1. http://tradoclive.dodlive.mil/
It is basically the thoughts of TRADOC senior leadership and experts. IT has various authors throughout the organization. It is intended for anyone who wants to keep up with where TRADOC is headed. Since I will be working for TRADOC once I graduate in August this is a great blog to follow to keep up with senior leadership and their vision within my organization. TRADOC is spread out over the country so this is one place I can come to hear from people at various locations. I have learned from this exercise that this blog even existed, I had no idea before I started this. It looks like this blog was started in May of 2009 so it will be interesting to see if the blog builds steam.
2. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/pam/it/
This blog shows tips and trends that are happening in instructional technology. The blog is written by Pam Gades, Instructional Technology Specialist at the University of Minnesota. The blog contains a large collection of resources relating to instructional technology. I can keep up with current trends in the field with this blog. I learned that digital textbooks are starting to gain a more prominent position in the textbook marketplace. Digital books are about half the price of regular books so this will make a big impact on students and their budgets. I was unaware there were even digital textbooks available. I knew other forms of books were digital but not textbooks. There is much to be learned from blogging but you must also be careful and not believe everything you read without doing some investigation.
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Luke,
ReplyDeleteTRADOC live is great...I'm glad you included it on your blog.
Sometime in the future I wouln't be suprised to see one of our Fellows contributing to this blog (I'm kinda hoping that day will come soon).
Before this blog assignment, I had no idea TRADOC has this option available to us. This also challenges me to use the blog format with any courseware that I might be developing in the future. I can see how many useful purposes it can serve. -LS
Luke, I went to the site managed by Pam Glade. I liked it and have bookmarked it for myself.
ReplyDeleteOn the site I found a link to an interesting article: “A Professor’s Plea: Try teaching naked. “ (By the way, naked has nothing to do with the absence of clothing, but rather the absence of computers.) Because I couldn’t get to the actual articles, I googled the article title and came up with this video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid24890554001?bctid=29848463001 If you are interested, you might check it out.
It had some really, really good points. Yes, it is a little radical for educators today, but still there is certainly a message to be heard. In essence, the speaker in the video wants to eradicate PowerPoints from classroom lectures. (This reminds me of the term “death by PowerPoint.”) Instead he is promoting podcasts of the boring stuff that students have to listen to before they come to class. “Give them a quiz over the lecture every day,” he says. Then spend the class time doing projects, having discussions… As I write this, I am thinking this is awesome stuff. In fact, the author says that with the availability of podcasts and online resources, students can find much better lectures to listen to than most instructors within the college. Heck, they can pay less money and have better quality by tapping in to lecturers from Harvard and Yale. Anyway, I am not sure how this can be accomplished, but I sure like the ideas. Class time can be spent reflecting, writing, discussing, performing… doing things students will remember and things they can relate to.