It seems like the last few days have been spent teaching at my computer. It started with a graduate course at Appalacian State University, with students sitting in their homes and libraries throughout western North Carolina, Mexico, and Australia. It was in a virtual worlds type environment with everyone dressed out in their avatars. I started to appear as a big red bird, but decided, instead, to take on the only av wearing a tie. He did have some spiffy dance steps.
The only complaint I have is with the female av, standing right in front of me, who was programmed to keep looking at her watch. Sheesh!
Yesterday afternoon, I participated in the first Google Teacher Academy, held at Google central, somewhere in the techie depths of California. We used Meratech as the interface, so we had both audio and video. It was good to finally meet Kyle Baumbaugh (nearly) face-to-face. Mike Lawerence kept picking up the camera and moving it around, which was a little disorienting. Is there any such thing as virtual wiplash? It was a great session of four volunteers sharing their insights about the learning that had happened during the day, and me taking a few minutes at the end and sharing my reactions, which was a lot of the same old, “it’s about information not about technology!”
I have to say that I would probably be just as happy using a basic Skype or iChat interface as these course systems. I know that for managing a course, they are very useful, but for a guest speaker, simple is good. No complaints, just an observation. (I also know that things like Skype and iChat make system administrators nervous.)
Image Citation
Terry, Dean. “Blake Wake Attempts to Pray.” Dean Terryès Photostream. 28 May 2006. 8 Nov 2006 <http://flickr.com/photos/therefore/154912666/>.
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