I went into last week’s session curious about how the technology would actually function (or not). I’m typically skeptical about the wide-ranging claims made for educational technology, and expected that there would be difficulties and breakdowns during the session. I also was interested to see how Adobe Connect works, as it was a new resource to me.
My expectations about the technology were fulfilled! But I was also quite happy to experience the sense of play that accompanied the difficulties with the technology. That is, I never felt like there was a very uptight expectation that everything was going to work perfectly, and a refreshing willingness to laugh and be patient when things didn’t work as planned.When Adobe Connect worked, I thought it worked well and was useful. Always Have a Plan B: that was another valuable lesson from last week’s session.
About the content, as you saw from the last few minutes of Anja’s presentation I have a delicious account and was familiar with its basic features. There’s lots more to do with it, however, and the presentation prodded me to do further work with both delicious and Twine.
I was intrigued to hear of the possibilities for the development of the Faculty’s hardware resources for pedagogy. I was struck how there actually seemed to be some funds available for new hardware; in my experience elsewhere, it’s been tough to convince the people with the money that such investment was necessary. But that was a few years ago; perhaps things have changed since.
