EIPT BLOG WEEK OF MARCH 20-25

Spring break last week was a very welcome sight.  Even though I still studied, the stress was not as bad.  Working on The Case Study was interesting.  I chose Facebook and Nurse.com.  It is amazing to me that such a young man has expanded technology as much as he has with his social network.  I found out there are over 600 million active users on Facebook (Facebook, 2010).  The virtual learning community I chose was Nurse.com.  I chose this sight because 1) I am a nurse and 2) I wanted to find a site that had nursing education.  I did a lot of searching and this website appealed to me the most. At first I found it difficult to figure out where to start searching through the sight.  Then once I got started I enjoyed browsing and posting in the introduction forum.  I plan on continuing to use the sight even if I am just a lurker for awhile. 

Our on-line synchronous meeting was quite interesting.  I think the project is going to be interesting but everyone became overwhelmed during the discussion.  Personally I had decided that getting an “A” was not as important as just getting through the class.  Now, that at least this next weeks’ assignments are not quite as intense I feel a little better.  Thank you Dr. Ge!  

I really do look forward to working together with Janine on the project.  She and I work well together and I really feel the project will be beneficial to where we adjunct. 

Facebook (2010). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/facebook.

EIPT BLOG WEEK OF MARCH 7-12.

I found this week’s assignment to be quite interesting.  Bonk’s book The World is Open is easy to read and the author incorporates personal experience into the book.  Our discussion forum this week (in a chat room) discussed the three trends for the concept of WE-ALL-LEARN.  The chat room itself was a little frustrating but the conversation was enlightening.  The moderator did a good job of asking questions and keeping us on track. The three trends we discussed were pipes, pages and, participatory learning culture (Bonk, 2009).  In our discussion we talked about each of these trends individually. 

The pipes are the internet access availability and the portability of this access.  I-phones, I-pads and laptops make this a very portable, easily accessible access to an infinite amount of learning.

The pages are the content or resources available to us to access.  All the virtual learning communities that we can choose to actively participate in or become a lurker that learns from the periphery. 

The participatory learning culture is basically you can I.  We are the culture that keeps this going.  We access it, we expect it to help us and, we collaborate with others to improve it so we can share knowledge and information (Bonk, 2009).

The concept these three trends represent are WE-ALL-LEARN (Bonk, 2009).  WE-ALL-LEARN is an acronym that represents “ten learning technology trends across the planet that are opening access to both formal and informal education” (Bonk 2009).  The ten openers are as follows:

“1. Web searching in e-books

  2. E-learning

  3. Availability of open source and free software

  4. Leveraged resources and open course ware

  5. Learning object repositories and portals

  6. Electronic collaboration and interaction

  7. Alternative reality learning

  8. Real-time mobility and portability

  9. Networks of personalized learning” (Bonk 2009).

This concept represents a learning culture that is rapidly changing and opens up education to everyone all over the world.  I think it is exciting to be a part of a culture that has the capability to get on-line, access a virtual learning community and, exchange information with someone on the other side of the world. 

Bonk, C. J. (2009). We all learn. The world is open: how web technology is revolutionizing education  (pp.25-54). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass