Stephen Colbert’s Wikiality

My Thoughts One Year Later

When I first listened to Stephen Colbert’s cynicism on the Wikiality episode in January 2010, I was totally against anyone using Wikipedia as a viable source of information including myself. My thoughts were that the vast majority of the information read on the Wikipedia web site was untrue due to the fact that it open content and anyone can submit entries. Now, one year later, my thoughts have some what changed. Some entries may be true, misinformation or just untruthfulness because the person uploading the information knows he’s able to do it or for proving points. What ever the reason a researcher must always check their resources to make sure the information is correct. Just recently, I had the opportunity to work collaboratively with a great group of people on a CMU project that was just uploaded to Wikipedia. I feel really good about our entry and its information and to support our thoughts and findings there are resources located at the end of the entry.

Now that I understand Wikipedia better today than I did a year ago, I will promote and use it along with educating other users of this website to always check for validity through its resources and searching other sites as well. One year ago, I called “Wikipedia”, “Wickedpedia”; today I call it “Resourcefulpedia”.

Works Cited

Colbert, S. (2006, July 31). Wikiality. Comedy Central. Retrieved January 11, 2010, from http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=72347

Wikipedia-Situated Learning

Life Happens

On May 16, 2011, shortly before class ended, I received an emergency call from my mother stating that I need to contact her as soon as my class ends. Class ended a little after 8pm and I decided to send my teammates a quick e-mail stating that I would create our account at PBworks. As I begin to create the account, my mother called again and said we needed to get to the hospital right away. I stopped what I was doing, picked up my mother and headed straight for the hospital. Once we got there, I found that my mother’s only brother had been in the hospital since 11am that morning without the knowledge of any family members. He was just being placed in a room at 9:30pm as we arrived. His condition was not good but, to make a long story short, as of today, he is still in the hospital…doing better than he was…diagnosed with dementia. He will be returning home soon to live with one of my sisters.

Upon returning home that night, I logged onto the computer to work on what I promised to do-only to find that, for the first time ever, I could not log on to the Internet…bad modem. We ordered another modem and were told that it would be here the next day...”next day” never came. In the meantime, I began to panic! I decided on Wednesday during lunch to contact my group through e-mail and I have to say, I have the best group ever! They told me not to worry. Julie created the account; Sharon kept me up-to-date by phone and e-mail while keeping the group abreast on every move as she explained to me, “We as a group will get through this. You do what you have to do to take care of your family.” Once we picked and set up our new modem, I was unable to log into my account. Thankfully, Camille was able to e-mail me back and forth until I was able to sign in. My group really worked with me until I was able to fully participate but without Julie, Sharon, and Camille’s help I would not have done it.

This may seem like nothing but, other things happened that you wouldn’t believe…Murphy’s Law! So, what did I learn from all of this?

1. What it means to have a TEAM who’s got your back and I never heard the “I” word; at all times it was “We.”
2. How to utilize PBworks and Wiki…pretty cool! After I relaxed, I can say I enjoyed it.
   
3. …and most importantly (after #1) I need to update my technology! I have a notebook but I need a wireless network adapter and a new phone (Blackberry)! A change will come!

THUMBS UNLIMITED to my TEAM, Group 3!

PBWorks Link - Situated Learning

Sticky Stuff – Made to Stick

I’ve read the classroom assignment “Made to Stick” in my EDU590 and EDU653 class and have enjoyed it both times. It is an assignment that I do not mind reading again and again especially when I have give presentations or speeches. This book aids one in communicating with their audience and getting their point across effectively. My hat is tilted to the Heath brothers (Chip and Dan), who had questions, ideas, and a need to communicate with others. They also had a quest for knowledge as to why people tend to remember information that may or may not be important but can’t remember other information.

My favorite part of “Made to Stick” is the story about a gentleman making a routine flight, accepting a drink from an attractive female stranger and waking up in a bathtub full of ice with a kidney missing. This time I had my husband and my 16 year old to read the book for more than reasons one. I love it because of the Heath brother’s basic principles which are SUCCESs and it stands for:

S – Simplicity: a one-sentence statement so profound that an individual could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.

U – Unexpectedness: Engage people’s curiosity over a long period of time by systematically “opening gaps” in their knowledge – and then filling those gaps.

C – Concreteness: Speaking concretely is the only way to ensure that our idea will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience. Ideas must be explained in terms of human actions, sensory information.

C – Credibility: A “try before you buy” philosophy for the world of ideas. Make people believe your ideas.

E – Emotions: Get people to care about your ideas, make them feel something.

S – Stories: Hearing stories acts as a kind of mental flight simulator, preparing you to respond quickly and effectively.

Google Images

Guest Speaker: Julia Fallon

I loved and enjoyed Julia Fallon as our Guest Speaker. The enthusiasm she carried in her voice demanded your attention and really made you sit up and listen and care about what she had to say. I learned things about Twitter that I did not know. One is being the difference between Public and Private (Protected) accounts when it comes to your tweets being viewed. Public accounts allows anyone to view your tweets and Protected accounts allows you to manually choose who views your tweets and even though your choice may be Protected, with perseverance, people can always gain access to your information.

I found Julia’s information to be very useful because I will be teaching a class called “Online and Connected” on May 16^th in which the students will learn how to take an online class as well as create a Facebook account and learn the basics of it use. She brought up another useful tip that I and my students can benefit from and that is, keeping your thoughts to a minimum, getting to the point of what you want to share and you may be surprised of the responses you receive and from whom. It is exciting to me having visitors enter into our class environment sharing their experience and knowledge. I ready to see what our next Guest Speaker has to offer.

Prezi Presentation

I enjoyed working with and exploring Prezi. I found that it was very easy to use; however after creating my account, inserting all of my text, pictures and background color, I lost most of it because I forgot to save it. So, I’ve created another Prezi only to find that I now have two, one without all of the information in it. Oh well, you live and learn.

Prezi is a pretty cool tool in which I challenged myself to see how much I could accomplish on my own before going through the tutorial. I found it to be simple and somewhat easy. I know that if I found it somewhat easy, I can only imagine what K-12 can do with it. I do plan to use it at the beginning of each new class to introduce myself to the class. I think Prezi will W O W them, it did me. Prezi reminds me somewhat of PowerPoint. My next challenge is to see if I can transfer my PowerPoint presentation into Prezi. I have a presentation to deliver Wednesday of this week and I am hoping to utilize this tool without the use of PowerPoint but I plan to have PowerPoint as a backup if necessary. Wish me luck!

Josephine Wallace-Koonce on Prezi