another random reflection

This activity, the CLMC Learning 2.0, has been an interesting and rewarding experience. I'm excited that we have had this opportunity to experiment with the different technologies. It's also been fun to have coworkers lead the learning.

As we investigate and evaluate the tools, I hope we can maintain a critical eye. Although it's all cool, not all the technologies will be appropriate for each of us. As we talk about them, I look forward to robust discussions that include advantages as well as the disadvantages of the technologies without anyone feeling defensive. Maybe that's not a problem for us, but it could be easy to jump on the technology bandwagon.

reflection #1

I find it interesting that creating this blog puts me in a similar position to the students I teach. I often tell students learning to search new databases that it's important to look at the computer screen closely to figure out how to search the database. Often all the information is available, it just takes time to see where all the functions of the database reside on the screen. As I began creating this blog, I realized I became frustrated that I not only couldn't find, but I didn't know, what I needed to complete the process. I also was frustrated that I wasn't able to do it quickly. It took time to search the screen, figure out what the different links were and to get it to do what I wanted it to do. We do live in a world where we want computer applications to be intuitive, but it's not always so.