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TLT CoffeeRead: Web doesn’t make you dumb

Web doesn’t make you dumb

“As industry and society become more Web-enabled, there is growing backlash among those who feel the medium is negatively impacting our collective intelligence. A recent cover story in Atlantic magazine asks if “Google is making us stupid,” while the book The Dumbest Generation warns readers not to trust anybody under 30 because of some sort of downloaded dopiness. With all due respect, these arguments are idiotic.”

BuzzLion for the Week of June 22

Despite the muggy weather that makes the BuzzLion exist in a sort of a torpor, things are rolling right along in Educational Technology Services these days. So let’s get right to our look at the week that was….

You don’t need an invitation to participate in Web 2.0, so says Chris Stubbs, ETS programmer. In fact, he even declares this Stubb’s First Law of the Social Web: No Invitation Required. He urges more participation in things like wikis, blogs, etc. on his outstanding blog, and even somehow manages to use a John Mayer quote (yeah, the musician, that one) to good effect. Go to the blog, and consider it an invitation, er, opportunity to participate by offering your thoughts on this subject (Cole Camplese, ETS director, offers sort of a companion piece to Mr. Stubbs’ thinking on his blog, as does Allan Gyorke, ETS manager of educational technology, on the Learning Design Community Hub).

Brett Bixler talks about the challenges of getting faculty and administrators to learn more about and accept gaming in education. Given so many people think of gaming as pong or Grand Theft Auto, this is a challenge. Read the suggestions Brett offers to overcome this challenge on the Educational Gaming Commons.

Yvonne Clark, ETS instructional designer, invites everyone to go to the Adobe Connect Community Hub and complete the analogy “Adobe Connect is to holding a meeting as Microsoft Word is to ________________.” Go to her post there and offer your ideas.

Elizabeth Pyatt, ETS instructional designer, recently posted on Information Sciences and Technology students from Penn State who are blogging about their summer internship using blogs set up via Blogs at Penn State. Sounds mundane, but they are doing it in Bangalore, India. Find links to their blogs here.

Elizabeth also offers a muse on Personal Learning Environments titled “Lifelong Learning or Lifelong Research”. What on earth is a “Personal Learning Environment?” Elizabeth explains that and more in an excellent blog post.

A quick reminder, ANGEL, Penn State’s Course Management System will be unavailable during the upgrade to version 7.2 from 6:00 p.m. (EDT) Friday, July 18 to 6:00 p.m. (EDT) Sunday, July 20.

BuzzLion will end with another note on participation. ETS is planning a Learning Design Summer Camp August 12 and 13 here at University Park and would like your input and planning help. Go to the Learning Design Summer Camp wiki to find out how you can participate in this great event.

That is all for BuzzLion for this week. Thanks for reading!

TLT CoffeeRead: Indiana University podcast innovators announced

Indiana University podcast innovators announced

Always interesting to see what others are doing, especially fellow CIC schools. Anything here sound interesting?

Follow ETS on Twitter

The Twitter LogoIf you are a user of the Twitter service, you can follow ETS by visiting our Twitter page and selecting “follow.” So why would you follow ETS on Twitter? Well, every time something gets updated here at the ETS Blog, Twitter announces it with a link — and if that isn’t enough we typically share Tweets about things getting set to happen like if there will be an ETS Talk Podcast produced on a given day, if we’re going to be somewhere doing something, or any number of other quick hitting announcements. Follow ETS by visiting our Twitter page.

TLT CoffeeRead: Professor: Web 2.0 an awkward fit for the academic world

Web 2.0 an awkward fit for the academic world

“YouTube may make a lousy place to hold a class, but that doesn’t mean that the YouTube experience isn’t shaping the expectations of students, especially those engaged in online learning. Those expectations are not being met by universities, where most online student support systems have a rigid, hierarchal structure modeled on the university itself. According to an essay by a professor at the Open University in the UK (OU-UK), this mismatch between expectations and reality create a challenge for the university system, one that it may be poorly equipped to meet.”

Well, this should be good for initiating some conversation. Very interesting read, and something we should probably think about.

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