Connectivism

Today we worked in groups and talked about criticisms of connectivism. We came together as a class and discussed all the questions about connectivism and had some great heard some good view points. Is connectivism a theory or a principle? Here is my podcast. I used Flash and iMovie 6 to create it and took way too many hours! :(

Final Project Idea

My final project will be to develop an e-learning for PepsiCo, more specifically Hot Fill. There have been some conversations in corporate regarding e-learnings for new employees who are located worldwide. PepsiCo, being that it is such a large company has Hot Fill sites in many countries. Due to the current economy, PepsiCo's annual training was modified due to lack of funds. It was modified so that current staff members would perform the trainings normal taught by Purdue University professors. The corporate training team has identified many suggestions to minimize the cost of hosting trainings at a single location. E-learning trainings was one of the highest priority suggestions. As of now, I am unsure of how I will build it out. I may use Flash or a screen casting program.

Minds of Fire Article

This article talks about how learning has evolved from people getting and processing information/knowledge in a more isolated individual way to people getting together and processing information together to create body of knowledge that is not static but evolving and collaborative. Learning and knowledge has moved from the halls of universities to the web. Because of advances in technology and utilization of social networking tools, how this knowledge is shared, organized and expanded takes on new meanings and implications of knowledge acquisition. While experts have an "authority" in putting specific information "out there", any person has the right to use and review that information which in turn adds to the depth if not breath of that topic. Knowledge is now far more accessible to people who may not have had opportunities (time, money, formal education) to access it. I am privileged to be in the US where we have access to uncensored information via the internet. I think of people in China and Cuba who blog at the risk of incarceration.

Elaine Wheery Presentation Meebo

Elaine's presentation was very interesting in comparing the history of classical music to technology today. She compared how the development of classical music came about through inventors over the years. It was interesting to see her interpretation of how the internet is following the same path. Her presentation was truly telling a story.

Expert Presentation

Tim's expert presentation on WebEx was informative and I find that this program can be a useful tool. I have heard of friends using WebEx and they are extremely happy with the ease of use. I have not used WebEx but I have used Raindance at work, which is similar in features. It seems these types of programs do not allow more than one person leading the meeting. I guess that makes the meeting less confusing if only one person facilitates the meeting at a time. I do like the option of giving access to any individual within the group.

A Whole New Mind – Design

The significance of the first sense Design is that design is just as important as the utility of an item. Companies are now recognizing the importance of design and realize that to be competitive they have to make a good product that is effective and appealing.

Democracy of Design discusses how design has been historically for people with money. Design is now accessible for everyone at any budget. Target is given as an example where a well-known high-end fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi who once only provided fashion now designs clothing for the mass populations.

The Design Portfolio is a great resource that gets a person to start thinking about design and resources for accessing and learning about design. The portfolio offers listings of museums, magazines, activities, and guiding principals for design (i.e., Robin Williams’ Contrast Repetition Alignment and Proximity). Who knew that the Real Simple magazine that sits on the back of my toilet is a design resource. On some level I knew I preferred one tool over another, but what I valued most was the utility of the item—I never really thought about how much design innovation went into the tools before they made it onto the store shelves—I figured I was buying the better toaster based on the ratings from Consumer Reports, not just a cute chrome red toaster (which matches the cherry red trivets on my stove).

Meebo

In preparation for Thursday’s speaker I opened an account at www.meebo.com. I could see the benefits to having a site that organizes and consolidates chat/IM sites. I only use yahoo for IMing with people in my address book and that is very minimal. When I am online it is for a specific reason usually not to chat. I’m online mostly to research topics or have it opened in the background while doing homework. I looked through the chat rooms but didn’t see any topics of my interests. I’m not sure if the chat rooms are updated by who starts them or were they the most popular rooms for that moment. I didn’t spend much time browsing the site.

Google Wave

Elizabeth and Dru did a great job presenting Google Wave. One of the benefits of Google Wave is you can invite members to contribute to a discussion and collaborate. I like the idea of allowing only certain people to contribute. I probably won’t be using it because of how slow it updates posts. I guess if 2 people were having a discussion it wouldn’t be much of a problem but when there are collaboration in numbers it might be an issue. It will be awhile before I jump on this one.