5001 a Great Learning Experience

Well, this is pretty much it. Just handed in my last project for the semester. I must say, for an intro course in a different program I certainly learned alot, and most of what was absorbed (from other students and the instructor) is applicable a wide range of situations.

For people who are going to be teaching other (most of us in one way or another) you really can't go wrong with this course, I would venture to say this would be applicable to most of courses and programs, similarly to how public speaking is nearly universally applicable.

The experience has been great up to this point although a lot of work was require, it was worth it. I look forward to seeing some of the Capstone projects for this program on the 8th and am sure I will learn something from them as well.

Thanks to all who lent a helping hand this semester.

Dynamic Word Presentation?

I am not sure what exactly to call it. Tollis posted something similar in his blog about language, and I replied with this. I was really fascinated by the words and production were manipulated. I have looked into which program was used there but haven't uncovered anything yet.

Check it out, you may not like the music, but focus on the presentation. It doesn't begin until about a minute or so in.

Click Here

If anyone knows or has any ideas on a program that could do this let me know. I am really interested in it.

*****boards & projects

It was great to get a look at what everyone was actually talking about and get to interact with it. I honestly didn't think it was cooperative relationship between a projector and smart board/clip on smart board. I thought at first the image just appears lol, but how could it? My prejudices I suppose are based on looking at the Samsung Whiteboard 650TS in my section on the future of IT. I really like what I saw yesterday, but think that a projector introduces limitations that are otherwise absent of an item like the Samsung product; though it clearly isn't as large a drawback for sure, not to mention, its like $6000. Hmm.

Have a look if you havn't yet I really love this and it doubles as a high definition monitor/tv; I suppose it has limitations for large learning environments unless it is deployed in numbers, but at 65" that's not too bad.

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Additionally since we are at the half-way mark and I still have a couple things to do for the class I was just looking around our folders to get ideas and see what everyone else did. There is a lot of nice looking projects out there!  I like Stacia's simple approach to Common Craft, in my head it seemed so much more complicated, also Brian's Spiderman Subject-Verb agreement is interesting too!

Smatboards what?

Well. During the last class there was much discussion of smart boards and I had looked them up prior to the class to get an idea of what they were. Never actually having used one or maybe seen one? I am now becoming more interested in them.

Checking around a little more, I actually learned today from a friend in the military that they are fully integrated in certain circumstances with these devices. They are used in so many aspects of service he said you will know exactly what they are when you come out of there. Looking at the possibilities I will probably buy a couple of these just to have them after our presentation next week hahaha. I could infact also see these becoming a competitor to the personal computer in the future.

Half way there...

Now almost halfway there (points wise) it is amazing how much I have learned thus far. From not knowing you could put click-able buttons in power points to doing an entire game in PPT based on hyperlinks. Definitely spices up the old the program.

Additionally our presentations for History of IT went very well as a whole. As a lot people posted in the discussion board including myself, we got to see what works really well and not as well with different forms of presenting; as the class continues through November and December we will see this even more I think. Additionally I am looking forward to October 20th's class on SmartBoards as I honestly had never really knew what they were though i heard the term tossed around a few times and looking into them a bit they seem quite interesting.

Heretofore!

Instructional Tech is moving right along. Fourth week into the program and I wonder why heretofore there was never a similar class at the undergraduate level, required for business students. Over the past four weeks now I have been introduced to an onslaught of instructional resources, most of which fit right into a business program.

Most of our classes, undergraduate and graduate include presentations and many teacher place extreme emphasis on them. In six years of business courses I don't honestly think I can recall the use of a program apart from power point being used for presentations. 

It is interesting to think about, I decide to take this course as an elective, in my last semester of my prior 7 years or so of school and only now I am getting exposed to all of these great ways to collaborate and inform. It will come in handy as undoubtedly I will be continuing to work with people, informing them and collaborating with them and hopefully some of these tools/resources will come in handy.

One tool of which so far is Prezi which I was recently introduced too. This program is fantastic. As a group (History of IT) we decided to utilize this tool and is has been pretty interesting so far seeing what were are able to do with it with so little to get used to it. Looking forward to seeing what other tools are utilized for this presentation on Wed.

3rd week of class...

Well, I completed my first online class session today and it was super easy. In fact that hardest thing was remembering hey you are in class so don't get off task! Wimba is such a simple program to use and seeing presentations in it; Sandy's PPT, is really interesting too.

After class our History of IT team met online and we should be ready to go with that project shortly as well. 

Outside of class we (other team members of other classes) are trying to put together our first presentation for our capstone and I am going to introduce Tagxedo to them and see if we can fit it in where appropriate. Speaking of that project, I need to go do more research for it now....uhhh...