Thursday, February 26, 2009

ePortofolio conference

It is raining outside. I took a Bart to get to the downtown SFSU center for the CSU ePorofolio conference, Guess who was greeting at the registration table. Angie and Alex from ITEC 830 class they work for SFSU Academic Technology. Our ITEC program is trying to implement ePortofolio, and I noticed there were other department chairs came for the conference, so everyone is trying to implement.

I thought presentations that made by people from UK and other countries were interesting. Their approach for using a portofolio is more process oriented and student-centered than product-oriented.

During the day, I thought about several things that I want to remind myself often.

1. I don't want to call my student blog as a ePortofolio. Once we call it an ePortofolio or something like that, teachers expect students to showcase their work rather than using the tool to think with and to think about their learning process.

2. When a teacher gives more freedom to students to explore their own interest, they become more responsible learners. I experience this all the time in my class.

3. My job as a teacher is to empower my students, not manage their learning, they manage their own learning. I want them to learn more on their own than what we discuss in the class.

4. Modeling is important -- If I expect students to write their blog, I need to do it for myself too.


Alex and Angie are going to write about the conference in more detail in a wiki page.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Using Web 2.0 in Business.

My students and I have been discussing about the potential use of Web 2.0 in business last week. I thought this article is a good addition to our discussion with Eugene Lee.

Six ways to make Web 2.0 work in the McKinsey Quarterly, FEBRUARY 2009