comm 656 post

This post is meant to keep track of my involvement in Comm 656, and will be updated as time passes (instead of adding more posts).

My group is the Global University Network (GUN).

Content-Context History Assignment:

• social impact of the GI bill Rights of 1944
• assembled final paper
• posted summary of other groups to GoogleGroup document

Audio Content Assignment:

• Created slideshow in Google Docs
• Cited examples of other people's points
• Summary
• Linked content to long-term development project
• Conclusion

Video Content Assignment:

• Linked content to long-term development project
• Conclusion

Text Content Assignment:

• Helped developed Prosumers concept map
• Helped develop and created final GUN concept map
• Set up slideshow/presentation

My learner profile is:

• Active 5 - I'm much more likely to understand something after I do it than I am if I just thinking about it. That said, I do have a tendency to think about something for a long time before attempting.
  
• Sensing 7 - I definately like concrete facts better than abstract ideas, and often teach myself a concept by creating an example for myself.
• Visual 7 - I learn better seeing something than hearing it.
• Global 9 - I nearly always have to work my way from the big picture down to the details, and not the other way around.

Comments on the group process:

• We're a huge bunch of procrastinators, and everything being online encourages us to leave things to the last second.
• It took a while for us to get the hang of working in an online environment, but by about the third presentation we got it down.
• We've had some problems with communication.
  
• Near the end, we began meeting at Sullivant Hall, and that got a lot more done than either meeting in class or working entirely online.
  

Expectations for skills and knowledge I will need after graduation:

• Familiarity with popular editing/publishing tools
• Ability to motivate myself (a big problem at the moment)
• Ability to work on my own
• Ability to work in a group
• Ability to motivate a group
• Ability to present my ideas in a professional manner

My vision of the university of the 21st Century:

• When I began, my vision was the completely online, global environment that became the basis of the Global University Network
• Now that I've worked with the idea, I believe it is unlikely that online classrooms will ever replace face-to-face learning
• However, I do think that online tools and collaboration will be used with increasing frequency, until they replace more traditional applications like printed, word-processed documents.
• Though (most of) the classes will be taught face-to-face, homework, projects, and group collaboration will rely almost completely on the Internet and online tools.
• As a part of this, online tools will become more and more reliable and more and more consolidated
• Eventually all of a student's school-related online needs will be available through a single utility - word processing, group communication, presentations, research, tutoring, etc.
• Along with this, internet communication will become increasingly less anonymous, with students automatically using a single username, based on their real name, with their real information published publicly, including images. (We're already seeing this with Facebook, which unlike Myspace promotes representing yourself as accurately as possible.) This will create an online identity that rivals the student's social identity in size and importance, and the university of the 21st Century will reflect that in their social, official and class activities.