This week we had our first tutorial in Google hangouts. It was great to hear the voices of some of my classmates and also to get some clarification on what’s important for our lifestreams.
I’ve been setting up the RSS triggers in IFTTT which was quite time consuming but it’ll be great to see the comments on my page.
Our task this week was to produce a visual artefact for this block. I chose to do a slideshow in Spark and then host it on YouTube. I’ve never really done anything in Spark but I found it very intuitive (more so than PowerPoint). I chose the theme ‘being human’ – it’s been fascinating to think about what makes us human, where are the boundaries between humans and technology and what does being human mean for education. My technical skills are very limited but, nonetheless, I’m quite pleased with what I’ve produced in a relatively short time. The other artefacts that I’ve seen so far have been brilliant, both thematically and technically and although I feel slightly intimidated, I’m also grateful to work together with so many talented people.
I’ve also been trying to think how the themes of this block link to education. I find a very important aspect of teaching is the teacher—student relationship. How, then, can we trust non-humans? Are we relying on technology too much? One particular technology that comes to mind is Turnitin. Most institutions seem to use and trust it without questioning the ethics and potential disadvantages behind it. I’m hoping to explore this and other links between technology and education further during the rest of the course.
