Technology woes

I have learned a great deal this week about the use oa technology and the impact it has on our everyday lives. Knowing that I would be in a technology restricted area I purchased an aircard to ensure that I would be able to have access to my classes. Coupled with the iPhone I thought I was set. Wrong! I was unable to participate in the discussions because I could not post any replies. Half of the time it took 20 minutes or longer go even open WebTycho.

My point in this rant, as it applies to distance education is that the majority of students who participate in online courses are working and in many cases traveling. In my case, I will be traveling 3 out if the next 4 weeks. When choosing course management systems and other technologies which enhance the instruction we must keep in mind accessibility issues and provide alternatives and/or modifications got our students.

In an age when technology has become such an everyday necessity, we need to remember to make sure that our learning Programs keep pace with the technology.

Until next time....

I found an interesting article that has paired two web 2.0 technologies...geotagging and wikis. The most interesting part of the article is how geotagging is being used in science and engineering disciplines to apply real-world applications to text learning. I work primarily with the College of Forest Resources and one of their concerns with distance education is how to accomplish field based labs. It seems that geotagging would be an excellent way to accomplish some of their exercises regardless of where the student or the teacher are located.

The combination of geotagging and wiki would allow for collaborative learning in which the student can play an active part in the learning process. According to Safran et. al. (2009), articles can be attached to the wiki which apply to the geotag for additional learning.

This process sounds very interesting. One of the classes for the fall was planning an online scavenger hunt to familiarize the distance students with our campus. I think that the combination of the geotagg and wiki would be an great option to achieve this objective.

Reference:
Safran, C., Ebner, M., Garcia-Barrios, V.M. & Kappe, F. (2009). Higher education m-learning and e-learning scenarios for a geospatial wiki. In T. Bastiaens et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2009 (pp. 3678-3685). Chesapeake, VA: AACE. Retrieved from http://www.editlib.org/p/33013.