SharePoint for Departments

SharePoint is being implemented, albeit in fits and starts. Today we started learning some of it (although the CTR team is already making inroads in using it).

• Organizational structures will be followed. So we have lots of layers deep, all of whom have full access to any sub-site.
• Full access has the ability to do almost anything
• Creating groups is a simple process and a group can be coded a specific level of access avoiding the need to set each one.
• Personal sites are separate.
• The TRC site and subsites are on production, they will not be wiped out.
• The faculty sites are not yet up from what we can tell
• Setting alerts is critical unless we use Sharepoint as initial portal.
• Discussion seems very simplistic
• Wiki lacks changes comparison page, discussions linked to pages or sections.  Feels like nothing more than web pages with links encouraged.  Have to flip back and forth for discussion.
• Can add or delete web parts, much like any mashup.  

Organizing Your Digital Life

You can view the slides here. Overall, this was well received by participants, although it was way too fast with too much jargon for those who still are struggling with things like blog. Lots of requests for smaller pieces, slower pace, and hands on so it was a great jumping off place for more workshops.

 

Maria H. Anderson, Math Faculty at Muskegon Community College goes over the tools she uses to keep chaos down.  
Take Aways
E-mail  (gmail)

• Clean inbox each morning.  Sorts first, then responds.   Very few folders so search works quickly.   She has only Happy (for things that cheer her up); her institution; her PHD emails; Read later; Respond; Watch later and temporary folders like Workshop. She said her "read later" and Watch later are no-guilt folders, things she doesn't want to delete but doesn't have time for. 
• Has all her e-mail consolidated from the various places and pulled into gmail where she reads it there.   I doubt ours allows it.  
• Has her calendar send her a weekly schedule so all she does is print it.   Like an electronic admin assistant.
• Ideally, all e-mail either get deleted, archived or responded to.  Search instead of folders.
• Move all the existing stuff into an e-mail DMZ and start fresh.

Bookmarks

• Since bookmarks are for websites, bookmark them on a website
• Google Bookmarks (not really shared), Delicious, Diigo
• Anyplace, anytime

Learning

• Quote: Use the internet as an extension of your brain.  File cabinet plus personal assistant plus learning diary
• Mindmaps - mindomo.com    her personal mindmap for this workshop http://tinyurl.com/9kd35u
• Wikis
• Blog (stores notes of what you learned)

Other stuff

• Jing -record self doing a non-routine task for playback next time need to do it.
• RSS
• Twitter-keeping track as she worked on her PHD, some of her students use it to keep track of how much time they are spending on their homework.  In a sense, keeping oneself accountable.   It isn't necessarily about who reads it but she made friends along the way as people became interested and started encouraging her.  Hash tag use
• A.nnotate - Note-taking and allows tagging of passages so she can sort by tag or by document.  Searchable.
• Course shells - for cooperative work, not just courses.
• 5pm - for to-do lists and projects
• Google docs
• Quote:  If you aren't careful, you can spend your whole life checking to see what's happening in your life.
• Digsby - combining many communications into one tool, e-mail, IM, and social networks like facebook
• Dual monitors is the way to go (I definitely agree!)
• Google calendars, being able to control which are public and which aren't
• RescueTime - for those that lose track of how much time they spend on things.  Automatically tracks which web sites & applications are used

Teenagers who are Living and Learning with Social Media (Danah Boyd, )

2009 Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology
Link

Take Aways

• Four properties: persistence, searchability, replicability, and scalability
• Three dynamics:  invisible audiences, collapsed contexts, and the blurring of public and private. 
1. Message can't be adjusted for the audience.  A video can be understood differently in another context, it can be remixed into something different.
2. Impact on TV/Radio:  Stokely Carmichael civil rights activist in 1960s.  Used a very educated proper posh "white" way of speaking to DC politicians, but a rolling  style of speech in talking with others of his own race. Television and radio changed this, there was no neutral voice and he could no longer change voice to suit the audience.  Both, simultaneously, were his audience.   He chose the "black" style of speaking and subsequently that alienated white society.  The collapsed context no longer allowed him to communicate effectively with both since it was simultaneous.
• For adults, home is the quintessential private...but home is one of a teens most public space, their behavior is often constantly monitored and corrected.
• Learning to learn
1. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease tell me why pre-calculus is important to me..." (A, 16, CA) 
2. "...You're not learning this stuff because you need it every day as an adult...The reson is studying these things (precalculus, Shakespear, ...whatever) helps you get good at learning how to learn. And that, you will definitely have to do for the rest of your life.  That's practically all we do as adults...." 
3. Personal note:  I will always remain thankful for Mrs. Clikeman, who encouraged  me to learn how to teach myself so that I "would never be totally dependent on the teaching ability of others." 
• MySpace vs Facebook - "The higher castes of high school moved to Facebook.  It was more cultured, and less cheesy.   The lower class usually were content to stick to MySpace.  Any high school student who has Facebook will tell you that MySpace users are more likely to be barely educated and obnoxious.  Like Peet's is more cultured than Starbucks, and Jazz is more cultured than bubblegum pop, and like Macs are more cultured than PC's, Facebook is of a cooler caliber than MySpace.  (Craig, 17, California).
  
• Peripheral awareness of people around you.
  
• Average age of people on twitter is 31.
  
• Issues of faculty  friending students and forcing them to friend each other just because they have a similar class.  Now that we have children attending college classes, this becomes a greater issue as well.
  
• Copy of dissertation is available.
  

It is easy to forget that TV and radio weren't always so common, and the change they brought equally difficult in some ways.  I did like her comments about the teens knowing how to adapt the technology to their uses, but not understanding anything about how it came to be or works.  Also, that unlike adults, teens don't have the critical thinking skills surrounding their use, the looking at why and how.