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Jennifer's email to us was a catalyst for this post to inquire about your digital prescence experience. I, like Jennifer, have aliases that I use on social networks. It is a challenge, though, to manage multiple presences and even when I do, often have a feeling of unease about the information. For example, in this course a suggestion was for us to update our profile. Although I don't feel secrative that I am taking a course at Bellevue College, the email/signature I use for this course is also the one I use for some other professional endeavors (such a technology consulting). I is not something that is a "need to know" by everyone. I chose, in this situation, not to update my general profile. When we are conscious of what/how we are posting and putting up, is one thing. Often though, I get on a mailing list, that I have no idea how I was included, as I probably forgot to check a "do not include me" box on something I have bought on line. This article was particularly interesting to me, as it talks about a survey that 23% of children get a digital presence even before they are born - having a lasting imprint.

Good article to bring things into perspective about 'online presence.' I found a similar article that compared statistics relating to age and online presence. 92% of children by age 2 have online presence thanks to parents and grandparents. As Jennifer mentioned in her discussion of facebook -- maybe we don't want the world to see what we did in our high school days...we were 15/16. Can we separate a personal online presence from a business profile...

I do separate my profiles by having different email aliases. There is overhead in having multiple ones, however, so not ideal.

I just wanted to get this link up before we moved too far away from our Module 3 "presence" section. I'll be updating this very soon.

Whitney's got a nice site. That's just a wordpress theme. You could easily set up a site like that. I use wordpress on all my self-hosted sites. http://injenuity.com/ http://www.jentropy.com/ http://www.snohostories.com/ It's very easy to set up and maintain, and there are a ton of free themes.

I agree with Jennifer that Whitney does have an impressive site and I appreciate her input (link) about how to create one. I need to get on that myself in my "spare time" as my online presence or portfolio is pretty much limited to a very primitive blog. This is all new stuff for me, yet very exciting as I move forward with what I hope will become a new career.

A few thoughts to ponder.

Interesting article about maintaining your online presence.

I think the "game" mentality that seems to exist in all of us, is definitely true for computer scientists. You often hear stories about how secure computers are "hacked" by someone wanting to see if they can do it. I suspect these people have found their way into corporate businesses and can now "play" and see how much they can get, so the stories in this article can be true. It is true our information stays there forever now. I guess we're now all immortal.

I started this over the summer while taking the first course for this certificate. Please feel free to follow my postings on blogger as we continue in this course.

My end of class reflection is located on my blog.

Thought I had posted this...to keep my blog in order, I post dated this to 2/28/11.

animoto.com is a tool that allows one to take pictures and create a slide show, adding text and music. It is a free tool, however, for a modest amount you can have additional features that allow you to do professional editting. I chose this activity as a way to connect with everyone and can really match faces with names. If you do see any mistakes, please let me know and I can easily update the slide show. I feel it goes to the discussion about creating community and having a presence that is more dimensional than just our names in a list. One could request and easily add other photos or snips.

Ann: I agree with Joy...cool tool. What a nice way to introduce the class.

My thought exactly Ann!

In today's Seattle Times, A3 section - interesting article which followed over 2,000 US students from 2005 to 2009. 45% made no significant improvements in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during first 2 years of study. After completing 4 years, 36 % showed no significant gains in "higher order" thinking skills. Article also states some contributing factors, many students work part-time, however, most students only spent 1/5 time on their studies and 51% on socializing & extra-curricular. I have a strong hunch the internet is a big contributor to the socializing factor. When I read such statistics, it makes me ponder if on-line learning can truly change this social/educational trend. I am enjoying many readings on the diigo, both from Jennifer and others, however, I'm not sure I would design an on-line class which designated a considerable amt. of time to short readings and discussions. Your thoughts on this?

I too found the article interesting - thanks! I do wonder about the types of classes students completed especially in their first two years. The might be a marked difference in skills acquisition if students were completing many required large class survey classes to meet initial requirements vs. small, more focused classes in their areas of interest.

I am still trying to get the picture of "slogging" through studies! Is that what I am doing when reading all this material in Diigo? I don't think so.

"This video was produced as a contribution to the EDUCAUSE book, The Tower and the Cloud: Higher Education in the Age of Cloud Computing, edited by Richard Katz and available as an e-Book at http://www.educause.edu/thetowerandth... or commercially at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0967... Produced in 2007 as a conversation starter in small groups. Released in 2011 as a conversation starter online."

Jennifer, Just to let you know... the two links in your first post in this thread to the Tower and the Cloud book are broken. I can find the Amazon link but not the Educause..

I cut and pasted that from the description under the video on Youtube. Have you tried clicking them on the video page to see if they work? I know some educause stuff requires membership.

This was in today's LA Times, indicating how a person's disability benefits were promptly stopped after the insurer saw posts on Facebook. The unintended consquences of information further our discussions regarding privacy.

Or possibly this page: http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/adults/cyber-bullying.aspx

The concept of personal privacy and what to post or not post is such a difficult one for parents and students now. We archive for two years now to comply with the laws and to be able to meet possible public records requests. It is hard for adults to keep in mind sometimes that even an e-mail can be forwarded on to anyone in the world. A different planet from even 10 years ago.

I just wanted to add something light to the mix here. This is one of my favorite youtube videos :)

I happened to be doing laundry and had a fitted sheet that needed to be folded. I used the information in the video and was able to more successfully fold the sheet. (I did a variation, however, after collecting the corners I folded the sheet holding it.) It is true that one needs to practice is to master it and having a "teacher" with me, might have made it more helpful. In addition to learning a new skill , the desire to post about my experience became a reflection of my digital presence. Having the information that I did laundry today is not something I consider secrative, but it is not something I would normally share with large numbers of people or people that I don't know. (A friend might call during the task, for example, and I might indicate why I was busy, but I wouldn't call to tell her that I did laundry.) On the internet, though, I can reach out without touching someone. By posting, I feel it is "about me". When Betty White hosted Saturday Night Live she made comparisons to Facebook. One joke was in her day having to see pictures from someone's vacation was usually considered torture. Perhaps, the vicariousness we can have when looking at someone's life unobserved makes it more exciting.

What's funny is that I discovered that link originally when it was posted by Alan Levine (@cogdog) on Twitter. It's just one of those little personal things shared, that made things seem more friendly. But it's also something useful that other people have passed on.

ePortfolio tool that works with Google (For Personal, K-12 and Higher Ed.)

"It's often said that services like Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter - you name it - are not the product, you are. Each and every bit of information you share and action you take is used to create a profile of user behavior, which is used then to either advertise directly to you or to people on a whole. But how can we ride the fine line? How can we have great, world-changing services at a price (read: free) everyone can afford without completely selling out the end user?"

I think it's going to have to be redefined. But I also think we're in the process of defining new commodities. We need to decide what we value.

I think this issue of privacy and use of personal information by online service companies is a very big deal. I'm also beginning to make use of some of these cloud-based applications (especially from Google) as part of my standard approach to teaching hybrid classes. Up until this past year, I've relied on the tried and true Vista/Blackboard to manage student projects and interactions, but I've found it to be sort of a dinosaur compared to the speed and ease of use of other Web2.0 apps. But if I'm working outside of Vista/Blackboard, I need to be especially careful of privacy policies and procedures of the companies behind these online apps. In the 'Sharing and Privacy' article, Mike Melanson makes some interesting points. He says: "...the companies themselves - the Googles and Facebooks and Twitters of the world - realize that correctly handling these issues of privacy are center to their continued success." and... ""All things equal, the company that's going to want to win in the next couple years will have the best privacy model." When I was doing my own investigation into this issue last winter, I asked myself, "What are the most conservative and and security conscious organizations using for social networking tools?" So I went up to the US Army website to find out. Certainly they have a heightened need to be careful what companies they choose for their social networking tools. I posted the results of this online research on my Web2.0 Chronicle blog. The results aren't surprising... Google, Facebook, Twiter, Wordpress, Flickr... among others. I see no need to rush into this area, and am willing to wait until the dust settles and user results come back from dependable sources. Jennifer's recommendation of Diigo is a good example of this. For myself, I've already left a significant "digital footprint" over the past 15 years - which is now out

This week the focus is on assessment and evidence of understanding. The emphasis is, of course, on how we assess our students. However, eteachers can be more easily observed, so I thought the community might find it interesting as to how I, as an eteacher, am assessed. (The students do an automated self-paced lesson and then take a practice quiz. If they have questions during the lesson or in order to go the next one, we interact. Based on the quiz and other questions/discussions we have, I pass them to the next lesson. I have up to 4 students in one session.) Once a month, my supervisor listens to one of the recorded sessions and writes up an assessment. What I find interesting that is unique to elearning, is that my use of the technology environment goes into my assessment. I need to be logged in on time, I need to effectively switch among my students, etc. Also, if an area is weak, a request by my supervisor to re-take an automated class I have taken before - such as effective questioning - might be assigned.

The online environment provides for easy capture of the session. The requirement for teaching include having a degree and a background check, but not a teaching certificate. I feel the monitoring is an extra check and balance on both how we are teaching and our online presence. We go through training and have guidelines on what we can and cannot discuss with the students - such as sharing emails, contacts outside of class, etc. Recently this has come into focus, as the regular school teachers at the school I am tutoring with (we are a scheduled once a week class during the school year) encouraged the students to ask where we live, etc., to feel more connected. On our teacher platform, the teachers and our supervisor were able to post and share with each other on how they were and should be handling this. It is a balance - just as in a regular classroom - to be connected, yet have privacy. I do not find what information I should and should share or ask to be a problem for me, but the time focus is. The students are used to texting all the time and feel comofrtable with using the time that way. I have now developed my own transitions - from the explicit: "we've chatted enough for right now, please go on with your lesson" to a softer transition by using the information in our dialog to set-up a problem: You got so much snow! So if you had eight snowballs and split them evenly....".

This is fascinating! I've honestly never seen an instrument for a supervisor to evaluate an online teaching session. (Or maybe I just don't remember.) For distance education at BC, instructors/divisions can opt in to the online student evaluations. I don't know if Norma signed up to have this course included in the evals. If so, you may have received access to that today. As far as I know, that's the primary way teachers are evaluated here. It compares to how they are evaluated in f2f classes. For me, I like to get constant feedback from students, and that's why you see me poking around a lot, sending lots of email, and including self-checks. It's always an awful feeling to get to the end of a course and discover you could have made changes early on that would have made a big difference in learning. (But I always expect to discover some of that at the end, as well!) Thanks for sharing this!

I thought I'd try something a little bit different for Module 5, and do a CMS review of a current online course that I've been working on, called Visual Storytelling. It's a review of a Blackboard/Vista-based online class, but I'm also blending a couple of presentation technologies together to create this - SlideRocket and Camtasia. If you take a look at it, you'll want to make sure your audio is turned on - otherwise, it won't make much sense... It runs just under 10 minutes. This was a useful exercise for me, because I became aware of numerous changes I'd like to make for the next iteration of this class. These presentation tools are now very powerful and easier to use than in the past. SlideRocket has only been around for about 2 years, and it keeps getting better! You can also access this presentation by way of my Web2.0 Chronicle blog.

Thanks Bruce for showing how you use Blackboard for one of your courses. I do agree that some of the mature LMS need to make it easier to use Web 2.0 tools. Jennifer's comments about being able to use these tools is so appropriate. All of these wonderful tools are available, the problem is learning when and how to use them in our online teaching.

Thanks everyone for your feedback and comments! Mary Ann, I did see your photos from the Galapagos, and it seems like they will make great material for an online class presentation especially with your underlying message - the importance of biodiversity to our long term survival. I'm really glad you're teaching this material... I wish we were more aware of these dire issues 50 years ago! The Visual Storytelling class will be offered again in Fall 2011. Susan... One useful application of online lectures/presentations is that they can free up classroom time for more exploratory dialog and hands-on activities, as appropriate. Students also like them, because they can stop and review material at their own pace. Jennifer - I'll be happy to give an overview some presentation media I use during your office hour on Thursday. This would be a good experience for me, since I've never taught a session using Elluminate. If you could give me some quick tips beforehand, that would be welcome. I can't do it this week, but Feb 24th or following Thursdays look open.

Authentic learning is a solid pedagogy approach, no matter the environment. However, two concepts of authentic learning that I feel can be particularly expanded on with the internet and etools are "hooks" and "experts". "Hooks" is what picques and keeps the student's interest and motivation in the activity. With the use of video, games, tools, etc., there are many more ways to do this. "Experts" is being able to bring in subject resources, which on the internet, makes accessibility easy. For my course framework activity, therefore, I expanded on the colon treatment options module. For a hook, I searched YouTube for "colon cancer comedy" videos. There were quite a few actually. I added as a introduction to the module one of these videos - two singing colon surgeons - on colon surgery. For experts, I added references to the National Institute of Health and American Cancer Society on treatment options and survival statistics. I also am having the students connect directly to true cancer experts - patients, caregivers, and survivors. This puts a "face" on the disease, as well as an experience to what it means to have colon cancer. The course framework activity: (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HZKsjzymKk1Bn2gXDt1LOp5gqEsUvOqXE4m-72b8WYw/edit?hl=en#) In my online work experience as a math tutor, hooks are particularly important, as these students would not be in the program if they weren't already performing at a lower math level. Math is not a subject they enjoy. The automated lessons they take, often have "game" quizzes they take and can get immediate feedback on their answers. As an instructor, I try to utilize their life experiences. For example, I might ask them how old they are and then tell them how old I am. I then use these facts to construct subtraction and/or division questions.

A few days ago, I went to an excellent workshop sponsored by the Center for Career Connections at Bellevue College about using LinkedIn. This Web 2.0 networking application has now become the most important online tool for presenting your professional profile and work experience to the public. One of the speakers, Web tools guru Miles Austin, said that if you don't have a developed presence online, you don't exist as far as potential employers are concerned. According to a recent survey, 78% of all job recruiters use LinkedIn as their primary application for finding new employees. The link above provides some useful background information about LinkedIn, based on the workshop. It also reinforced in my mind the importance of developing strong network contacts and carefully building an online persona. If you have an account on LinkedIn or create a new one - please add me to your network!

This was interesting, as I personally thought it was too inclusive - anyone can post and your network was too broad to be meaningful. But obviously this type of "advetisement" does make a difference in employment.

LinkedIn is very different from other social networks. I'm extremely careful about my connections there. I only connect with people I know in person, people I've collaborated with online for a while, or people who already have a good reputation. I don't even connect with all my family members there, only the ones with careers related to mine.