After a few weeks of blogging I do have to report that many of the concepts terminology is starting to connect on other aspects in my life. I actually just read a study done by the University of Wisconsin system for EDUCAUSE on course management systems.
EDUCAUSE:
· All has been very quite on the home front for Educause in fact from the beginning of October to now there was only 1 post
· This one post however was very interesting to me! The post was about a research study conducted by ECAR of undergraduate students and how information technology has effected them in their higher education career as well as personal development and life. The report is over 120 pages. Highlights were that 98% of students owned their own computer with the majority of them being laptops that were 2 years old or less. Ninety four percent of students were using library websites and 9 out of 10 students reported using a CMS for learning. Another interesting thing was that 94 % of 18-24 year olds were using social networking while other age groups: 25-29, 30-39, 40-40, and 50+ have increased over 40% since 2007.
ITFORUM
· Found the link Dr. Perkins put together for the IT Publications to be very helpful and a great resource to tuck away for later use
· I liked the discussion about preparing for international audiences. I am reminded often of the example Dr. Driscoll used in her texts about her graduate student who checked multiple answers on a multiple choice test because in his native country you could check all that apply not just one. Many times we do think that they way things are done in America is the way it is done all over the world. I see a lot of this with my husband’s company. He provides vision software to hospital floors that help bed control. Many times the first several weeks of communication involve adapting to how that country is currently doing things with technology and even though programming as they say is one language not everyone uses it the same way.
· Another issue that struck my curiosity was the issue of plagiarism. In so many other countries I have heard that the rules for plagiarism are very different and even not as strict at times. How strict are we supposed to be on citing when participating in online discussion boards as well. I will admit I have never been as diligent with citing sources in my online discussions because I believe the discussion takes the place of in class verbal discussions.
· I found it interesting that one contributor brought up the topic of leniency for cultural differences is translated to prejudicial favor. I find when these statements are made it tends to be that they do not realize that without leniency and consideration the level of discrimination is much worse than the perception that they are getting prejudicial favor
· I found the topic of online conferences and how they are shaping professional development. I find the online conferences to be very flexible and helpful for those that are unable to travel but I am stills shocked at how expensive many of them are. I also find that when attending conferences to familiarize yourself with new concepts and theories it is very hard to grasp those with an online non-face-to-face communication
· The topic on ethics and technology was very interesting. I do think that many participants in that discussion took the easy way out by saying that ethics is only developed individually and that ethics courses and technology are not influential in students’ ethical values. I tended to think that what they were missing was that in a private room individuals act differently than they do in public- it goes back to the very basic concepts of Freud and with interactive technology humans have a shield behind them providing an opportunity to check those ethical values at the door
Question of the day: Is ethical values being diluted by the behind the screen mentality of our social networking community?
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