find new and exciting ways to be heard on the internet, using music, opinions, videos, and whatever else that we can.
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First, let me congratulate you as a class on having all completed the posts on the day you were asked. You all officially got graded in one fell swoop, and I didn't have to remind anyone.
ReplyDeleteSecond, let me also congratulate you as a class on being comfortable enough to be critical about what is and isn't happening for you in class. Often times, classes can get stagnant, just as can people who fall into ruts. Many times, students fail to realize they indeed have a voice and can productively exercise this voice to effect real change. Those of you who had complaints wagered them well and constructively, and your voice is heard. Trust me, one thing I have always strived to do is run a student centered classroom. Before we get to what happens next, I want to reflect, myself, on some of what was said.
I heard that you hate the rubric (I've heard that since day one), and that perhaps we wasted too much time on the UStream piece. However, we needed to exhaust all the possibilities in figuring out where the problem(s) existed, and it's clearly on our end. When something doesn't work the first time, it cannot and should not be immediately abandoned. Where would the world be if that was what happened every time something didn't work. I get that most of us live in an immediate gratification society, and I'll admit I fall into that category sometimes myself, but without struggle nothing really does get accomplished.
I get your comments about Twittering & blogging. But, the real question with any of the latest and greatest in technology is "Is it a fad, a trend, or mainstream?" Will there be something out tomorrow or next year that tops what's here today? Of course, but here's my case scenario: MySpace vs. Facebook. MySpace was ALL the rage until Facebook came along. Both still exist, but Facebook is the mainstream. It's not going away. It's been around for a while, and it grows every single day. Why? More and more people are realizing it as a viable way to communicate. Such is the case with Twitter, which seems to have bumped places like LinkedIn down a notch. The older generations are catching on to online communities, and this is what makes it mainstream. If you believe this isn't mainstream, read some of the trends in Corporate America regarding the use of social networking and technologies that you guys are using on a daily basis.
Hannah suggested the following about my post regarding sharing knowledge as power, "I disagree with what you say about power being the ability to share information. I don't see that happening in the workplace or in the "real" world. People still keep what they don't want people to know and gradually dole it out over time so that they can make an income. I don't think you should give all your information out at the same time because then you won't be "powerful" anymore. I think I will stick to working my way up the old fashioned way, that is, not twitting about everything that happens in my life and hoping somebody in India will decide to follow me." Actually, to some extent, I agree. I just think there is a happy medium between the traditional Hannah suggests and the modern technology to which I'm trying to expose you.
Studies at Rutgers University suggest Hannah is correct. The traditional methods still matters most.
"Myth 2: For knowledge work, electronic communication is just as
effective as meeting face to face.
Reality 2: In a knowledge-based economy, personal relationships and face-to-face interactions are more essential than ever to understanding new knowledge and using it effectively."
By no means is my intent in my ideas, suggestions, posts, or this class to suggest technology is THE one and only way. I'm not full on board with everything technology, and perhaps I have given you the wrong notions somewhere along the way. I see lots of benefits, but I see plenty of pitfalls. And I completely agree with Cameron on his notion of people taking it to the extreme, "like where someone might twitter to the community cameronw2010..is going to school, cameronw2010..is going to the bathroom..." Yes, indeed, that falls into the absurd, and I genuinely dislike those people, too. I believe my word for them is useless.
My goal is to expose you to what's out there and how it can benefit you. My goal is to make you question these technologies and their viability in your academic and future professional lives. My goal is partly what has happened... to make you think, question, explore, examine, conclude. We're part way there.
To conclude, John said a few interesting things (you should know me to read every single word of every single post):
"We should be exploring more ways that we can get known on the internet, not just twitter and blogs... In the future, I think that this class should be geared more towards how we can find new and exciting ways to be heard on the internet, using music, opinions, videos, and whatever else that we can."
Interesting. We are doing music. You have done videos. But, what do we do next? If you are bored, I want an actual answer as to what happens next. Hannah was the one who came up with the idea to examine music this week. Who's coming up with the constructive answer to the "We're bored" statement. YOU tell me where we go now.