GROUP DISCUSSION #1 DR. WHITE / NICENET

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ADDRESSED TO DR. WHITE

1) For me the assignment theoretically is a good one.... we are being mentored by instructional technologists other than who we have at UOG. However, the correspondence was not as automatic as we wanted it to be.
2) In Moodle, as long as you are a part of a class, you get a copy of all correspondence as a courtesy.
3) Dr. White's answers were the ones that I was expecting.
4) For me, his answers were as expected. The only thing different that I did not expect was when he answered Zander's question about what to do when your students are not at the same level of technological expertise.
5) His answer was that it did not seem to matter to his students. Most of the concerns and issues that his students had were with the assignments themselves, not technology.
6) For the interview... Dr. White responded well however not immediately.
7) Arlene: as i was saying, maybe Dr. White's response was like that because of the age level of his students. I think he teaches college-level kids so they are (or supposedly) more self-reliant.
8) The answer would be different if you were talking to an elementary school teacher, I'm sure.
9) Yes, also... his students are technologically adept
10) I think the question I submitted to Dr. White was structured better when he reworded. The reworded question was exactly what I meant for him to answer. He answered well based on his experience with his students, I believe. What I was expecting from him was explanations of different strategies a teacher can use to enhance the lesson delivery to Language Learners, in this case the English Language Learners (ELLs). I should have been more specific with my question. My mind is set on ELLs every time I develop activities in this class. That is why I expect the responses from Dr. White to have some Technology Assisted Curriculum lessons for language skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening). The response from Dr. White to my question was specific to the end product.
11) One particular comment from David White, "While online delivery does provide blogs/dicussion tools these don't really give a personal touch to human interaction as does a face-to-face setting," gave me a sense that he still wants that human contact. As an educator in the Instructional Technology field, I interpreted his comment as yes, this field is important; however, human contact is still needed. Did anyone interpret it differently?

Also, I appreciated his comment that technology should never allow a student to loose interest in the assignment. If they are not familiar with the internet, they need to get on the ball.

12) Unfortunately, I did not get receive David's response in my Nicenet account. I only received it via Norman's email. I checked often enough, yet, I never found this response. (I clicked on every single link and found no messages or responses to our group questions.) The only response I viewed on my Nicenet account was that of his conversation with two other students (one which was from another group) and his reply when Dr. Cyrus initiated a question. He replied to my comment which referred to Dr. Cyrus questions.


NICENET AS A TOOL

1) for me, nicenet is just like a bare-bones kind of Moodle. Same usage and same advantages.
2) It is a great tool...more than just a communication tool it can store resources and attach links that would enhance the learning experience.
3) but unlike Moodle (where you as the instructor have to pay for service) Nicenet is free
4) which means the service can just come and go...
5) Security seems to be ok (with the enrolment key and everything) but again, since the service is free, they can just turn it off at a moment's notice.
6) Nicenet as a tool: This is a better tool to use in research. One doesn't have spend time researching secondary information as this tool afford the opportunity to get information from an expert. This tool is free of charge too. It is user friendly - easy to find information as the topics are listed on the side. One can easyly retrive and edit information.
7) : Nicenet is good for communication use, all outgoing and incoming documents are saved. You have the first hand response from the person you're getting in touch with. The only cons I would say is that, the communication is not happening at the same time. It would be nice if the two parties involve are happeing at the same time. For this, the timing and the process is not much different from the regular email.
8) Pedagogy and Research: As I mentioned earlier, I was looking specifically of how Lesson delivery with Assisted Technoloy can enhance the language skills with the diverse learners. ELLs are coming from differnt backgrounds and different level of educations. Technology can be use as a common denominator in lesson delivery and the experts from all parts of the world can help teachers in providing more information on strategies and methods by using nicenet tool to access the experts.
9) I did find that Nicenet was easy to navigate through; however, when I did not receive David White's response to our questions, I became weary of the tool. I replied to his response but it did not pertain to our questions. I only received it via Norman, our facilitator.

I prefer the Moodle. The Moodle has more visual appeal and information all on one screen. Although Nicenet's features were on one screen as well, I prefer Moodle's setup.

And I agree, because Nicenet is a free service, it is not as reliable as the Moodle.