Learning, students, and technology make three

I learned a lot from my classmates and the technologies they introduced us to during this class. There were many to pick from as favorite but the three below speak to me personally as an online adult educator for various reasons.

eEtiquette Quiz from Nancy Brown

This application tests and helps people learn about Netiquette. Netiquette is basically online guidelines to socially acceptable communication in the digital setting. Netiquette tells us the USING ALL CAPS is yelling, for example. I spend a lot of time online and the majority of the people see daily that break Netiquette are adults. Many adult think all caps online makes them seem more authoritative or that it will bring extra attention to what they say. This is true to a degree as using all caps will get people telling you to calm down and relax, and to speak in ‘normal tones’ instead of shouting. For many adults this concept of yelling through caps doesn’t make sense, but it really doesn’t have to make sense to them as they are immigrants to the world of online communication and sometimes we just need to adapt policies others approve of for the sake of fairness and being socially acceptable. When in Rome, that sort of thing. As someone that wants to teach online adult learners I would love to use eEtiquette to help my learners find and use good communication skills through the online medium.

Mobile Learning from Beverly Russel

I am a huge fan of mobile learning. I have four kids between the ages of 15-19 and my younger sisters are 12 and 15 years younger than I am. The differences between my education and all of theirs is like day and night. They use their mobile devices like they are simply extensions of themselves without a second thought. If they need information, out comes the devices and they quickly find their answers. They shop, schedule, and plan even recreational activities using their mobile devices. One of my sisters simply does not use her phone to talk into but uses it constantly for communication regardless and this is perfectly normal to her generation. Mobile learning allows for formal or informal learning virtually anywhere a connection can be established (. In fact, I wrote part of this blog while in the car while my husband ran our errands and the rest I wrote stretched out in bed recovering from surgery because I cannot sit at my computer desk like I usually do. Without mobile learning potential I couldn’t even do my assignments this week!

TeacherPal from Yanmei Meng

This application looks a bit grade school-like but as with many things looks can be deceiving. This application is perfect for teachers to use to keep individual notes for their own usage about each student. An example from this class would be the grant project we did. With TeacherPal I could make notes about the topic each presented, things to watch for or comment on and it would allow a way to keep many projects sorted and tied to the student it belonged to. It is a digital organizer, note keeper, and grade tracker all in one. Even through online higher education settings that use learning management systems this application is, for me, a cleaner and clear way to keep notes about each student for the benefit of us both.

References

Deutsche Telekom Ag Products (2012). eEtiquette quiz (1.0.1) [Mobile application software]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us.

Mobile Learning. (2014). Retrieved from http://hypecycle.umn.edu/hype-cycle-technologies/mobile-learning.

TeacherPal - Instructional Technology. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/hpusoeit/teacherpal---maier.