So much to Learn!

As it has only been a few weeks since my last post I had less to read during that time.  I found the informaiton on Educause was sparce because of the conference.  Much of the emails both between Educause and ITFORUM were localized to just a few arguments so it was interesting to see how my viewpoints fit in with more experienced instructional technology specialist. Here are my thoughts:

Educause

·         Interesting to see that even though people are really interested in providing this distance learning, online formats, there is still the ever present trepidation of trust that your employees are working or the person on the other end of the wire is authentic.  I wonder how much better is distance learning really some times when the basic concerns are still not being met.

·         Interesting to learn about these programs that I didn’t know even existed!  Now these programs are expensive and time consuming on some part but still caption software is a very interesting and useful tool in so many applications.  What I find funny in all this though is that, ok I don’t know about these programs but that’s because I am definitely not in the know about some of these areas of interest but my CE friends and husband do not know about them as well and that tells me that there are so many programs out there now that computer engineers can’t even keep up.  Think about it 40 years ago there were maybe 5 if not 10 software programs out there and now there are hundreds, thousands, should I dare to say millions!

ITFORUM

·         People are still asking for resources.  Just a thought “man I wish there was a listserv for all my areas of interest!” Wonder if there is a blog for conflict resolution specialists and mediators that would be fantastic

·         Interesting to see that they use the email post for job postings.  It’s nice to get an idea of what one could do once they have finished with their degree.  It makes you feel better about being in school for so long!

·         Still feel lost what are Open Access Journals? So much to learn!

·         I liked the argument about citation analysis kudos to Reeve for speaking up.  I too believe that this type of measurement is only used because it is easy.  Research can impact so many different areas other than if it has been published.  Now I understand what Open Access Journals are!

·         I hate the pressure of publishing.  I know that’s part of the job but when does it become more time consuming to publish then to teach isn’t that why we are here to teach not to publish.  I understand the research I really do but when one starts taking precedent over the other then there needs to be a different system of tenure and promotion.