Author: joanvinallcox

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, rabid reader and poet who has taught in both the college and university systems. Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia. She is a widow from a happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter. Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry

WebTools For Teachers 07/05/2008

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Big Brother or Reader-Friendly

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The always amazing Alja Sulčič posted a link on Facebook to an article about web sites that adapt to readers, and I had an ambivalent response response to it – http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20872/page1/

While I believe it is essential for communicators to create reader-friendly media, I find myself worried about changes that I am not aware of influencing me.

http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/20872/page1/

Technology Review: Adapting Websites to Users via kwout

I have a double ambivalence because I would see this as a positive in the educational context, but I worry about it being used on me to influence my buying decisions “using cognitive styles to adapt Web pages to users, in most cases [this has] been for education, not for e-commerce.”While I think it’s appropriate to adjust the delivery of information for learners, I’m not so sure about using it for commerce.

The possibilities being explored go further than this:

the researchers plan to watch website users for cultural attitudes as well as for cognitive style, evaluating whether visitors have a hierarchical or egalitarian view of society, or whether they think in terms of what is good for the individual or what is good for the collective. Someone with a hierarchical view of society might receive loan advice from someone in a position of authority, while someone with an egalitarian view might receive advice from a peer. Similarly, a person’s tendency to think individually or collectively might influence which features of a product are most emphasized. If that experiment goes well, Urban says, he envisions global companies one day using website morphing techniques to build single websites that can adapt to users based on their cultural background, as well as on their cognitive style. The researchers are also working on using their morphing techniques to make banner ads more effective.

What do you think? Do you think this is a progressive reader-friendly trend, suitable for commerce as well as education?

WebTools For Teachers 07/04/2008

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  • University of Manitoba: Information Services and Technology – Michael Wesch and the Future of Education

    Brilliant! More than an hour, but worth it at double the length. ALL TEACHERS can get ideas from it!
    “Dubbed “the explainer” by popular geek publication Wired because of his viral YouTube video that summarizes Web 2.0 in under five minutes, cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch brought his Web 2.0 wisdom to the University of Manitoba on June 17 (see video above).

    During his presentation, the Kansas State University professor breaks down his attempts to integrate Facebook, Netvibes, Diigo, Google Apps, Jott, Twitter, and other emerging technologies to create an education portal of the future.”

    “It’s basically an ongoing experiment to create a portal for me and my students to work online,” he explains. “We tried every social media application you can think of. Some worked, some didn’t.”

    tags: wesch, web2.0, education

  • Commonwealth of Learning – Education for a Digital World

    “Education for a Digital World contains a comprehensive collection of proven strategies and tools for effective online teaching, based on the principles of learning as a social process. It offers practical, contemporary guidance to support e-learning decision-making, instructional choices, as well as program and course planning, and development.”

    tags: elearning, online_lessons

WebTools For Teachers 07/02/2008

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WebTools For Teachers 07/01/2008

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We May be on the Cutting Edge/Signs of Hope

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Rainbow

http://www.freefoto.com/preview/15-27-2?ffid=15-27-2

  • I have a friend who is updating a well-known business writing textbook. She wants to add an assignment where students have to using podcasting or videocasting, and wants my help in figuring out how to set it up. I see an inroad into college and university communications courses – provided, of course, that the teachers use the assignment.
  • The board of a volunteer organization I work with has set up a wiki and begun using it to plan, record and communicate.
  • A provincial math education organization is using a wiki to plan. (Ontario is a very, very, very big province and CommonCraft has described the problems with planning by email – http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english).

I see these as signs that people are becoming more conscious of web 2.0 possibilities. It may not have gone viral – yet – but it may be starting to. Work Literacy has been developing frustratingly slowly but maybe, just maybe, the tipping point is approaching.

WebTools For Teachers 06/28/2008

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WebTools For Teachers 06/26/2008

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