A year ago a group of faculty and I created a major document addressing distance education with in a month without ever breathing the same air. It was proposed, thankfully, that we try to collaboratively create a document using the wiki embedded in the MiraCosta Portal. I had take a stab at some early thoughts and areas we might want to address, and Lisa Lane posted this in the wiki, then the real fun began. Several things about this particular project for me was the easy for identifying individual users and their unique thoughts, the chronological history we had of... Continue reading

Lisa Lane shared this site with me at the beginning of the semester when I had asked her something about keeping track of all this. I have Delicious account on my home computer, since I am a PC user at work (Boo) and we are locked up pretty tight. I do use it, but like any thing it is a matter of it becoming second nature. I still find myself resorting to normal web browser bookmarking. However, having participated in this cohort and trying to do more things with other faculty on campus and around the state, I think of... Continue reading

I took a look at VoiceThread, it seemed interesting but also appeared to be a bit pricey. I worked with Robert Kelley at the beginning of the semester with Jing, very straight forward but with limited amount of storage. After we played with Jing I decided to purchase Camtasia to have move features. After looking at the other sites suggested, some which seem a bit pricey, I decided to make a Camtasia snippet of a few slides. If it went right I am to copy and paste the following code: <object id="scPlayer" width="715" height="528" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://content.screencast.com/users/ricmat/folders/Camtasia/media/4efa5115-b61d-41a0-b3e2-d07f77f0baf3/mp4h264player.swf" > <param name="movie" value="http://content.screencast.com/users/ricmat/folders/Camtasia/media/4efa5115-b61d-41a0-b3e2-d07f77f0baf3/mp4h264player.swf"... Continue reading

Some how I was asleep at the wheel last week, I had created a Flckr account, explored the possibilies and forgot to enter my post for Pedagogy First! We are living in a time where there are many modalities to store and share photos. As a Mac user I find iPhoto and my me.com very useful for the simple family stuff. Flickr-type sites would allow me to have a class site independent/private plus the annotation. I still need to make the next step of being able to embed these into my teaching space, slow progress. Here is the Flickr link... Continue reading

Like Andrea I have used IGoogle for some time. However this assignment lead me to explore it further and to focus on items of relevance to online teaching. I thought the "skinny jeans" site did provide a nice RSS for Dummies entree. I also appreciate Richard's intro for database feeds. It was very easy to set up the RSS in iGoogle, and once I found the right search input it was very easy to add. Like many things on the web (or in a bookstore or library) it is easy to get distracted and sign=up for more than what I... Continue reading

I had some rudimentary knowledge of Flickr before the POT Cohort. The tour reminds me of an iPhoto-ish tool. Pretty simple to do the basics, however I was really impressed with what others have been able to do, like Lisa's roll over spots. the site allows easy uploads, labels and location tags. It is nice to share some photos that might have public appeal, but being an open site one needs to be careful of how much personal information might be gleaned. I thought the basic feel with organization was very like iPhoto or PhotoElements. I think the mobile application... Continue reading

Today I receives a feed from Campus Technology magazine and this article caught my eye due to our topic this week. http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2010/09/15/10-Rules-of-Teaching-in-this-Century.aspx?Page=1 This "magazine" is obviously very technology focused but several things jumped out at me. The author, Trent Batson, states "Two basic 21stcentury laws frame these rules: First, the knowledge developed during the course does not pre-exist the course. Second, since the knowledge of the course does not exist before the course (because you and the students develop the knowledge during the course), your chief challenge is to manage the process of knowledge discovery." He then goes on to... Continue reading

Blog about what you do effectively in class, including your favorite activities or lectures. I believe that students would say that I make the content interesting and relevant. I want the content to mean something to each of them. I attempt to deliver this content in a variety of ways using the tools at my disposal. If I am lecturing I like to use stories to help students anchor of the facts to something more concrete in their lives. Since I haven't really started to video myself lecturing for online I am meeting to adapt. Since I am returning to... Continue reading

I would like to introduce myself to the group sharing somethings you may not know. I currently sit in the seat of the Dean of Math and Sciences, Dean of Faculty Evaluations and Dean of Online Education at MiraCosta. I have Masters degrees in Biology and Instructional Technology, I have taught biology and health related subjects for 20 years full time before joining MiraCosta. Before coming to MiraCosta I spent the last five years as a faculty technology evangelist for San Diego Community College where I taught other faculty many of the things that are happening within the Program for... Continue reading