Web 2.0

Right before April vacation, I went to a fantastic conference - A Celebration of Teaching and Learning, sponsored by PBS, among others. The focus of the conference was technology and global awareness. One of the speakers was Alan November. It was from his speech that I learned about rss feeds and aggregates, blogging, podcasting, vodcasting, delicious, and social networking.

So here I am, just two months later, feeling exhilarated and overwhelmed all at the same time. We, Christine Southard and I, started a blog site (thank you, David Warlick), did podcasting with our students and ourselves, and joined Classroom 2.0. My rss feeds bring me all the news that I want, I'm still working out Second Life (I just simply don't get why I have to learn to play a game before I can meet and converse with anyone), and have been learning about Wikispaces.

My biggest problem is finding assistance. I am frustrated trying out new sites. Some are easy...class blogmeister was a gem...some are a bit more difficult...wikispaces is doable but took some time...and some are downright impossible for me ...once again Second Life and now TappedIn. I know people use these sites, love these sites, swear by these sites, but where are they? Can't they teach classes in RL so that I don't have to spend so much time learning how to find help? I missed almost the entire SL conference this weekend, and just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to sign up for a course in TappedIn. I need real people!