FIT Team

The FIT assignment has been a learning process on many levels! I have learned how important clear and concise communications are and how easy it is to misinterpret asynchronous communications when they are only written words, lacking the physical gestures and verbal intonations one interprets in a synchronous exchange of ideas. The communications from the FIT assignment with our instructors served as models for good mediation skills and demonstrated positive means of communication, even under difficult circumstances. By observing the 6140 assignments and participating in the grading process I realized how many skills I still need to explore and develop to truly embrace technology as a tool in my classroom instruction. Through our blogs and classroom discussions it was evident that different host instructors had a wide spectrum of expectations for their FIT students. In some ways, at the beginning of my 6140 participation I felt as if I was taking another class for which I was not receiving credit but had all the responsibilities for the grade. It was also interesting to note the difference in the styles of the instructor hosts such as their online persona and interaction with students, the number of and style of communications with their online students, and the type of assignments and organization of the courses themselves. Just as in synchronous courses, asynschronous, online courses reflect the personality and style of the instructors themselves.
The FIT group project has been a pleasure from day one! I was fortunate to have highly motivated teammates who were very responsible, conscientious workers and from whom I learned many practical ideas. I especially liked collaborating with classmates who possessed such a wide variety of skills and experiences. One of the best things I learned was the advantage of getting the work done early! I respect and admire my teammates and am grateful to have benefited from their wisdom and experience.

"Lurking" in Online Education

The practice of lurking is a term that has negative connotations in the online education environment. It refers to a student who reads posts but does not contribute to discussions. As Gilly Salmon mentioned in her book, e-Tivities, these people can be characterized as “magpies” who watch and read and steal ideas without acknowledging their sources. However, this term and attitude may be generational and does not have the negative connotations for digital natives as it does for digital immigrants. This idea was brought to my attention by me daughter, Laurel, who is eighteen and in her first year at the US Naval Academy. She is definitely a digital native, both generationally and by her exposure to the electronic world. By the time she was in 9th grade she was required by her school to use a laptop for almost all of her note taking and assignments and her papers were submitted electronically. She is also very adept at social networking and frequents such sites as Facebook, You Tube, and MySpace. It was over Thanksgiving Break during a discussion with her brother and me about Facebook that “lurking” came up. I mentioned that I needed to comment on my FIT blogs or I would be accused of lurking. They asked what I meant by that and I told them what we in online education define it as, and how the accusation is not complimentary. Both Laurel, and my son Elliott, who at age fourteen is also a digital native, thought I was crazy for worrying about being accused of lurking. Their response to the definition of lurking was that they do it all the time. Apparently that is what one does on social network sites, check out what your friends are doing, where they’ve been and with whom, their “status”, their pictures, how many friends they have and who they are, who is in their top ten, and whatever else they didn’t tell you or didn’t invite you to! This social lurking is the way the “kids” stay in touch with what is going on in their social world. The social and educational ramifications of the digital revolution are in their infancy. The transparency and self absorption of this generation, manifested in social networking sites with their soul baring lack of privacy and the personal focus on the self will have far reaching effects on our educational practices and ideas of acceptable norms and behaviors.