540 Week 3

I really liked creating the survey on SurveyMonkey this week. It was much easier to create than I thought it would be. Well, the actual creation of it was easy. But, it was difficult to decide how to word the questions the best responses. I never thought that writing survey questions would be so difficult. Additionally, it was difficult to determine how to balance close and open-ended questions. Closed ended questions provide quick feedback that is easy to chart and analyze. However, open ended questions might offer the opportunities for better answers. And, will some people shy away from the open ended questions, because they require more work? Or, will others be frustrated with the inability to offer as much constructive feedback as they desire?

540 Week 2

Bad news to report.

While working on my assignments last night, I knocked over my Diet Dr. Pepper, and the entire beverage landed on my laptop keyboard. My computer is less than a year old, but accidental spillage of beverages is not included in the basic warranty. Of course, I did not think that I needed to purchase the extended warranty. I am an adult. I am usually very careful. I thought I would be immune from such catastrophes. But, I am not immune. However, I am thankful that much of my information is backed up online, and I am thankful that many of my pictures are saved online as well. However, I am sad that I didn't ever really use delicious. I fear that I have lost all of my dozens of neatly organized bookmarks!

So, now, what to do? I popped off all the keys right away, and dried what I could with Q-tips. I took out the battery. And, now when I turn it on, it immediately shuts down. So, I called Dell, and the very nice technician thinks that there is a problem with the board......

Any ideas? Should I send it in to Dell? Or, is there a local trustworthy company? If it costs a bunch to fix it, should I just think about buying a Mac? Any and all ideas are welcome.

Thank you in advance!

540 Week 1

Well, the dreaded statistics has begun. I admit that I have never had a stats course, and I should not have negative feelings about this course from the beginning. So far, so good. I have a very good friend who is obsessed with stats. He is even getting his PhD in a field that allows him to use stats daily. I am not sure that I will change my profession, or start teaching stats. But, I do think that learning more about statistics will help me to better understand information that is thrown around. Or, it might just cause me to be more skeptical of numbers that are thrown around by the media!

535 Week 5

I thought that looking at other Web 2.0 tools was the most interesting assignment this week. The one that I found to be extremely interesting was the point.

It is a website that allows group action to happen once certain requirements are met. So, if 1,000,000 people sign an online petition not to work on Election Day, everyone who signed on is notified that the million mark has been reached. Then, people will know that there are nearly one million other people who agree with them, and collectively they can take action.

I think that comes at a good time. My school has had a couple of issues that have come up recently, where it has been necessary to take collective action. The first is when the superintendent pulled the musical "Chicago," due to parental concerns. There was a student petition floating around to keep the show on.

The second issue we have had is with the administration's desire to change to a block schedule. Students also organized a petition to stop this from happening. I think that using an online forum would have better help students, parents, and community members to organize!

535 Week 4

I spent a chunk of time this week setting up a Ning for my Junior/Senior Sociology class. This course is heavy on discussion, but some students are so reluctant to participate. So, I thought that allowing them to type answers to my questions would increase participation. Many of my students are familiar with Moodle, but I think that the Ning I created is going to be a little more user friendly for my students. I introduced it to my students during class on Friday, and they seemed interested. A few of them even mentioned how "cool" it was. Lately, I feel as though it is taking quite a bit for me to impress them in their time of early onset senioritis, so I think a few "cools" is about as good as it is going to get! It will be interesting to see how the Ning is further able to engage some of my disengaged students!

535 Week 3

After a crazy weekend away at a friend's wedding out of state, I have finally begun my homework. I think that the most exciting assignment this week was to compile a list of blogs that we wanted to follow. I found some blogs that look really interesting, and I am excited to look through them in the future. I am still undecided about the creative commons assignment. I do post pictures to picassa or facebook as a way of sharing them with friends. Most of my pictures are of people, so I have never delved into the world of getting my own creative commons license. However, I am excited at the thought of creating a ning for my classes. I have used a wiki in the past, so I am looking forward to trying something different!

535 Week 2

The most interesting assignment this week was reading up on microblogging. I do have a facebook account, but I have held off on signing up for Twitter for some time now. I do update my status on facebook a couple of times a week, but sometimes I wonder about those who must update theirs multiple times a day. This became a problem for me when a "friend" from high school, someone I had not talked to in nearly a decade, befriended me. I was fine with being her facebook friend, but she updates her status ten times a day. We barely spoke after freshman year in high school, and frankly, I am not concerned about what shows she is watching on television.

So, I decided that I was not someone who was going to Tweet. Honestly, my life is not so interesting that my friends need to know about the awesome dinner I just made. And, when it does get intersting, I update my facebook status! At this point, I don't see a need for me to microblog, either personally or professionally. Perhaps I will change my mind by the time this course is over.