I sound like a broken record; however, I learned so many great things this week! Although I have listened to Podcasts, this week’s project was my first experience producing a Podcast. I recorded it many, many times! It is hard to listen to my own voice in recorded format, in spite of this, scratching the surface of the uses of Jing and Camtasia were great fun. One of our fellow colleagues in this class, Kathrine (Betty) Garza, mentioned the use of Camtasia to me and I utilized it to visually improve my Podcast in order to display the full screen of my Jing Podcast on one page.
The possibilities for the uses of Podcasts and other audio/visual technology abound in the educational environment. The opportunities to engage learners with various learning styles and abilities can enhance the learning experience for the student and instructor through the incorporation of technology. This course is an excellent example in how to design an online course and of the interaction, critical thinking skills, and active learning taking place using technology. We witness and learn from our colleagues and see great examples of how they are utilizing these tools to create rich learning communities for our students each week. The articles for the week and those presented in the journal article critiques were very informative. My journal article, Making Online Learning Accessible: Using Technology to Declutter the Web, provided examples of resources available to educators to aide in course design. Google’s product for creating a custom search engine, Awesome Highlighter, TrackStar, Readability, and TidyRead are all free resources. This is a great article; I encourage you to read it.
What is preventing us from fully embracing the potential of these tools is lack of knowledge on several levels. A lack of knowledge of what is available is one. When reading the posts in our discussion groups, frequently the phrase, “this is new information,” or “I can’t wait to try these out” are used. There are so many resources available it can become overwhelming. Another form of lack of knowledge is the talent to effectively designing a course incorporating technological tools. Educators must continually develop their own skills in order to create environments for learning.
If I could change anything it would be, what I have discussed in previous posts, the “all or nothing mentality” in the discussions surrounding educational technology. Instead of focusing on the benefits of incorporating varying teaching methods and forms into course delivery, conversations often resemble opposing boxers in the ring. In one corner the face-to-face traditionalists, who give a slight nod to technology incorporation and in the other corner the technology gladiator fighting to make all things techie. The real issue is how well the methods are deployed in the learning environment in order to do what we as educators are called to do, to educate. I would require some form of continuing education element in new teaching methods, course design and instruction for current educators and administrators in order to stay abreast of the rapidly changing world of education. Each method provides tremendous opportunities for inspiring students to be active participants in learning and instill lifelong learning.
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