On Alec Couro’s “Social Media and Open Education”

This recording was way better than the one I observed before. It’s a bit longer than the other one, and I’m assuming they all will be, However, I must say that I found it quite enjoyable. Another thing that I found sweet was that a Google Doc was provided for us so that the listeners/speakers could use as guides. I’m a visual learner, and therefore found it fantastic. Again, I felt that the main drive for social networking is experimentation. After watching this video and learning that this instructor requires his students to have a blog, I’m wondering whether I should join a network. I truly feel like I have the skills necessary to do so. I specifically loved the way the speaker explains how he created a blog bundle for his class. He subscribes to every student’s blog by using Google reader, creates a folder and then creates a bundle that allows people to subscribe to a package of resources. This is what I’d like to do with my future students, I’d really like for my students to coexist the way we did in Educ 578 for Jeff Heil’s class. I was also surprised to hear the reader touch up on “What makes an engaging blog post,” particularly because my instructor used a pin on that very subject to teach me how to tweet through Pinterest. I was also very grateful to hear the speaker answer questions to people who ask questions, even though I can’t hear the questions, I learn so much by the speaker’s comments. It’s almost like a regular classroom, when a student is relieved that another student asked a question because they too needed clarification. He also mentioned that even though we may not be network professionals, that shouldn’t stop us from retweeting and redistributing information, even videos. A girl said something a little before the end of the recording that stood out to me, she mentioned something about the more of an EXPERIENCE we have with twitter the safer she felt, or better yet the more she trusted the tool. I found this especially interesting because I just participated on my first Ed chat yesterday and was very happy to see that I fell into the right hands of people who were extremely welcoming. It is because of that initial welcoming that I will most definitely participate in the next Ed Chat two weeks after winter break J I enjoyed this recording way better.