Test!

I'm testing something....embedding a link for a graph, or the graph itself in the blog and in the comments. Want to see what my students might be able to do.......ok, so putting in the image works in the blog....in the comments?

First Day of school!

Well, it's the first day of school! As a follow up (follow through?) to our summer class, I've set up my blog for my classes. I'm only having a blog that I post to and students comment to. They will be doing assignments and will put their links, etc. in their comments (or share in Google Docs--whatever works best as we go along!). I've also designed a survey to assess their exposure and experience with web 2.0 tools via survey monkey. I can't wait to see the results as I've no idea if my students use Google Docs or have ever heard of Wordle, Glogster, etc. I'll survey them at the end of the class to assess their experience with the tools in class. At some point I'd like to assess the tools I use and whether or not they helped students learn.

I'm not sure how students will take to this quite honestly. But the first student to comment is very excited about trying this out--so that's encouraging! Interesting to think that my student's may stumble upon this blog....(if you do, and you know who you are, say Hi!).

The first assignment is to comment on the use of Blogs. Next I'll introduce a little data and have them use Create a Graph. From that we'll move onto my project based on Create an Argument. I think I will give a pre-assessment--give them some data to graph, collect the result and then move forward. Very excited about this aspect of the class--I think it's such a valuable learning tool and will help the students so much.

On another note, I'm really starting to utilize Google docs myself--so great, and easy, to be able to have access to my "stuff" no matter where I am! I used it today in class to show an image. Didn't have to save it on a flash drive, email it to myself etc. Yay! Also, still using Diigo a lot. Regrettably haven't been able to organize my "Feedly" (instead of Google reader, which I still strongly dislike). Hope to continue to read what others in the class are up to!

20 years of the American Disabilities Act

Great, short article in USA Today by deaf journalist Lisa S. Goldstein regarding the continual struggle of folks with disabilities--look for her statement on being left out regarding the Internet.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-07-26-goldstein26_ST_N.htm?csp=obinsite

Accessibility is such an important issue. How much of the cool stuff we have learned about is accessible? Are we using Universal Design?

Some info and resources:

http://www.isoc.org/briefings/002/

http://trace.wisc.edu/world/web/

http://www.washington.edu/doit/Resources/technology.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design

http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/