Reporting in on what I've been doing lately: Last week: I helped with a discussion about open textbooks for the TLT-Group. The participants had a lot to say and there are going to be more discussions on open textbooks for the TLT-Group. Also, Sunday: I got my 15 minutes to rush through a "what's Second Life" PowerPoint for an educational technology course. Dr. Zucker had over 50 students gathered in Elluminate and she had gotten even the new users to do a voice check and raise their hand and write on the white board and take a poll. One thing I miss about retirement: Getting to talk to groups! (Oops - does that sound like I like to lecture? Aren't we supposed to eschew lectures for more active learning? Sorry about the backsliding!)

DS 106 - Digital Storytelling course: I found some other blog posts where people expressed that they unable to keep up and had relaxed into picking and choosing what to accomplish. That cheered me up. I'm assembling some material for what I think was one assignment: To use some Web 2.0 tool to create a story. I might get there. The other thing I'm doing is the Daily Shoot (http://dailyshoot.com) - and I'm going to try to keep that up even though my photos aren't works of art. I like the assignments. They get you thinking about your visual environment, so I'm looking for "harsh light and deep shadows" or "repetition" or "modes of communication."

ECI 521 - I attended the first hour of Cris Crissman's session in Second Life for her students. She brought in a little bit of everything: voice presentation with slides with plenty of opportunity for the students to provide their thoughts about their experiences as teachers, about educational theories they'd been reading, etc. She used think/pair/share and had students text chat to the whole group for their reflections. Example: Students talked about their own "road not taken" after a reading of the Frost poem. A few students used voice. After a break they were going to do some more reporting on ideas for their action learning projects - and go on a field trip to Ramapo Island. Cris discussed Prensky's "digital native" idea and suggested that we move on to David White's "resident/visitor" idea instead. Personally I'm in favor of "resident/visitor." We've all had that experience working with students who seem to be the right age to have those supposed re-wired brains brought on by a thorough immersion in late 20th/early 21st century technology who are surprisingly inept - and as an old(er) adult I can not be a "digital native" - there wasn't any "digital" to be a native of when I was growing up - which makes me feel like an outsider, but I do feel I might qualify as a "resident."