Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

What are Your Favorite Online Educational Resources? / Day 14 Ruminations becomes the Readers’ Blog

The Challenge for today, Day 14, is to turn the Ruminations Blog over to my readers, so I am opening the blog up to readers and fellow educators for comments on the following question:

What are your favorite online educational resources?

What I am looking for are the resources that you routinely share with colleagues that help make their teaching easier, using computers easier or more cheaply, like on an adjunct professors budget.

My Favorite Online Educational Resources

I created my own list of Online Educational Resources that I’ve posted on the site as a permanent page.

I am created a permanent page of my favorite Web 2.0 resources (which will be embellished based on answers to this question).

With a bit of luck, I might be able to compile a very useful list of online resources for other online educators.

Continue reading What are Your Favorite Online Educational Resources? / Day 14 Ruminations becomes the Readers’ Blog…

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 / Day 13 Write a Post Using Comments

The challenge for today was to write a blog post using a comment that someone had left on the Ruminations blog.

Michele Martin left this comment on my Ruminations Blog Audit / Day 10: Audit Comments on Your Own Blog

I agree with Sue that it might be about not knowing that they can comment or how to comment. It may also be, as you point out, that they are coming primarily for one-way communication and information, which is fine. I think it becomes an issue if you WANT more comments and aren’t getting them–if you’re trying to create community through comments and it’s not happening. But some blogs aren’t about the comments, and that’s fine, too.

Michele’s comment helped me to think about the differences in the way that I have been used to creating webpages as a one-way communication method and how much this older style (Web 1.0) differs from the newer blogging and social networking style (Web 2.0).

Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

This comparison topic is one that emerged from several comments posted in the blog and my own search as a person very familiar with Web 1.0, to try and make sense of the new Web 2.0. Trying to figure out the differences between the two is something that I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

Web 2.0 Defined

The main definition for Web 2.0 comes from Tim O’Reilly (who coined the phrase)

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as the platform.

Comparison in Images

Although a bit busy, these two images from JW Schmidt help to distinguish the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 visually. Seeing these two images really helped put things into perspective for me.

Web 1.0

JW Schmidt. June 2007. Web 1.0 Elements. Wikiversity. GNU Free Documentation License.

Web 2.0

JW Schmidt. June 2007. Web 2.0 Elements. Wikiversity. GNU Free Documentation License.

O’Reilly’s Comparison

O’Reilly formulated their sense of Web 2.0 by creating a list of examples:

More Comparisons Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0

More comparisons between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 have been drawn by many other bloggers. These are just some of the examples that were given.

To help me think about the differences I grouped the comparisons into three categories: using the web, computers and the web and e-Commerce.

Using the Web

• Web 1.0 was about reading, Web 2.0 is about writing
• Web 1.0 was about HTML, Web 2.0 is about XML
• Web 1.0 was about home pages, Web 2.0 is about blogs
• Web 1.0 was about lectures, Web 2.0 is about conversation
• Web 1.0 was about web forms, Web 2.0 is about web applications
• Web 1.0 was about owning, Web 2.0 is about sharing
• Web 1.0 was about Netscape, Web 2.0 is about Google
• Web 1.0 was about portals, Web 2.0 is about RSS
• Web 1.0 was about taxonomy, Web 2.0 is about tags

Computers and the Web

• Web 1.0 was about wires, Web 2.0 is about wireless
• Web 1.0 was about dial-up, Web 2.0 is about broadband
• Web 1.0 was about hardware costs, Web 2.0 is about bandwidth costs

eCommerce = Services, Companies and the Web

• Web 1.0 was about services sold over the web, Web 2.0 is about web services
• Web 1.0 was about client-server, Web 2.0 is about peer to peer
• Web 1.0 was about advertising, Web 2.0 is about word of mouth
• Web 1.0 was about companies, Web 2.0 is about communities
• Web 1.0 was about IPOs, Web 2.0 is about trade sales

Sources Used:

O’Reilly T. September 30, 2005. What Is Web 2.0 Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.

Joe Drumgoole. May 29th, 2006. Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0. Copacetic.

Darren Barefoot. May 29th, 2006. Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0. Darren Barefoot.

Continue reading Web 1.0 vs. Web 2.0 / Day 13 Write a Post Using Comments…

Collaboration in Cyberspace / Day 6 - Engage another Commenter in Discussion

A blog posting by Betty Gilgoff on Betty’s Blog about Collaboration got me thinking about how things have changed since I was in a student in college and in medical school. These days there is much more of a push, especially in the online arena to have students collaborate on project particularly in cyberspace.

This image summarizes my prior conception on collaboration. I had a lot of difficulties in my online teaching training with the collaborative efforts. I found it way too easy for those who weren’t willing to work on group projects to ride along on the coattails of those who were and get a decent grade without doing much.

I shared my thoughts with Betty:

I haven’t incorporated many collaborative efforts into my teaching because I am still trying to find a way to have efforts equitably distributed or be able to account for each person’s contribution. I did end up developing a way of capturing everyone’s contribution on a group project using a form to create a composite group paper.

For this 2005 teaching course that I was taking, I used a form builder to capture information for all of the participants in my teaching group as a way of demonstrating who had contribute what and creating a way to collaborate in fairness.

If I were to do the project again today, I would use a wiki, which would do exactly the same thing. Unfortunately wikis were not as prominent or available in 2005 when I took the course.

Collaborative Efforts for Graduate Course

With my graduate course this past semester, I had the students all contribute resources to a wiki. I used PBwiki to create a collaborative group where each student would be able to contribute additional weekly resources and readings as a group effort.

With a wiki, it is very easy to see which student (or collaborator) has contributed what to the assignment or the project.

Continue reading Collaboration in Cyberspace / Day 6 - Engage another Commenter in Discussion…

Discovering Medical Ethical Challenges Lecture on .docstoc

I was a bit surprised to discover this old lecture of mine that I’d developed for the Supercourse on the “Ethical Challenges of the Medical and Healthcare Internet” had been uploaded to the new .docstoc web resource.

I went ahead, created my own account and uploaded my own copy of the lecture, in addition to the version that was developed for Medinfo 2001. (I’ll be writing more about .docstoc as an Education 2.0 resource later.)

There appears to be a bit of a bug affecting embedded images. Until it gets fixed you will need to access the Ethical Challenges of the Medical and Healthcare Internet lecture at the .docstoc site.

Supercourse: Ethical Challenges of the Medical and Healthcare Internet - More about .docstoc.

For More Information:

• My Squidoo Lens about Supercourse - Epidemiology, Internet and Global Health
• Supercourse Official Website
• .docstoc