Category Archives: Thoughts

iPad Reflexion – Week 3 – Shady

When I first received the iPad, I told my self, “no way I’m going to be able to use this for writing without a real keyboard”.  After two weeks of in-class writing, I am very impressed at how well the native iPad keyboard works.  The auto-correct makes it a breeze.  I can type without even looking at the on-screen keyboard, with making little to no mistakes.   At this point, I feel I’m better off without a physical keyboard, but I wouldn’t mind giving it a try to see how it might improve the typing experience.  Perhaps good to have when writing long papers.

One thing that I still find hard to do is to move the cursor to the desired position.  Even with the magnifier it can be a challenge.

I really enjoy going to class with just the iPad, no bags, books, notebooks, pens.  I’m able to open all the content for the class, read, browse, and blog.

 

 

Week 2 Chris

This week’s reading was on Wenger’s study of Communities of Practice. Based on what I read I saw Communities of Practice as a shared space where members of this shared space participate in the exchange of knowledge and creation of new ideas based on individual problems. A Community of Practice is made of 3 parts mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire.

Mutual engagement is an obvious requirement. If the members of the community do not sign that unwritten contract to interact with one another a community cannot be built. I would describe joint enterprise as the synergy  of the members. I read shared repertoire as the culture of the community.

I watched this video to help me understand Community of Practice more and one thing I found really interesting was Wenger did not define wikis, blogs, or forums as Communities of Practice just merely tools. When I just started wrapping my head around Communities of Practice, I instantly thought of wikis, blogs, and forums.

I am a part of a group at my university called Computer User Digital Development Learning Environment or CUDDLE. During our CUDDLE sessions students of many different educational backgrounds come to collaborate on ideas and help each other out on personal projects. Based on the definition I understood from the reading, CUDDLE can be called a Community of Practice.
Some questions I have after reading up on Community of Practice are:

  1. At what point does a Community of Practice become more beneficial than traditional classes?
  2. Would MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course) be considered a Community if Practice?
  3. Are there different types of Communities of Practice?

iPad Reflection Week 1 – Chris

To be completely honest when the iPad first came out, I thought it was a wasted piece of tech. After using one for a week I cannot imagine working without it. I’m not 100%  knowledgeable of what the iPad can do so as of now I use it as a second screen while I work on a game I’m making.

At this point I’m considering not buying a notebook and using the iPad for all my notes, so at the moment I’m looking for an app I can use to write with my finger (maybe I code one myself).

 

I’m not that into apps so the only ones I’ve downloaded have been YouTube, Gmail, Spotify, and Yammer (for this class).

Typing on the iPad is a little awkward in both landscape and portrait mode.  I know there are apps that improve on the native keyboard, but I feel Apple could do a better job.

 

I’m looking forward to see what I can do with this machine.

Week 1 – Chris

Meet Me:
My name is Chris Williams and I was born and raised on Long Island. I am a senior at Stony Brook University studying Psychology with a minor in Digital Arts. About  two years ago I stumbled upon this thing called computer science and fell in love with it. Currently I am teaching myself a number of different programming languages to pursue a career in game programming. I am taking this class because the course website alluded to a class whose organization sparked an interest in me. I’d say I’m pretty comfortable with technology if it belongs to me. I’m not one to experiment with expensive tech if I have to pay a huge price for it. As of now I am active on Facebook and Instagram. I post on those two platforms frequently. I have Vine and YouTube but I only consume media from there. Technology play a big role in my life and I cannot imagine life without it.

Disrupting the Classroom:

My favorite topic in psychology has to be collaborative learning (I worked in a lab collaborative learning lab at Stony Brook for a year) and the web has certainly opened up collaboration across the globe to those who which to participate. The trend in education that I see is less focused on the individual and pushes for more group work. Seeing this excites me, but I’m still a bit hesitant in what this trend will produce in terms of individual production.

Although embracing technology in the classroom has been improving as of late, as a student I still feel a little resistance when it comes to using new technologies in the classroom. The fact that many educators feel the need to restrict the use of cell phones and laptops in classroom to this day still surprises me. With a little creativity the devices those educators see as distractions could be worked into the course to provide a fresh learning environment.

Disruption+Inovation = ?: 

The number of remixes, parodies, and homages seemed to have increased with the introduction of platforms like YouTube. Media consumers want to actively participate in the media consumption experience. Want proof? From television to film everything is attached to social media to further fan interaction. Web 2.0’s ease of use has given people an outlet to be a part of a community, establish an identity, and made a platform for people to share their creations.

Yik Yak at Colgate:

During our first class we listened to the podcast linked above. The ideas presented in the podcast aren;t thing I am unfamiliar with. With anonymity granted with the Internet people are given the liberty to post whatever they want and many a times the worst things people can say are said. This was the case at Colgate. What I found interesting about this scenario is the response made by the faculty. Essentially they broke what Yik Yak was designed for (anonymity) by signing their names to their posts. By inserting identity into the community of Yik Yak the toxicity was brought down, which I feel could be a good psychological study if it hasn’t been done already.