01 Feb, 2007
My Specialty - The Web
Posted by: Jeff VanDrimmelen In: General| Read/Write Web| e-Portfolio
Welcome to Edutechie.com! If you're new here, be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
A large re-organization of our group was recently announced. Up until this point in my job I have been both responsible for technical support for 8 departments, and instructional technology for those departments. Starting in about two weeks I will only be responsible for the technical needs of my departments (now 10). The instructional side of my job is going to go to a newly formed ‘Instructional Technology Group.’
The move is a great idea. It is very difficult to balance both technical and instructional needs of a department, but I have to admit, I am a bit disappointed. I really wanted to continue working with faculty and staff in an innovative way. I did go and discuss my concerns with my manager, and he suggested that I would still be able to do instructional technology, but perhaps in a more limited way. He suggested that instead of taking a large approach to anything and everything technology related, I focus on something and become very good at that thing. As much as I would love to just do instructional technology all of the time, I realize that might not be possible for a while. So what is my focus? What do I love? What technology do I want to focus on?
I thought about these questions for a while and realized that my specialty is the web. More specifically, my specialty is using the web as a learning/educational tool. This in itself is still a bit broad, but I think that is where I want my focus to go when I don’t have as much time as I used to to devote to instructional research. I want to look for new an innovative programs (websites/technologies within the web) that educators can use to increase the effectiveness of their teaching. I think the biggest piece to this puzzle is the read-write capabilities of the web; the awesome (as in massive) collaborative potential that we as educators can harness through the web. Social networks will play a part, but only in emerging technologies, not in things like Facebook and MySpace. I am working on a couple of articles right now about some programs (Footnote, Trailfire) that let you collaboratively annotate web pages and documents online in a social atmosphere. These are the kinds of technologies that I was to focus on.
How I will actually be able to implement these ideas is yet to be seen…
What are your specialties? What other read/write web technologies have you found useful in education?
