Spark's show today (CBC Radio) was a perfect fit to the IT Summit 2010 conference I've just attended. SmartPhones in the classroom was particularly good. Check it out.
In a nutshell, we really need to teach WHY you would use tech to enhance learning. We are really doing a poor job of it (but that's not YOUR fault). It really requires a mind shift. I embraced Web 1.0 (read only web) by publishing Formosa Betrayed on the web, but I've largely neglected the power of Web 2.0 (read/write web). I've used it with Scholaris (virtual classrooms) and Wikispaces, but I've really not taken advantage of the social aspects of this technology.
I've started this blog and I'll be using Twitter more because I've had no luck getting people to respond to my posts in my AFL Portal, Teaching With the Physics Suite SPS Book Club, and Probeware Portal. I'm trying to hyperlink those portals right now, but SPSLearn isn't responding (that's another reason I've decided to go outside the firewall). Links now in (remember, have to have SPS account to access Scholaris links). So, I'll try to find my community from around the world (that's something anyone can do now with Twitter and blogs).
This reminds me of when I was in graduate school and I got the most help from Colin Zelt (then, a post-doc at GSC in Ottawa). I met him at the CGU conference in Banff and told him about my situation. Colin told me he would post his wide-angle seismic plotting program on the GSC ftp site for me to pickup and modify (that was back in 1992). I had a small network of other geophysicists helping me at that time (Jerry Mitrovica at U of Toronto, Mike Burianyk at U of Alberta, Julian Cabrera UBC and Chuck Ammon at UCSC).
You are so right about the why part, Leslie. I think Twitter is a good choice in terms of connecting with those think about sharing what we are learning. I can recommend a couple of people to follow who I think are doing some really interesting thinking, if you like.
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