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Edutopia

March's thoughts...

So, I'm bored. I guess I'll write in this thing again. I'm still in grad school...but right now I'm doing an independent study. This is not an easy thing, mainly cause you have to motivate yourself. I'm already so busy with work that when I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit down and read more stuff. I foresee some very busy weeks in the near future as I try and get this completed.

Oh, I taught my first course this semester, or rather, I TA'd my first course. This means that I got to set up all the lessons online and run the course and do all the grading. Sadly, I have about 23 students who are going to fail the course. Thats 23 of about 93 total. Oh well, if you don't do the work, ya don't get the grade. Being a TA is fun, and I've really enjoyed it. I like teaching this stuff. Someday, hopefully before too long, I'm gonna actually have my own class, and not be a TA anymore. (gotta finish this pesky independent study first though!)

In other news with the arrival of warmer weather, I've started running again. Yesterday I ran a 5K. Ya know, they call it a 5K race, but really, I'm not racing anyone. I've not run very much during the winter, and that 5K yesterday was about all I could handle. I think I'll probably start running a lot more in the coming days. I feel like I gained some weight over the past few months, so I'm gonna work on getting back down to where I need to be. I just need to figure out where that is. Anyways, I guess I close this one out for now...

Fun Stuff!

So I was kinda bored this morning and I was thinking about how nobody writes letters anymore. That's kinda sad. So later I'm bummin around online and I find this website.
http://www.postcrossing.com/
Here's the deal. You register on the website and then it gives you an address to send a postcard to. Once you send your postcard, you get one...and it can be from anywhere in the world. How cool is that. You all should check it out...
-Russ

thoughts on social learning in an online environment...

So, here I am, thinking about school and reading the required articles. There's one point in article one that I'm really focusing on as an educator, and also as an Instructional Support Tech at the university. That's the social aspect to online learning. For years I've been watching certain websites i.e. digg.com and reddit.com... These websites allow the "masses" to determine the direction of news on the web. Digg is descibed by Wikipedia as " ...a social news website made for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet...".
In a way, online courses allow the same type of back and forth flow between students (and instructors) in the class. One of the greatest things about the internet is the free flowing exchange of thoughts and ideas. It's really exciting for me to watch our class discussion boards as new thoughts are introduced and discussed. I'm really hoping that the people in the class will be enthusiastic about this exchange of ideas, as it will make the class so much more interesting.
In other new, faithful readers (Luke and Ginny) I got to go to Baldwin county Alabama over the weekend. I highly suggest that you all go and visit there at least once. It is beautiful! I really enjoyed myself as did Will and Sarah. I think they liked playing on the beach more than anything. Of course, there was also a spectacular sunset which I captured on the iphone. :)

Inside Russ's head!!

Hello....I am Luke. I am posting from inside Russel's head. I am the voice from his childhood when we used to run around the woods and play "army guys" and stuff. Well...now, we are grown...and life has become a strange thing that happens to us as we try to survive yet another day. Seperated as we are...we are still the best of friends and no distance nor any amount of time can change that.

Thanks for including me in this, Russ...you are really the best of the best!!!

Later...

LONG LIVE PUS AND PUKE!!!!

Back to school!

Well, after a 3+ year hiatus, I'm back. This time I've got a reason to write. I'm now in Grad School at AUM. I'm taking a really fun class that's all about online learning. I'm thinking it's going to be fairly easy, as I work in the same computer field.
To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit nervous. Maybe I should act like Rodney Dangerfield did in "Back to School". I'm sure that Dr. Shumack would surely appreciate that. Anyway, I'll be posting a good bit on the ol' blog over the next few months, so faithful readers, check back regularly!
-Russ

Hey Gin! This is for you! Happy Belated B-Day!