I'm really interested in this Google Drive thing. I'm working on my PhD, and I've got all my precious documents in an 8GB USB that is the bane of my existence. I back it up to my computer regularly, but not nearly enough (maybe once a month or so), and I live in fear that I will lose it and several days' work along with it. At least once every couple of weeks I have one of those 'oh sh*t' moments where I look in the pocket of whatever bag I'm carrying and the USB isn't where I think it ought to be. Then I breathe into a paper bag and look more slowly, and there it is, laughing cruelly at my pain. (My passport does this too, btw.)
Of course that fear is not enough to make me back things up more regularly. You know, all those bad habits I castigate the students who come see me for are alive and well in me! Oh well. Do as I say...:)
Anywho. I've wondered if Google Drive could be the answer to my problems (not enough to actually try it, but there you go). The only thing is that I've got several SPSS files, and they aren't exactly the standard word processing document or spreadsheet. So I uploaded one of my datasets. It's got a funny looking kind of icon which made me think it might not work, but when I downloaded the file from my Drive and clicked on it, SPSS kicked right in. So as long as I'm working on a computer with the program I need loaded onto it, I'm surmising that I can open the files saved on Google Drive. Huzzah!
I've gotten used to working from the USB, so changing that groove might be challenging. And I'm also worried about having 16 jillion versions of the same document floating around in different folders. I'll have to think that through. But this Thing has been a very useful for me. Thanks Kate! (Again - can anyone tell me how to tag?)
Thursday, 29 November 2012
Happy Friday!
And now I will practice uploading images and sharing Christmas joy at the same time.
Here's what met my delighted eyes when I got on the bus yesterday:
Here's what met my delighted eyes when I got on the bus yesterday:
Christmas Bus!!!
Budding artists brighten a commute
The boy across from me said, "There's mine!"
I'm pleased to report that uploading images was pretty easy. I emailed the images from my phone to myself, saved them to my desktop, then uploaded them into the blog. I'm sure there's a more straightforward way to do this. Oh, Penny! Do you know that works? (And now I wish I knew how to tag...)
Thing 5
Well, I'm already behind on my blog posts... best laid plans and all that. Kate's email about Thing 6 has spurred a burst of industry, and blog posts will abound today.
I found the article Kate recommended, 'Whither the Wikis', really interesting. I've been inundated with wiki-ness for the past couple of years as my husband Mark, an academic at UNSW, moved his embryology website to a wiki format. His is an example of a discipline-specific wiki that seems to work well. Mark's based his teaching and assessment on his wiki. He uses the wiki content to replace ppt presentations during lectures, and all of the content is publicly available to students during their studies and after they graduate. Also, in one of his units, he's gotten rid of the traditional essay and created a wiki assessment task, where students have to work in groups to create an information resource. You can look at the results here.
One thing I've found especially interesting about this process is how using a wiki as an assessment task responds to some of the issues that arise during groupwork. Because of the analytics behind a wiki, the lecturer can track the contributions students are making through their logins and updates. When students express dissatisfaction with the amount of work one of their classmates is doing, Mark can pull up a report summarising all of that students' contributions. And at key points in the process (as this is a semester-long project), he can generate a report of the contributions made by each group member that display as a pie chart. He's careful to communicate that quantity isn't always a good judge of quality in terms of posts and updates, but it can be useful as a flag for possible difficulties within a group. If he's receiving reports from a group about a student, and the report seems to bear out their perceptions, he can schedule a conference with the student and they can talk about what the problem is, before the due date. The students evaluate and provide feedback on the work of other groups as part of the task, which gives them an understanding of how he'll be marking their work at the end of the semester.
It's not a perfect task, of course. Some students comment that the time they spend mastering the technology and making sense of copyright issues (which is important, since this is a publicly available site) could be more profitably spent mastering content. And, of course, there are always difficulties with groupwork, even when the technology does help manage that somewhat. But overall, I think it's a fascinating experiment...
You can thank me later for the advertisement, Mark.:)
I found the article Kate recommended, 'Whither the Wikis', really interesting. I've been inundated with wiki-ness for the past couple of years as my husband Mark, an academic at UNSW, moved his embryology website to a wiki format. His is an example of a discipline-specific wiki that seems to work well. Mark's based his teaching and assessment on his wiki. He uses the wiki content to replace ppt presentations during lectures, and all of the content is publicly available to students during their studies and after they graduate. Also, in one of his units, he's gotten rid of the traditional essay and created a wiki assessment task, where students have to work in groups to create an information resource. You can look at the results here.
One thing I've found especially interesting about this process is how using a wiki as an assessment task responds to some of the issues that arise during groupwork. Because of the analytics behind a wiki, the lecturer can track the contributions students are making through their logins and updates. When students express dissatisfaction with the amount of work one of their classmates is doing, Mark can pull up a report summarising all of that students' contributions. And at key points in the process (as this is a semester-long project), he can generate a report of the contributions made by each group member that display as a pie chart. He's careful to communicate that quantity isn't always a good judge of quality in terms of posts and updates, but it can be useful as a flag for possible difficulties within a group. If he's receiving reports from a group about a student, and the report seems to bear out their perceptions, he can schedule a conference with the student and they can talk about what the problem is, before the due date. The students evaluate and provide feedback on the work of other groups as part of the task, which gives them an understanding of how he'll be marking their work at the end of the semester.
It's not a perfect task, of course. Some students comment that the time they spend mastering the technology and making sense of copyright issues (which is important, since this is a publicly available site) could be more profitably spent mastering content. And, of course, there are always difficulties with groupwork, even when the technology does help manage that somewhat. But overall, I think it's a fascinating experiment...
You can thank me later for the advertisement, Mark.:)
Thursday, 15 November 2012
Thing 4
Next! Blog is registered, all is well.
Two of my colleagues in the Academic Skills Unit are doing this program as well, and we're all setting up our blogs at the same time. There's been some swearing, I'm not ashamed to say.
I picked Blogger over WordPress because I did a bit of reading on the web and most people seem to think that Blogger is easier to use. Dear Lord. I clearly made the right choice because I would probably would have thrown my computer out the window if I'd tried anything more complicated than this one!:) I have a low threshold for frustration, I'm discovering.
BUT - now that I've discovered the little 'View blog' button at the top of the page, I'm feeling better. My technology philosophy has always been to click buttons until something close to what I'm hoping for happens. It's worked pretty well so far...
I do regularly follow a few blogs. I wish I was about to dazzle you with how deep and intellectual my online reading is, but I fear that will not be the case.
Two of my colleagues in the Academic Skills Unit are doing this program as well, and we're all setting up our blogs at the same time. There's been some swearing, I'm not ashamed to say.
I picked Blogger over WordPress because I did a bit of reading on the web and most people seem to think that Blogger is easier to use. Dear Lord. I clearly made the right choice because I would probably would have thrown my computer out the window if I'd tried anything more complicated than this one!:) I have a low threshold for frustration, I'm discovering.
BUT - now that I've discovered the little 'View blog' button at the top of the page, I'm feeling better. My technology philosophy has always been to click buttons until something close to what I'm hoping for happens. It's worked pretty well so far...
I do regularly follow a few blogs. I wish I was about to dazzle you with how deep and intellectual my online reading is, but I fear that will not be the case.
- Not Quite Nigella is one I read regularly, because I like to try new restaurants in Sydney.
- APA Style Blog is one my coworker Laurent put me onto. It helps me look like I know more than I do about APA referencing.
- Vulture is New York Magazine's entertainment and popular culture blog. Their TV show recaps make me laugh like a lunatic.
- 13.7 is a National Public Radio (from the US) blog that looks at science and technology. Really interesting stuff.
- The Conversation is a political blog on the NYTimes website. It's a conversation between two columnists whose opinions I really value. Gail Collins represents the left, and David Brooks the right, although they're both quite centrist. It helps me keep up with what's going on at home.
And now I've learned how to change the font on my blog, add bullets, and embed hyperlinks. Huzzah!
Thing 2
Ok - here's my inaugural blog post. I'm feeling very modern, with my blog and all. I've got some questions I'm supposed to answer:
How am I going to make time for the program?
I'm going to play a little less Minesweeper! I kid.:)
Seriously, if I don't do something right away, it's likely to get lost in the detritus of the day. So far, when I've received Kate's email, I've tried my best to get on it that day, lest I forget. I'm aiming on keeping that up.
What strategies am I going to use?
Hm. Does not letting myself procrastinate count as a strategy? Because that's really the only one I've got on my plate so far...
My goals for the 23Things program
I'm trying to drag myself into the world of online learning. I work as an Academic Skills Adviser, supporting students in their academic work, and I realise that the world is very different from when I did my first university degree(s!). I've tended to teach from my own experience, as I'm sure many of us do, and my personal experience doesn't really include using technology for learning. The more familiar I become with the tools, the better able I'll be to identify with the learning environment many of my students are operating in. That's the plan, anyway.
Over and out!
How am I going to make time for the program?
I'm going to play a little less Minesweeper! I kid.:)
Seriously, if I don't do something right away, it's likely to get lost in the detritus of the day. So far, when I've received Kate's email, I've tried my best to get on it that day, lest I forget. I'm aiming on keeping that up.
What strategies am I going to use?
Hm. Does not letting myself procrastinate count as a strategy? Because that's really the only one I've got on my plate so far...
My goals for the 23Things program
I'm trying to drag myself into the world of online learning. I work as an Academic Skills Adviser, supporting students in their academic work, and I realise that the world is very different from when I did my first university degree(s!). I've tended to teach from my own experience, as I'm sure many of us do, and my personal experience doesn't really include using technology for learning. The more familiar I become with the tools, the better able I'll be to identify with the learning environment many of my students are operating in. That's the plan, anyway.
Over and out!
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