Eduscapes

I've now taken 2 half-day, hands-on workshops from Annette Lamb and Larry Johnson. Yesterday I took one called, Flash in a Flash: Practical Applications Across the Curriculum, and today I took, Extreme Website Makeover: Javascript, CSS, and Multimedia. Both were excellent hands-on workshops and Annette and Larry did an wonderful job of providing support for approximately 30 people in each session, which is no small feat! Although I have had previous experience with both topics, I learned new things, was reminded of things I had forgotten about, got new tips and skills that will help to make me more successful as I use these tools.

I mentioned in both my posting below on the Flash in a Flash workshop and in my podcast discussion of this workshop, that Annette and Larry provide numerous resources on their website to support the content of these classes. Click on the workshop titles in the paragraph above to go to the respective pages for these workshops on their site.

After thinking about and reflecting on the topics discussed at the SIGTC Membership Breakfast this morning, it occured to me that Annette and Larry are great examples of the changing landscape of information.

• They freely share all the content from all of their online courses, workshops, presentations, etc. on their website for the whole world to access. They aren't trying to control who has access to this information. Information without a container. How many professors or teachers do you know that let anyone, anywhere access their course content at anytime without any restrictions? You don't need a password, you don't even need to have attended a workshop or to have registered for or to have taken a course. It's all right there for you to use anyway.
  

• They live the idea of anytime, anywhere content creation and access. They work for Indiana University but they don't teach on campus. Annette says, "if the students don't need to come to the campus to take the class, why should the instructor come onto the campus to teach the class?" They teach online from a motorhome with a satallite dish on the top, that could be anywhere in the US.

What a wonderful example of "the new story," as David Warlick put it!