Being part participant part facilitator and part observer in the FLC this semester has taught me some valuable lessons about how we engage our students, about the unique academic community at RU and about the potential of our “collective intelligence” and work as “smart mobs”. I was never part of “writing across the curriculum” at RU but already see why some folks still speak with great admiration about the community value of that program when it was in its hey-day. Within the fledgling FLC community folks have already found a variety of common cross-disciplinary concerns and goals. That seems to have been one of the drivers of WAC and something that folks have been eager to re-kindle in new ways. I certainly think we are all benefiting from the collective thinking of an academic community.
Within the group there has been great discussions about the use of wikis, blogs, collaborative work suites, online conferencing, hand-held computers (iPod Touch) and a slew of other technologies. These discussions have ranged from simply understanding what the tools are and how to use the features to high-level discussions about integration of technologies into teaching and learning. The good mix of techno-savvy, technology interest and technological wariness among participants coupled with an overarching pedagogical curiosity has proven to be a great driver for the groups' continued trajectory.
I think what excites me the most about the FLC thus far is the number of folks who are taking the ideas discussed at the regular meetings and experimentally incorporating them into courses and other academic work. My own personal adventures this semester have included the use of a wiki in a Univ. 100 class, the development of a simple roster tool for the iTouch (Teresa-O-Bannon’s idea, thanks!!) and the exploration of a variety of note-taking tools. I can’t wait to share the ups and downs of these with the group, listen to great feedback, and hear how the explorations of other “FlCers” are going.
In fact, it would be great to see a sort of inventory of ideas in the comments following this post. What are you planning to tryout in the upcoming semesters?
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A big thank you to Charlie and Krista for their work in organizing and leading this group. I am like a "kid in the candy store" after each meeting, just hoping I don't forget what we learned and discussed at each meeting. As part of Charlie's Inventory Idea, I am using a Wiki in my classes along with blogspot (much better than WebCT/Blackboard discussion board). I have also experimented with Twitter, Facebook, Flock, Notify.Me, along with our RU Tools. I would hate to add up the hours of play time spent with Web 2.0 stuff and the new I-touch. I have used Gcast podcasting utilizing my cell phone, created my own search engine in Google, utiiized Ning for a customized social networking application and am attempting to master Google Doc's. Also found a real cool Google tool to use with texting on my cell phone. I am now trying to convert to Flock but I am having some trouble importing all of RSS feeds from Google Reader.
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